I thought I was finally in the financial position to move out of the city and onto some land. I'm not looking for a huge ranch, just 10ish acres. There isn't anything close to reasonable unless I drive an hour and a half out.

12 acres for 1.5 million? Further out is 710k for 20? Both sans house....

How do people afford this without drowning in debt? My wife and I have pretty good incomes with no kids and we aren't even close to being able to afford this.

Fortunately/unfortunately the area just keeps growing and growing… So I see land values only going up. I'm at a loss...

Location, location, location....

And time.

In some instances I have watched land around me quadruple (or more) in price in just a few years.

Because they can get developers to buy it who will then divide them into 24 1/2 acre lots and put houses on them.

My wife and I lucked into a great deal on a waterfront fixer upper almost 12 years ago. We've done a lot of work to it, but it just doesn't have the bones to ever be what I really want. We've toyed with selling it and trying to find something that is closer to our ideal or to to buy land and build. We would like to stay on a lake or have a bunch of land. Even with the equity we have in the property and the good incomes that we have, we can't find anything that we could comfortably afford and be a reasonable driving distance from work. We've even looked in different states.

You need to look at different locations.

I'm between Richmond and DC, closer to Richmond. We purchased 31 Acres with a very small (720 sq ft) house 8 years ago for under $200K. What we found was going over 12-15 acres, the price dropped significantly and we could get more land for less money than the 10-12 acres we were initially looking for.

Just wait until you get estimates to build the house!

I live in a development that has 2 - 5 acre lots. Someone bought a lot up the street from me for $125k. Then he contacted an architect and he designed a 2,000 sq foot house.

The estimates he got for building it were $3 per sq foot! His modest 2,000 sq foot home would cost him $600,000 to build! His lot is up for sale again.

Too many people want these larger parcels and then find they can't take care of the land. It takes a bunch of time to properly manage larger lots.

Plus, you have too many people and not enough land.

We have only 5 acres with hundreds of trees and bushes. We mow all of it and spend 1,000 annually just on fertilizer and weed chemicals.

Good thing we're retired.

I gotta go now and mow.

Mike

 
We paid $9k/acre for a 6 acre lot in 1999. Good point about managing larger properties. Most of our neighbors (and us) do this by leaving most of the lot "natural desert", which out here means creosote flats. Some of these creosote bushes, we are told, are over 1,000 years old. Clear around the house and take care of that only. In our case, we also have cleared an acre for our dogs, which is enclosed by 6 ft chain link fence. For that, I cleared out all of the vegetation, and we use pre-emergent and glyphosate to keep it like a wasteland, so they dogs don't pick up the desert nasties. Within that area, they do have several trees, a 1,000 sq. ft. circle of grass, and 2,000 sq. ft. area of pure sand, for relaxing. Just the chemicals for treating the dogs' compound run about $600/year, plus paying a laborer to help apply them.
 

Check inner-city Detroit. I believe acreage is going for much less there.....

Even if we owned our house on Oak Island, NC, outright, if we sold it (2 blocks from the ocean) we would need another $250,000 to even start looking at places where I work in Charlotte. Real estate prices are nuts. Houses for sale at $400,000+ in "transitioning" areas, with houses full of junkies and dealers on each side.

Our hope is to get a place with a tiny bit of land outside of the city in the next couple of years in the $200,000 or less range. 15 year mortgage. I grew up on a 300 acre farm. This city shit is getting old.

Many properties can be had in places like Cleveland and Detroit merely by paying the back tax liens.....

The real estate market is cyclical. I am waiting for JAllen to comment on this. He is the expert on boom and bust in real estate.

The prices have already started to move up in my neighborhood this past year.

I have received three solicitations to buy my house just in the past two weeks even as is.

Old areas like Vienna which is close to D.C., they buy an old house and tear it down and build a million dollar home.

In Loudoun County you could buy 10 acres for $40K in 1980 while that same lot is now worth $1M. The land is worth more than a place with a home included.

quote:

Originally posted by barsad0:
I thought I was finally in the financial position to move out of the city and onto some land. I'm not looking for a huge ranch, just 10ish acres. There isn't anything close to reasonable unless I drive an hour and a half out.

12 acres for 1.5 million? Further out is 710k for 20? Both sans house....

How do people afford this without drowning in debt? My wife and I have pretty good incomes with no kids and we aren't even close to being able to afford this.

Fortunately/unfortunately the area just keeps growing and growing… So I see land values only going up. I'm at a loss...

You're only seeing part of the problem.

Consider the plight of the rancher who owns 1,400 acres.

These rich fools who are willing to pay $1.5 million for 12 acres are driving up property taxes sky-high, which in turn drives the rancher out of business.

This is a serious problem now in Idaho, which is being inundated by left-coast assholes who are escaping from the hell they created in California and western Washington, and are bringing their failed political values with them.

quote:

Originally posted by SapperSteel:

Consider the plight of the rancher who owns 1,400 acres.

These rich fools who are willing to pay $1.5 million for 12 acres are driving up property taxes sky-high, which in turn drives the rancher out of business.

This has been happening to the family farmers around here for the last several years. As the city encroaches on their land, it drives the value up. They can't afford the taxes so they have to sell and the land gets developed. The fellow that owns the land behind us has been in that boat. I'm not sure how much he owns but I heard it was about 550 acres. The road he lives on is named for his family because they owned all of that land there and I think there are only two of them left. He has told us that he is land rich and money poor. The land is his hobby and his wife wouldn't know what to do with it. So he has made plans and when the time is right, he's going to sell. I would bet it will happen in the next year or two, given the current real estate trend. His daughter will eventually make out like a bandit as he is sitting on millions.

The other trick they like to pull around here is simply rezoning someone's land so that they have to sell. Sometimes I really hate the good-ol'-boy network. The local governments are in the developer's pockets and everyone is good friends. Plus, the new development brings in much more tax revenue for them to spend.

When we were house shopping 5 or so years ago, the wife was interested in land on acreage to be away from the mouth breathers and neck beards. I was less enthusiastic about the mowing ops and corn or completely horizontal horizon for 12 miles in every direction isn't that exciting to look at. I still wouldn't mind some land for an undisclosed location within an hour or two drive to play around on, but Green Acres is not currently for me.

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
Just wait until you get estimates to build the house!

I live in a development that has 2 - 5 acre lots. Someone bought a lot up the street from me for $125k. Then he contacted an architect and he designed a 2,000 sq foot house.

The estimates he got for building it were $3 per sq foot! His modest 2,000 sq foot home would cost him $600,000 to build! His lot is up for sale again.

Recently I ran into a GC I know here in Colorado who was saying they're so busy lately that they're turning away work and raising their rates. Now, two years ago it was a different story, even a year ago, but the economy is on an upswing (thanks in part to the election), so right now is a bad time to be buying and building in popular areas, IMO.

And yes, location...

Out here just being one mountain freeway exit closer to or further from Denver makes a big difference, and out by you it's evident in the Evergreen/Turkey Creek prices versus those in greater Conifer, all for what amounts to a 5-15min difference in commute times, as it's more or less all the same rocks, trees, and views from one neighborhood to the next..

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
Just wait until you get estimates to build the house!

I live in a development that has 2 - 5 acre lots. Someone bought a lot up the street from me for $125k. Then he contacted an architect and he designed a 2,000 sq foot house.

The estimates he got for building it were $3 per sq foot! His modest 2,000 sq foot home would cost him $600,000 to build! His lot is up for sale again.

Huh? $3 times 2,000 = $6,000.

quote:

Originally posted by mikeyspizza:

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
Just wait until you get estimates to build the house!

I live in a development that has 2 - 5 acre lots. Someone bought a lot up the street from me for $125k. Then he contacted an architect and he designed a 2,000 sq foot house.

The estimates he got for building it were $3 per sq foot! His modest 2,000 sq foot home would cost him $600,000 to build! His lot is up for sale again.

Huh? $3 times 2,000 = $6,000.

I was thinking the same thing but decided he probably meant $300 per sq foot so left it alone..

There is 160 acres between Greenville and Campbell for about 300,000. You would need a house of course. I believe hay is farmed on the land which could give you a farm exemption. Just let whoever farms it keep on farming it to get the exemption.

Took me about an hour to drive to Dallas.