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really torn right now between maine and the tri city area of TN
i wish land wasn't so cheap in maine or it was cheaper down south.
very hard to pass up land that is 14x cheaper up north.
let's hope that these small scale farmer's markets keep growing. but something tells me they will be illegal if they cut too much into big ag business. i'm just waiting for it to become illegal to grow a tomato in your own home...
I bought bare land in 2005, came up here in an RV in April and began construction.
I hired the well drilling, a power pole, and a contractor to dig the trench and pour the foundation; and at one point I hired a guy with a crane for 3-hours to help me lift the archways of our house into place. Otherwise I did everything myself. In the fall my family moved up and went into a rented apartment. 2bdrm for $600 which included heat. The next spring we left the apartment and moved into the new house in 2006.
It can be done.
We like how rural most of Maine is, how cheap land prices are, and the really low taxes.
I have been looking for land for a few years now. My wife and I are both city slickers but in the last few years we have had horses, done a lot of camping, grown a lot of our vegetables, made compost and in general tried to be more self sufficient. Now we are more ambitious and want to move somewhere where it is not very cold and where we can have a large garden, some acreage, space for 2-3 horses, a few cows and some chicken and where we can build our home. The idea is to do as much work as possible ourselves and outsource the stuff we don't know how to do to someone who does (when building the house) . We are OK not having electricity so long as we can have a few solar panels to power our satellite dish and laptops.
My conclusion so far (and I have spent quite a few hours of doing the math and some online research): if the climate is nice and the place is pretty, it is too expensive. I am starting to think that a lot of the "green living" stories are bull*t sold to naive people by people who have made the money and are now "playing rural" all the while knowing that they have a fat bank account to fall back on.
So, if you are not one of the above, you have to sacrifice something. In your case you found cheap land but you are OK with brutal long winters and piles of snow. It works for you, not for me.
If you actually do the math, you need to be debt free and need to have your new piece of land paid off fully before you set off on this rural living adventure. Even then, building a shelter can be a long process so you either need a camper (one in good shape costs money) or to rent somewhere nearby (not easy in a very rural area). My estimate is that you need at least $100K in the bank to have some security for a few years. I am assuming that you will be buying some kind of catastrophic medical insurance, obviously you need car insurance, a basic land line phone (or pre-paid cell for emergencies) and then whatever food that you are not growing. The camper, the land and the shelter can easily cost you up to $100K to start with for a 5 acre property and a small, no frills home.
All places where the weather is mild year round are expensive and have been discovered. Sure, I can buy 140 acres of red dirt in New Mexico or Texas for $10K but making anything happen with that land is not easy nor is it cheap.
This might not be entirely related to your post, I am just venting. Sorry
... My conclusion so far (and I have spent quite a few hours of doing the math and some online research): if the climate is nice and the place is pretty, it is too expensive. I am starting to think that a lot of the "green living" stories are bull*t sold to naive people by people who have made the money and are now "playing rural" all the while knowing that they have a fat bank account to fall back on.
I readily admit that I retired from the US Navy and have a pension.
However we rub elbows with many other vendors at the Farmer's Markets that have no pension income. There are folks 'doing it'.
Quote:
... So, if you are not one of the above, you have to sacrifice something. In your case you found cheap land but you are OK with brutal long winters and piles of snow. It works for you, not for me.
If the winters were brutal or long I am not sure if we could do it either.
There is a snow belt that lies amid the Great Lakes region and a band going East from there. We are North of that snow belt, but down there folks do get much more snow than we get.
We routinely get 1 to 3 snow falls before Christmas, and the usually do not stick. Within a few days all of it is gone.
Then about the last week of December we get snow. A few inches that packs down. One storm roughly once a week, followed by 5 to 6 days of clear sunny skies. Before the next storm.
I have not touched a snow shovel in years. I have a tractor.
By March it is all gone.
I agree that areas where they see lots of snow would be difficult.
Quote:
... If you actually do the math, you need to be debt free and need to have your new piece of land paid off fully before you set off on this rural living adventure. Even then, building a shelter can be a long process so you either need a camper (one in good shape costs money) or to rent somewhere nearby (not easy in a very rural area). My estimate is that you need at least $100K in the bank to have some security for a few years.
We are out of debt.
I paid $30k for our 42 acres, my SIL bought 105 acres across the road for the same price. So now I manage ~150 acres.
I started building our house one spring, and we moved into it the following spring. It cost us about $40k.
Quote:
... I am assuming that you will be buying some kind of catastrophic medical insurance, obviously you need car insurance, a basic land line phone (or pre-paid cell for emergencies) and then whatever food that you are not growing. The camper, the land and the shelter can easily cost you up to $100K to start with for a 5 acre property and a small, no frills home.
All places where the weather is mild year round are expensive and have been discovered. Sure, I can buy 140 acres of red dirt in New Mexico or Texas for $10K but making anything happen with that land is not easy nor is it cheap.
This might not be entirely related to your post, I am just venting. Sorry
Hey, thats okay. I get it.
I was stationed on the East Coast, the West Coast, North / South and overseas; we kept looking trying to find a place that we could afford to retire.
My pension is less than if I were flipping burgers f/t.
There are very few places where I could afford to live.
I am not from Maine. While hunting for a homestead location I did not look at Maine until after 20 years of looking. This was not a place where I would have thought to look.
Consider these points:
The average household income here is $24k. A depressed local economy that has been depressed for many decades. Means that home and land prices are low [with the noted exception of tourist areas].
I grew up farming in a drought stricken area. If you look around most of the nation has issues with droughts. One of the issues I saw as I was searching was that so many regions have little water. Pumping water vertical up 2,000 feet to reach the surface requires a lot of energy. If you want crops or livestock, it is extremely important to have water.
Lastly I pay no income taxes; and our property taxes are pretty low. I have lived previously in homes where my current income would not even be enough to cover the taxes.
If the winters were brutal or long I am not sure if we could do it either.
There is a snow belt that lies amid the Great Lakes region and a band going East from there. We are North of that snow belt, but down there folks do get much more snow than we get.
We routinely get 1 to 3 snow falls before Christmas, and the usually do not stick. Within a few days all of it is gone.
Thank you for the info! I guess frustration got the best of me in my original message.
I have been looking for land for a few years now. My wife and I are both city slickers but in the last few years we have had horses, done a lot of camping, grown a lot of our vegetables, made compost and in general tried to be more self sufficient. Now we are more ambitious and want to move somewhere where it is not very cold and where we can have a large garden, some acreage, space for 2-3 horses, a few cows and some chicken and where we can build our home. The idea is to do as much work as possible ourselves and outsource the stuff we don't know how to do to someone who does (when building the house) . We are OK not having electricity so long as we can have a few solar panels to power our satellite dish and laptops.
My conclusion so far (and I have spent quite a few hours of doing the math and some online research): if the climate is nice and the place is pretty, it is too expensive. I am starting to think that a lot of the "green living" stories are bull*t sold to naive people by people who have made the money and are now "playing rural" all the while knowing that they have a fat bank account to fall back on.
So, if you are not one of the above, you have to sacrifice something. In your case you found cheap land but you are OK with brutal long winters and piles of snow. It works for you, not for me.
If you actually do the math, you need to be debt free and need to have your new piece of land paid off fully before you set off on this rural living adventure. Even then, building a shelter can be a long process so you either need a camper (one in good shape costs money) or to rent somewhere nearby (not easy in a very rural area). My estimate is that you need at least $100K in the bank to have some security for a few years. I am assuming that you will be buying some kind of catastrophic medical insurance, obviously you need car insurance, a basic land line phone (or pre-paid cell for emergencies) and then whatever food that you are not growing. The camper, the land and the shelter can easily cost you up to $100K to start with for a 5 acre property and a small, no frills home.
All places where the weather is mild year round are expensive and have been discovered. Sure, I can buy 140 acres of red dirt in New Mexico or Texas for $10K but making anything happen with that land is not easy nor is it cheap.
This might not be entirely related to your post, I am just venting. Sorry
A thing to consider is that it is much harder to cool a home in a hot climate (unless you build underground or bermed) than it is to heat a home in a cold climate. Good building design combined with proper insulation will make a huge difference in your heating needs. Radiant heating, especially geothermal can be very cost-effective with a bigger home in particular. A masonry fireplace can heat a goodly sized home as well, without the need for a lot of wood. It all depends on what you feel you absolutely must have in a home, what you cannot live without. Too many people have a dream home ideal that has all the latest bells and whistles in home design, which costs money...a lot of it sometimes.
The more you 'need' the costlier it all will get, even in a smaller home.
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. We are OK not having electricity so long as we can have a few solar panels to power our satellite dish and laptops.
