Things I would want when I own my own land… 🚜 🦌

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I spend too much downtime flipping through the Land and Farm website, which markets hunting camps, farm land, off-grid properties, and other rural lands. It’s kind of a fun hobby to have as it doesn’t cost anything but the unlimited mobile bandwidth I currently have and is a good reminder that the money I save and invest today will have benefits tomorrow. I have some thoughts what the land would like and ads I’m most interested in. I’m not buying this week or next, but it lets me know what’s out there and what I could reasonably afford eventually.

  • Generally the properties I’ve been looking at have been priced between $200k – $250k. I picked that amount as I think based on what I’ve saved and what I project to save, that gives me the ability to buy with cash plus have money to make repairs and address my significantly lower income when I move to rural area where fewer good-paying jobs are available.
  • I am interested in properties that are roughly 50 acres give and take, with the value of land being roughly 2/3rd of the value of property. I am most interested in properties that have small cabins, shed-to-homes or even mobile trailers on them, because it means the majority of my investment goes into the land, not the home or barn itself, which for me is far less important.
  • I would probably want to live at least 15-20 minutes outside of a small town, maybe 30-40 minutes from a bigger city, just so I don’t have to deal with suburban houses being built nearby and increasing codes and regulation as time goes by of my land and hobby farm operation.
  • I am attracted particularly to land that needs work — land where invasive species have taken over, the soil degraded, run-off or a certain amount of dumping and debris exists on it and needs to clean up. These aspects will help reduce the cost of land, but also provide an enjoyable project to work on restoring the land using goats, pigs, fire and heavy equipment to clean and restore the land.
  • I like the idea of either having diverse habitats on the land or rebuilding them. For example, areas that are mature forest for timber production, some that are brushy lands, some that are meadows for grazing animals. Maybe a wetland and small pond. This will bring in wildlife for hunting and trapping, and provide for interesting wildlife and bird observation.
  • I want to have buffer from neighboring residential properties. I like the idea of having livestock, a gun-range in my backyard, and being able to burn trash and debris. But I don’t want to smell my neighbor’s pig pen and horny buck goat or smoldering burn barrel for endless hours while I’m trying to enjoy some fresh air outside.
  • I don’t want to have to worry about keeping the noise down, or being too close to neighbors to shoot my guns whenever I want.
  • I really like the idea of being off-grid — for the simplicity and self-reliance nature of it. I like if I have a problem with my electric supply, I can fix a fuse or replace a broken component. I don’t want to have to worry about my power going out. I want to keep the system simple enough that I can repair it myself. I want simple plumbing, so if I have issues I can fix them myself, and safely process and dispose of wastes on site, in ways that aren’t polluting the environment but returning them back to nature.

Just buy a house, it will be great 🏠

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Your the Director. You make good money, you’ve saved and invested, you could buy a house with cash or get it at a good interest rate if you wanted the tax advantages of letting your money grow in the markets.

Don’t you know it’s foolish to pay rent. You’re just making your landlord rich, paying his mortgage. Renting is a temporary thing you do or what you do when you have no other options because you’re poor. Did I mention it’s foolish? Think of all the money you would be saving, paying the bank and establishing equity in your own home.

You’re in your mid forties but you’re still riding your mountain bike to work most days, except when you take the bus and transfer over to the shuttle. You know like the drunkards and the poor who don’t own cars. You’re spending your weekends in the wilderness, smoking pot, drinking beer and burning shit. Listening to shitty old music. Even when it’s cold and snowy as you hate living in the city.

But I really don’t want a suburban house. I hate lawns, I hate carpeting and vinyl siding. It would be such a waste of money to buy a structure I hate, costs a ton to heat and light and I wouldn’t bother even making the most minimal of repairs because I hate it and it’s all just garbage to me.

I want a small cabin up in the wilderness wherey I can shoot and own whatever hand and long guns I want without special government permission, burn whatever garbage I want and not waste my time washing out plastic bottles and tins cans for fake recycling, have pigs, goats and any other livestock I want, grow cannabis and other feed stuffs. I don’t mind shitting in a bucket, chopping wood or fiddling around with batteries and solar as that’s that I do half the year when I’m not back in my cesspool apartment in the city!

It will happen some day. Not that far in the future. I can see my net worth increasing and my years of experience paying off at work. After all, not everybody becomes a director. The financial experts say I am a fool but they are not me. They don’t understand my love of the wilderness and the small towns, the freedom to live the life I want to live. The houses I see on Zillow are so distasteful as is everything New York State and the liberalism it all involves.

It could be fucking mine

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That was the words I uttered under my breath as I looked at this one house that popped up on Zillow outside of Coeymans for $250,000. Just a few meetings with a realtor, a lawyer, inspector, selling some stock and cutting a check. Ten acres, on a back road I used to explore a lot when I was in my younger years, looking at homesteads with their burn barrels and horses and cattle.

But I really don’t want it. I don’t want to have to drive to work, the commute through all those speed traps. Being trapped in a house and homestead, having goats and pigs to feed, leaky roofs and floors to replace, dealing with broken appliances and scheduling septic tank pumps, so they can haul away the shit to the local landfill.

Yet it had the acreage I was interested in and a woodstove.  It would be a commute but it would be mangable. Yet it also was New York State. It was rural, so I could have livestock, I could have fires, though I’d have to a bit careful what I tossed into the fires lest neighbors start complaining about the smoke. I could build my dream homestead, add solar, get a quad to ride trail and a tractor to work the land. But it’s also kind of rocky, marginal ground, though if I brought in some organic matter like food scraps and grain  and hay to feed livestock, I could build the soil up.

And the thing is buying now would block future plans. It’s true you can sell property, and that property gains value over time, but there is also the cost of commuting, maintaince of property, taxes. As an asset class it’s not very deversified. It’s not clear if I bought land today, if I could easily sell it and move out west eventually where there is more freedom to own guns and burn debris. I’m not sure if even want a grid tied property, O r all that technical equipment modern houses require.