Cheap Land Living In Southern California... (San Bernardino, Lancaster: lease, mortgage, houses)

[oldtrader]

To make it easier for the folks on this thread to advise you, tell us what you consider a maximum price you want to pay for a bare piece of cheap land in California. Then they can advise you, if such a parcel of land is even possible to acquire in the area they live. This is the first thing.

Example: Years ago, I had a young teacher from out of state contact me, wanting to buy 40 acres of land to build a therapeutic resort in 5 years. She wanted to buy the land now. It had to be in a mountain resort area in Colorado. Close in to one of the towns. She said she could pay cash. When I asked her how much money she had to spend, her answer was a proud, "I have saved up $10,000". She wanted to buy a parcel free and clear for $10,000.

She was shocked when she learned that a parcel like she wanted to buy, was in the $250,000 price range and up.

You are asking for advice, without giving the most important factor. How much is your maximum price you are willing to pay either in cash, or with a mortgage.

With that knowledge, local people in the different areas of California can tell you what you can buy for that amount of money or sometimes even less.

[alexxiz]

Keep in mind though, that if you do research you might find that 1 acre sometimes sells for the same price as 15 acres--cause 1 acre is kind of flat and utilities are close (as in subdivision) and 15 acres are steep slopes! Just make sure the parcel is not completely non-buildable and prohibits potential occupancy due to some legal stipulation...
There used to be a way for people to make a mining claim and effectively live on it--I mean to homestead with house and all, on BLM land, not sure it's still legal... I've seen some people living in houses on top of their mining claims, on Oregon BLM lands, recently, but those claims were old.

If OP just wants to camp wherever away from people, without installing septic, they can do it on BLM and NFS lands just fine actually...just got to move few miles distance every 14 days. Can be in prime spots on the river sometimes I mean.. no taxes. This is a way to try the lifestyle out I think to see if one even likes it. They say to spend several months in the area before buying there...also to know what land management conditions one might face....being trapped by a big pothole in dirt road after the storm and other little surprises, suffering from landslide or being trapped in the snow, realizing heating costs too much, etc I mean is not fun... Some places where a trailer will go... the trailer will not come out...on BLM land I'd have a hope of being "rescued" by the county SAR at least

[Hawk J]

Some of the land being sold nowadays, you are only allowed to camp on it. You can't build what you want.

When you buy some land, Make Sure you can build a home on it if you wanna, & Make Sure you have Water Rights. A lot of the forest land might have an underground artesian spring on the property.

[Hawk J]

Originally Posted by alexxiz

The problem is that once you want to run utilities, you automatically get on county radar in most places and next you're facing major building permit hassle and expenses. In many places utilities will not be installed by utility company without the place getting cleared from the building/planning department to start with and passing some kind of preliminary inspection. One alternative option, though, is to find a lot (a rare find I think) where utilities such as well and electric are in place already but no structure or old mobile home to be removed, while it is secluded enough. Especially good if there's a well in place, well can get very expensive... The thing is these lots tend to run *a lot* higher in price.

It's true that weather can get pretty miserable without a good shelter, both in summer and winter, depending on a place... one thing to consider for someone who's doing "full time off grid camping" is to have... two lots--and "snowbird" between them--or get more expensive lot in coastal area, where the weather is more flat.

If your living way out in the boonies, you can get two Honda EU2000i generators. They will power(in Parallel) an A/C in the HOT summer...

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Camping in the desert

[makingthatnaborspaper]

Im almost sold on buying 20-40 acres in palmdale if I can get mineral rights for a well and just putting two connecting 833sqft yurts together on a raised wooden deck. Probably cost me about 90k + solar panels and a wind turbine or two. Its the dream anyways im making good money in the oilfield but even so 2500.00 $ + mortgage payments for some mcmansion in LA co never seemed like something id want to do.

[makingthatnaborspaper]

Originally Posted by Hawk J

If your living way out in the boonies, you can get two Honda EU2000i generators. They will power(in Parallel) an A/C in the HOT summer...

Probably what I will do until I can save the cash to get the solar/wind going

[makingthatnaborspaper]

Originally Posted by oldtrader

When they subdivided land in the desert, the developers wanted to make it look like those were desirable lots and would someday be a valuable subdivision and buying one of them you were getting in on the down floor.

They placed restrictive covenants on about all of them, just like you do in the city. They did this to show it was a high quality subdivision. These covenants were part of the marketing package, saying this is going to be a quality subdivision and you can buy in cheap and the lots will go up in value later.

What happened is nothing happened, and those lots sat empty year after year and decade after decade. Some of those subdivisions never had one lot ever developed. When people found how hard it was to get water and how expensive it was they backed of building on the land. Sometimes there were no permits being issued to drill wells for one reason or another. When they found what it would cost to have any utilities they backed off. Sometimes after the land was all sold, for little down and payments, environmentalists would find a rodent, bird, or bug on the land that was declared to be protected and no one could do anything on the land if they wanted to.

Many of those subdivisions were just one stop from being scams. Those subdivisions were laid out and sold, before there were controls to keep this from happening. Later it got a lot harder to do developments, especially out in desert land. It is harder to do subdivisions in all states today, than years ago.

There is only one reason the lots are for sale so cheap today in California. They are useless for all practical purposes, and no one wants them. But there are people that are still holding them often 2nd or 3rd generation later, and will keep anyone from putting a trailer, etc. as it is against the covenants, on the land as they think it would make their own lot drop in value even more than they are asking for it today.

If they were practical to build on, there are a lot of people that would be buying them up and building low priced houses on them to sell for vacation and retirement residents. There is always a demand for that type of housing, at a reasonable price, even during the recession we have been going through. When there was no market for new homes in the city, if those lots priced that low were possible to sell homes on and they could be developed cheaply, builders would have moved on them. I knew developers that knew they could buy lots of those lots for $500 or less, and looked into doing something and found there was no way even at $500 a lot could come out on them.

What I am trying to say is, use caution when you get into really cheap land, especially in the deserts of California. Cheap land, is cheap for some reason. Find out what the reason is before you jump into it. If it is desirable property, it is not cheap.

nice read thanks

[.highnlite]

My point, which negates all of oldtraders rant I have made before. Never live where there are CC&Rs or a homeowners association. The land worth living on in the desert, is precisely the land 99% of Americans would not want to live on.

[alexxiz]

Considering there's quiet PRIVATIZATION of public lands and wilderness going in the US and reservation monopoly having been established, one might want to buy land just for occasional camping with such basic comfort as running water access and perhaps a shower... OR, pay up huge fees to the moster monopoly Reserveamerica and have your favorite campsite poured over with concrete to house trailers that are willing to pay inflated camping fees (cause campground is turned into a trailer park where people "live" not "camp"). Year 2030.... campsites cost more than any hotel with "reservation fee" (going into private corporate pocket) half the cost of campsite per day, packed with RVs/turned into large concrete parking lots, wilderness permits cost hotel stay price--take my word, this will happen. Already, many campgrounds will only allow taking a walk-in site for only one night at a time--it can be reserved from under you with someone with lots of money to waste on reservation fees for Reserveamerica--so, you can not come in person and take the site for 2-14 days--rather, stay day by day potentially being kicked out any day, under pouring rain included. Next, they'll close up as many roads in public lands as possible, close more primitive camps (due to "lack of funds") to hoard people into the high fee trailer-park campgrounds with McDonalds at the entrance of each... yeah, "camping land" might come handy (unless, as trend continues, they make it illegal to camp on own land--"fire safety"....with easy satellite imaging... camp on own land--pay up $200 ticket, haha, welcome to year 2040 overpopulated world, this may sound far fetched now but I think this is where things are heading, with freedoms being taken away, etc). ONCE they realize how much of a cash cow "public lands" can be.... American public other then the wealthy small percent being absolutely helpless already... they're gonna take over.