Best place to own acerage in California?

[Sassberto]

It all comes down to money and the level of access and services on the property. Water availability is one of the biggest factors in cost of land, but electricity, roads, sewer, phone, can add tens of thousands.

Sisikyou, Shasta county you can get acreage for a relatively low price with good water supply, but it is very remote. I look mostly at the Klamath River area and it is beautiful but is not really that cheap considering how remote the area it is. You can get 10 acres there for under 100k, usually with just a shack on it. Nicer vacation homes are often 200-300k+. Oregon and Washington should be considered too, prices tend to be lower there especially as you go east.

Most of rural SoCal is very expensive with water problems. Many Sierra Foothill towns are very expensive too as they have already been discovered by wealthy people from the cities.

I think you will pay a premium for land in California, you could probably get a much less expensive spread in somewhere like Montana or Western CO, but are that much further from cities, airports, etc.

[DMenscha]

Originally Posted by Den Mathias

Does Mountain Ranch have parcels with utilities such as electricity, water and gas? I would assume the homes are all on septic tanks?
Do you have much snow?

I'm going to generalize about foothill communities in general rather than sing the praises of my hometown.

Most foothill "cities" lie at anywhere from 750' elevation to about 2500' elevation. If they have a population of 3000 folks or more, they are likely to have a domestic water supply and sewage treatment facilities. Smaller than that number, they tend to be more like villages, with larger parcels (5 acres +) around than their well heeled cousins.

The smaller communities are more likely to have wells and septic systems and electricity and use propane for heating/hot water. Get further away from the villages and you may run into places where solar electric power with propane fired back-up generators are predominant.

Some folks regard towns like Auburn, Placerville, Jackson, Sonora, Mariposa as small towns. I think any place that has a traffic signal is a big city, more than 5 traffic lights is urban!

Winter snow is common above 3000', sticks above 4000' for days or weeks, and occurs above 1500' on fairly rare occasions, usually melting within hours. I live at 2200'. We had 3 snow events last winter for a grand accumulation of about 1 inch for the first 2 storms and then one squall that dumped 6 inches in a half an hour. It was gone by the next day except places where the snow was in the shade.

[Kezum]

Originally Posted by DMenscha

I think any place that has a traffic signal is a big city, more than 5 traffic lights is urban!

Ha, that's how I feel! The town I grew up in used to have only one or two traffic lights. Now it's got a large number of traffic lights and even sidewalks here and there. Ugh. Urbanization is but a step away. Next thing you know, they'll be asking me to move my car once a week for street sweeping!

I live in the Los Angeles area right now and I hate this awful place. I get claustrophobia when I can't see hills or mountains or forests around. Hence my desire for acerage.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

Originally Posted by Kezum

Next thing you know, they'll be asking me to move my car once a week for street sweeping!

Funny about the street sweeping. I used to park my truck on the street at my parents home in Port Hueneme. One week they put the street sweeping signs up and the next week I had a ticket. That was over 20 years ago. Not like Port Hueneme is a big place either, only about 25 thousand people.