what state has the cheapest land? a nice small town (farmland, drought)
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Hate to burst bubbles here, but much of the "cheap land" one will see for sale here in NM is only cheap because it's surrounded by other people's large parcels of land, meaning no/restricted access, middle of nowhere, no utilities, and for the last few years, precious little water. People's wells are beginning to run dry. Much of our wildlife has died off due to lack of food/water, and the wildfires are getting worse/coming earlier every year.
I would not recommend moving here unless you have the coin to do so (buy land, have house built, drill well, etc.) and to do it right, or otherwise have some sort of connection.
Of course, this depends on where in NM you'd want to live.
Which explains why it is marketed at low prices.
Our son went out and looked at a few parcels. Dry, dusty and not much else.
Not in the town of my birth (Reserve, in Catron County). I was astonished when I checked realtor.com and found that even tiny bungalows with tiny lots are over $100,000. There are few jobs and fewer amenities there - why is real estate so expensive?????
Because of proximity to National forest and because NM (along with WY, ID and MT) has been gentrified. There is cheap land to be had in NM but if you actually go to see it, it is red dirt with flat, depressing nothing around.
If you want nice land with access to BLM or forest lands, it will cost you.
NM is also a drug infested, crime ridden dump of a land. It is beautiful but has rampant poverty, alcoholism, crime and drugs. On the other side of the equation are wealthy who own the land and have beautiful mansions overlooking hundreds of old single-wides with tires on the roofs and 15-20 old cars each in front.
Look at the stats, even tiny places like Tucumcari (population 5000) has crime index in the 470s, Espanola is in the high 900s, Silver City in the 500s etc...
Sadly, it has come to that, either you have the dough to buy the nice land and build and "go back to the land" (yeah, right) or you buy in the middle of Nebraska or Kansas...
tiny places like Tucumcari (population 5000) has crime index in the 470s, Espanola is in the high 900s, Silver City in the 500s etc..
OD
Tiny places of 5000!!! That's hardly tiny, by New Mexico (or Upper Peninsula) standards. Reserve has a population of 290. The town where I now live has almost 5,000 people, which is why I live 6 miles out of town!
Think about it, land prices are supply and demand, like essentially all prices. So, if you want cheap land, you are going to be looking at land that's in more supply than demand. So, you can forget about getting California coastal land for cheap, likewise, any land near a big employment center.
You have to find land that *you* like, but most people either don't like, imagine they would not like, or don't know about (like Forrest did). Likewise, if you find a good plot that's near large transmission lines, or is near a nuclear power plant, while I can tell you the NPP does not represent much of a risk, I'm not sure about the transmission lines although there is no good science showing a definite health effect (that I know about, anyway) - in both cases a lot of potential competitive buyers won't bid, because they perceive that there is something wrong with the land - the location.
Another approach is to buy land that there is objectively a problem with, but, either it's a risk you are willing to take, or you can manage the risk better than most - lower-lying parts of New Orleans come to mind here - certain areas are damn near certain to be underwater (again) in the next 50 years. But if you live simply, you could throw all your stuff in one rucksack and bag it, or you live in a motorhome (one you know for sure is going to start when you really need to get out of Dodge!) this could work for you.
Tiny places of 5000!!! That's hardly tiny, by New Mexico (or Upper Peninsula) standards. Reserve has a population of 290. The town where I now live has almost 5,000 people, which is why I live 6 miles out of town!
It is tiny when compared to East St Louis, New Orleans or Detroit, places notorious for crime. I would expect to go into a town of 5,000 have crime way below national average, not twice it
Because of proximity to National forest and because NM (along with WY, ID and MT) has been gentrified. There is cheap land to be had in NM but if you actually go to see it, it is red dirt with flat, depressing nothing around.
Depends on where in the state you are looking. NM actually has much more diversity in types of wilderness than one might think. However, land is still available where one can find acreage close to BLM/forest lands, esp. in the northern part of the state, but it's not AS cheap as the land most people think of as stereotypically "New Mexican." Living here has never exactly been easy compared to states with a lot of water.
And NM isn't really "flat", there's valleys, hills, and mountains just like any place. Most of NM is grassland, which would be more obvious if we weren't in a drought.
If you want nice land with access to BLM or forest lands, it will cost you.
Yup. But it's worth the price... right? Depends on where you're looking.
NM is also a drug infested, crime ridden dump of a land. It is beautiful but has rampant poverty, alcoholism, crime and drugs. On the other side of the equation are wealthy who own the land and have beautiful mansions overlooking hundreds of old single-wides with tires on the roofs and 15-20 old cars each in front.
I dunno where you're from or if you've ever been to NM or lived here, but I feel a few things can be explained reoverty, alcoholism, drugs, and crime.
We have our bad areas just like anywhere else. NM has many small towns but for its size is largely unpopulated (not that the land isn't owned by SOMEONE, just that it's not as densely populated as much of the land further east is). COL in NM is lower than the national average, so people here don't need to make a lot of money. In addition, there are quite a few people who live in more run-down houses out in the country (complete with lots of junk laying around) that actually own largeish tracts of land. So it's not like everyone is poor, necessarily, just that their assets aren't immediately obvious. People here are fairly self-sufficient if they need to be, and I've never come across anyone that was starving outright. And those people with 20+ junk cars in the yard? Some people still make a little extra income by selling metal for scrap.
As far as crime, drugs, and alcoholism go, at least in the rural areas, this can more or less be summed up by the fact that after work there isn't a whole lot to do.
Lastly, please stop with the "hurr mean wealthy people are treating these people so badly" crap. Many of the wealthier people here are more than willing to hire people for work. Clearing brush, helping with livestock, and in a lot of cases (where I'm at, anyway) people who own large ranches will lease their land out to people raising livestock, or feed and house their ranch hands, etc.
Look at the stats, even tiny places like Tucumcari (population 5000) has crime index in the 470s, Espanola is in the high 900s, Silver City in the 500s etc...
Sadly, it has come to that, either you have the dough to buy the nice land and build and "go back to the land" (yeah, right) or you buy in the middle of Nebraska or Kansas...
This is the case pretty much everywhere. Country living isn't for everyone, desireable land has always been expensive; much of the time, that "nice land" has resources that help to make the land more attractive. You can't just expect to move somewhere and get a piece of that land, particularly in a place where farming or ranching is still a lifestyle. Even in cities, if you want to live in a good neighborhood with good schools or an area that has a LOT to do and is trendy and fashionable, it will cost you.
I live in a small town in Texas, it is very clean and it is next to a larger town in Texas that is very clean too. I've also lived in New York City, Kansas City, South Florida (in an unincorporated part of county that was considered rural). I have lived in Canada, also lived in a town of 50,000 in Missouri.
So, I think I have had decent exposure to it all.
Now, on to NM: you still did not explain to me how a town of 4,000 can have a crime index of 470+ (Tucumcari). A town of 10,000 a crime index of 500+ (Silver City), a town like Espanola has a crime rate that would gie New Orleans and Detroit their run for the money (900-1000???)
I now live in a town of 2600 people and the crime is in the 200s (national average 319). That is what I would expect from a small town/village.
Who is doing this crime in NM? Why? Why can't law enforcement deal with it effectively? It's not like Espanola is in the middle of nowhere, it's a spit away from Santa Fe. So is Las Vegas, NM, yet it has a crime rate of 500+. Etc. etc.
NM is pretty, I will give you that, but please stop perpetuating that crap about "if you can't handle the country life, don't come here". If to you country life means uncontrolled shooting of stuff, drinking all day and producing meth, that's NOT what majority of people think about when they think "country" . Most people think fields, cows, barns, hard-working farmers and ranchers. They don't think theft up the wazoo and rude off the leash teenagers running around burglarizing homes.
Anyways, pick 20 small, medium and large towns in NM and look at the crime stats, they are HIGH. That's all I'm saying. Every time I have made this statement on the NM forum, I got told to shut up but nobody ever tried to explain to me WHY this is.
I have to agree on this one. NM is the only state you find gang taggings in small towns. I have spent plenty of time there, especially in Gallup (which isn't really a small town), I enjoy NM towns but they definitely are not the picturesque small town you find in the midwest and elsewhere, not your stereotypical "country life".
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overty, alcoholism, drugs, and crime.
