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I'm female,almost 55...my housemate is male almost 66. Both tired of the insanity we see and hear nearly every day. desperately need a change of pace. Our dream...2-5 remote acres,mostly wooded but having some possible sites to put up non-traditional housing(yurt,all-season tent). Room for chicken pen,garden and small workshop. We hope to be totally self-sustaining,to the point that we won't need electric, would have our own hand pumped well etc. At this time we have no savings, we're both military vets, living month to month on very tight fixed income. On top of those negatives neither of us has good credit because of serious medical debts etc. So anything we found landwise would have to be "owner financed", with 200-300 a month payments only. We both have health issues as well as physical challenges so it would take us a longer time than most to get things done with buildings etc. We know how to do it( both did handyman work when we were physically able)...Anyway What are your thoughts as to the feasibility of this adventure. If this won't work our other alternative is to sell everything we own except the clothes on our back and my van and live on the road, camping along the way in non-tourist attraction areas to avoid crowds,barking/yapping dogs, unruly kids,and loud mobile music, you all know what that is(cars with the stereo blasting and the bass turned all the way up, so that the vehicle is vibrating and so is everything else around it). But that adventure wouldn't last long either as the disability would stop after a while without a permanent address. So what's the answer to this dillemma. All thoughts/opinions are welcome.poositive or negative,does,nt matter.
First thing you might want to do is to figure out where you want to live. Then call the town and/ or county zoning offices to find out if you can live in non-traditional housing on owned land.
Are you considering that northeast TN is not Texas ? There is a certain amount of winter here. That means some snow, a heck of a lot more cold than TX and the very real possibility of ice storms, etc. Depending on your level of disability, minimal winter protection from the elements may not be a good thing for aging bones or bodies not working at 100%.
What would you do for refrigeration? Even certain medications need to be refrigerated. If one of you needed to hospitalized for some reason, even for a short period of time, would you be able to go home, if that home had no electricity, no comforts.
Might want also to check with local well drillers to find out just how far down you have to go to get water for a typical well. If it's more than a dozen feet or so, you're not going to hand dig a well. And you would need someone to install a frost free hydrant because again, it's not Texas.
Are you over stating your physical abilities to survive in non traditional housing? You'll need heat. Are you up to felling trees, hauling it back and chopping wood ?
As far as someone selling you land for $200 a month. Look at various realtor websites and get an idea of what 3-5 acres of remote land might be worth. Ask yourself if you were the owner, would you want to take a chance on someone buying with no money down, bad credit and you being expected to carry a loan for 10-15 years. What's the likelihood one of you might get sicker, even for a period of time and you would default ? I'd say it would be a real big risk selling to you.
If you feel you have the physical strength to live " off the grid", then could also not just each get part time jobs for a couple of years just to save up some money. Then you might be able to buy a lot in the country with a small trailer home, with utilties already on it.
Bascially what I'm saying is that living off the grid sounds like a lark for young, healthy people. I'm not sure if it's feasible for the long term for middle aged, disabled people. Lots and lots of plain hard work. And as you age, each year will find it harder and more painful.
Again, if you really want to pursue it, do check with local zoning to see what you can do.
Have you checked with your local social services to see what housing options other than living in a van might be available to you, such as congregate living, Green House, etc.
I'm female,almost 55...my housemate is male almost 66. Both tired of the insanity we see and hear nearly every day. desperately need a change of pace. Our dream...2-5 remote acres,mostly wooded but having some possible sites to put up non-traditional housing(yurt,all-season tent). Room for chicken pen,garden and small workshop. We hope to be totally self-sustaining,to the point that we won't need electric, would have our own hand pumped well etc. At this time we have no savings, we're both military vets, living month to month on very tight fixed income. On top of those negatives neither of us has good credit because of serious medical debts etc. So anything we found landwise would have to be "owner financed", with 200-300 a month payments only. We both have health issues as well as physical challenges so it would take us a longer time than most to get things done with buildings etc. We know how to do it( both did handyman work when we were physically able)...Anyway What are your thoughts as to the feasibility of this adventure. If this won't work our other alternative is to sell everything we own except the clothes on our back and my van and live on the road, camping along the way in non-tourist attraction areas to avoid crowds,barking/yapping dogs, unruly kids,and loud mobile music, you all know what that is(cars with the stereo blasting and the bass turned all the way up, so that the vehicle is vibrating and so is everything else around it). But that adventure wouldn't last long either as the disability would stop after a while without a permanent address. So what's the answer to this dillemma. All thoughts/opinions are welcome.poositive or negative,does,nt matter.
To paraphrase:
Option A: Buy land, pay for the installation of some infrastructure (well to be dug for the hand pump, buy materials for some sort of housing, etc) all of this with no savings and living on disability checks.
Option B: Become homeless vagabond living in your van (down by the river?? - John Farley reference )
Need to look at an Option C: ???? Realistically, options are kinda of limited with no money saved, no credit and no job. Save some money for a down payment, buy an existing older home on a couple of acres and fix it up as you have the time. For example, my buddy is selling his fathers house in SW VA north of Kingsport on 2 acres for $30,000. With a little down you are well under $200 per month with a home. Look hard enough and you will find good deals around.
Happy 4th of July everyone!!Hope the weather is cooperating where you all are. Thank you to WillowWind and Tony1790. Appreciate you both for taking the time to offer your thoughts/opinions. We both thought about the medical concerns before I posted the questions. Just wanted another person's perspective. I didn't really think the ideas I presented would be very practical but who knows for sure what will happen from day to day, month to month , or years down the road... Have thought about OPTION C, but when living month to month like we are right now, there's no chance to put anything aside. I'm having all to do to keep enough money stashed away to pay for auto repairs as they come up. Oh well, guess we'll just keep renting and existing where we are. But thanks anyway for the suggestions...
Here's a thought......you said that you are both Veterans, why not use you GI Bill VA Loan guarantee. 0% down, seller pays the closing costs, that's a home loan with no out of pocket costs. Talk to a good broker and they should be able to help you out.
No matter what you do, I wish the best to you. I used my GI bill to buy my first and second home. There are ways to make Option C happen. And there are homes with owner financing if all else fails.
firslty i agree with the others...
my suggestion to you would be to find a couple of acres with house in place thats structurally sound BUT small and needs fixing up...
you can find some seriously great bargains if your willing to realy look...
this is what im doing...
i did start my search in eastern tn, but found it difficult to find what im looking for and have expanded my search to mid-western tn where theres less "scenery" but alot more rural land going for better prices.
im looking for something similar and theres certainly lots of options going on..
you can find a real fixer upper on lots of land for under $30,000 which would, as others have stated, be under $200 a month. go wiht the GI bill if you qualify...there are also "alternate credit" options too (cellphone bills being paid on time for example)
you could also look into the usda rural programs...
buying a fixer on land means a few things.
1: you have a roof over your head, even if it needs alot of work you have something to keep most (hopefully all) of the rain out, keep ya warm in the winter and all utilities will be present in some way shape or form...remember a well alone can cost $5000+ not including the mecahnical systems...
2: you can fix it at your leasure as time permits howver the hell you want...but you still have the basic amenities already there.
3: you can make it much more energy efficient than any yurt wil ever be...
4: if you realy want something you save as much money as possible in the fixer for a while before ripping it down and putting your "alternative home" on it, or fix the fixer, and rent that out and put a yurt elsewhere on the property, tada, extra income!
5: you can add your self sufficient goodies as you go...a solar pannel there, rain barrels there ect and eventually wean yourself off the grid...but leaving everything hooked up just not turned on, then if you ever decide to sell, all you have ot do is switch it back to the grid...
having water on property already is also helpfull whn your talking livestock, its NO fun hauling water for your chickens in the middle of winter...
if you cant get the GI bill loan though you may want to expand your serch to the ovarks in AL, theres aparently alot of cheap land and much of it with ownr financing...
there doesnt seem to be as much owner financing in TN though.
Here's a link to a wonderful site where the folks have done something similar to what you are contemplating. We call them happy hippy dippies...sort of a modern 'back to the land' kind of thing. It costs money, so if you are thining about the self sustaining thing with no, or very small, cash incomes from 'real' jobs, you might be in trouble. You either pay now for good infrasructure...generators, plumbing systems, shelter, roads, etc, or you pay forever in replacing the stuff that you should have done correclty the first time.
These guys had no skills whatsoever, but they have the ability to figure out how to do good, clean work, even if it is sort of (painfully) 'wrong' compared to the way the trades would do things. They have made every mistake in the book, but they have succeeded in putting together a sort of self reliant homestead on a few acres. I don't think they grow all of their own food, and more recently i think they may have switched over to the grid, but there is LOTS to learn from their project and i am guesing it could be tailored to meet a more self relaint operation. Happy reading: http://www.city-data.com/forum/tenne...tennessee.html
This MAY be a possibility for you. However, keep in mind that the VA does not loan money .The VA guarantees the loan. Thus, you have to not only meet VA guidelines, you have to deal with an actual lender and their investors.
While the VA is fairly easy on credit scores compared to most other programs., you will still need a year or so of good clean credit. If you have to, find out what you need to do to repair or clean up your credit.
The VA will only let a spouse be a co-signer on a loan. Two un- related people, veterans or not, on one loan is a no go. That maybe something to think about. Thus, one or the other of you has to be the sole borrower or wedding bells will have to chime. And obviously two incomes are better than one to qualify for a loan.
Final thing, the VA has what they call minimum property standards that a home has to meet. That means buying a total wreck is pretty much not going to be possible. Buying a home that needs cosmetic repairs is possible.
If a home needs structural repairs that would need to be addressed prior to closing.. However, if it needed a more modern kitchen or bathroom or floors refinished etc. , that would be OK.
You might want to find a VA lender in your area and do a consultation.
If you could manage to buy a home , the VA also a program called
" specially adaptive housing " , that will help modify a home for a veteran who has physical disabilities. But you have to own the home first.
As with anything else, it doesn't hurt to ask. The worst that can happen is someone says " no". But this is something you have to do on your own.
Ted Bear: Living off grid in Tennessee (youngLisa7) is kindof how I got started with the city-data forum.
I was looking for info on various cities/towns in TN when I came across the thread about them and what they were doing. I started to read through the pages almost daily beginning this past April or May and looked at other topics as well.
My housemate and I have talked about doing the off-grid thing for about 4-5 years now. Went so far as to moveing onto some friends of his, backwoods and living in a shelter of tree trunks,pallet floors, and tarp walls for about 3 1/2 months for me but 10 months for him. Only reason I left so soon after arriving was because I couldn't find work of any kind at the time, and I had some major debts I was trying to get paid off. It was some adventure while I was there. It had a wood-burning stove that leaked like a sieve, a 55 gallon drum with spigot for water,no running water inside but a real bathtub that drained out to the field behind us where the garden was and a port-a-pottie that required emptying about once a week. We had mushrooms growing inside the shelter where the sink area was in the kitchen and plenty of field mice inside for the cat to chase. We split downed trees for firewood, hauled water from the main house 1/4 mile away or so and in general led a quiet existance. We were both in pretty good physical shape them but even less money than we have now. Odd jobs every now and then to buy groceries with. But I came back to TX and went back to the real world of working for "the man" maintaining a regular house etc,etc.and about 3 months later he came back too and rejoined me in civilization. He's not at all happy here so we're going to try and get out of "dodge" to the wilds of whereever
Willow Wind: Know about VA loans but doesn't look like we'll be able to use them. Credits in the toilet and don't see us getting out from under our debts for a very long time, so credit score won't improve for a quite a while. Not being able to work a real job still,
equals no real money coming in, so bills are getting paid off veeeery s-l-o-w-l-y. One of three choices will have to happen:
1. Rich family member dies...leaves me a fortune!! Don't have any family thats rich or dying.
2: Win a million or two on the lottery! Not gonna happen...don't play...don't believe in gambling.
3: File Bancruptcy...that won't help my credit either.
That's okay,though. It's probably not in God's plan for me to do this right now. When the time is right, the doors will open for us.
Really do appreciate the time and effort you've put into giving me the info. I THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Blessings from above to you and yours!
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So what's the answer to this dillemma. All thoughts/opinions are welcome.poositive or negative,does,nt matter.
)
thanks to both that responded
where the sink area was in the kitchen and plenty of field mice inside for the cat to chase.
We split downed trees for firewood, hauled water from the main house 1/4 mile away or so and in general led a quiet existance. We were both in pretty good physical shape them but even less money than we have now. Odd jobs every now and then to buy groceries with. But I came back to TX and went back to the real world of working for "the man" maintaining a regular house etc,etc.and about 3 months later he came back too and rejoined me in civilization.
