how to buy land, how do you know its good or bad land.

[krentwood]

I've saved up enough money where I can buy a couple of acres of land, and maybe a mobile home or park an RV on top of it.

My issue is what is a great website to find and buy land, that lets you check what services like plumbing, septic, or electrical lines are already installed on the land to save future cost. And websites that lets you know if you can park an RV, buy a shed, place a mobile home on top of the land that you should technically "own" when you pay property taxes for it. I've watched Mister Metokur stream one time and how he didn't like Zillow, so maybe there are some hidden caveats I'm not aware of in websites like Realtor or land.com for instance.

I understand that I need to go to the land personally, so when your on land what should you look out for that tells you this land is great to buy, like being next to a river or pond. And warning signs that immediately tells you that you need to find another place to buy, like the ground being soft because people have been burying garbage under it for years. Or this one posting I found where its around 5000 dollars near this gold mine with around 10~ acres of land around it but I found out that the ground might be toxic because of previous mining operations. Also pictures of the land you see might be misleading, or in the fine print you might not have rights to the air and minerals of the land.

The amount of money I spend on airfare or on gas and hotel I'd rather save when I buy the land, utilities, and services I might need to install.

My goal is to be within an hour commute from a major city for the sake of jobs and if shit hits the fan I'll already have a decent spot to call my own and a good distance away in case pests like what the people in jacksonville, Ohio are dealing with. And have freedom to do what I wish, whether it be installing solar panels, gardening, have good internet connection to do remote work,etc...

 

[ChefBourgeoisie]

You need to inspect the land personally, even if you don't know what you're looking for. I think our great grandparents would've called it something like "pig in a poke". If you were rich enough to have your own agent you might well trust their judgement, but if you had that you wouldn't be worrying about airfare. Good luck.

 

[Executive Petrel]

Make sure to have enough african americans nearby.

 

[Dawdler]

If you are in the warmer regions, you will be fine with solar panels and a basic RV. Water and other utilities hookup cost money and will be getting more and more expensive. I saw no point in buying a plot given you can just put a tent/park rv wherever you want and pack by morning to a next place. Gold mines by themselves shouldn't be problematic if everything is covered with soil. If things are dusty however. ..
You can always get a soil sample tested.
RV's are however a magnet for hobos and other criminals.

 

[Not Really Here]

Make sure it has enough frontage to actually be usable land.

 

[Yaniv’s Hairy Balls]

So here’s some questions you can ask, and you will probably need Google to answer (and that’s ok, don’t be shy to ask whoever is selling either):

•Does it have access to your utilities?
Can you access it thru an easement or thru a right of way? What does that entail? Do you have to up keep your roads?

•do you have your own access?
Can you get there on your own? Do you need an easement?

•is it in an area of frequent outages?
Do you need water tanks and/or a generator? How will you power your pumps and generator? Propane? Diesel? Gas? Natural gas? Can you buy/rent a tank? Costs?

•Does it have hook ups?
You need electricity, water, sewage and/or a septic system.
Does it have these things already? Are they useable? What do you need to do to make them usable? Will the current landowner do it in the purchase agreement?

•is it legal?
You can’t have a rv/trailer everywhere, can you do that here?

•is there an HOA (homeowners association)?
If so run away, fuck all that.

These are the most important questions imo, which every “no” bringing the property value down and the work you need to do up (but fuck HOAs tbh).

 

[Harvey Danger]

Spoiler: the search

For the website itself, many of them share listings, but you should be looking for one that specializes in raw/undeveloped land, larger land plots, farms, etc. Best bet is to google "my_state land listings", or "my_state acreage listings". Real estate is a local business, and the listings are usually driven by a state system.

A good way to do your search is find a site that lets you set minimums for acreage. Start with something like 3 acres minimum, to clear out the lots inside developments. Get a feel for what's being offered and the average price per acre in your area. Setting minimum to 5 acres will get you 95% of listings out in rural areas, 10 acres gets you the farms and horse properties.

For someone just starting out with land, 5 acres of usable land (total size minus unusable wetlands) will be more than enough for you. Make sure you're checking for how much land is cleared, vs uncleared rough land, vs wetlands or flood areas. Adjust based on what you plan to do (just chill, do some gardening, do some farming, etc)

Things to check for that are usually in the listing, in order of importance:

1. Road access/easement/right of way
2. Water hookup or well
3. Electric hookup
4. Flood zone/flood plain rating
5. How much is cleared
6. Zoning category
7. HOA
8. School district and rating

If any of these are not explicitly stated in the listing, immediately become suspicious. Never assume it's OK or the agent just forgot, most cheap land has hidden problems with one of these. Check a public source and ask the agent directly, often they are legally required to give you an answer.

Spoiler: longer explanations

1) You need to be able to get to your land from a public road, or have a legal easement that gives you a right of way across someone's property. Don't buy your first parcel without this. Sometimes listed as "100 feet of frontage", meaning 100 feet of the property is along a road. Ask if it's a public road or a privately maintained road, which you might be responsible for clearing if something goes wrong.

2) You'll want a professional to inspect the well to make sure it's functioning. You'll need to conduct an independent water quality test at the well mouth AND at the faucet if a house is on the property. Do this during your inspection period, so you can legally back out of a contract if some bad contamination is found. If you have city water hookup, they are usually required to issue a public water safety report, check the records or ask the agent.

3) It is WAY easier to start out with electric hookup being available on your property. Sometimes you only get "easement" access, which means you have to pay the electric company to put up poles and wires. Don't fall for the meme of pure off-grid solar power. Solar is a great supplement to unreliable power, but is unreliable in itself.

4) This is sometimes indicated as wetland %, dry land %, "high and dry" acreage amount, and so on. Having some wetlands or marsh is fine, as long as you have enough dry ground to do what you want. Best bet is to use the national maps to double check. Always check to see if your potential building site is in a risky flood plain.

5) Is there a cleared homesite ready to go, or do you need to clear it yourself? And what % of the land is buildable? A lot of suspiciously cheap land will be something like 50% unbuildable because of ground type or flood zone. The agent is (usually) required to tell you if land is unbuildable. Make sure the home site is in a place you personally like.

6) Usually listed up front. Check the local zoning laws to make sure you understand what that rating allows and doesn't allow (side buildings, planting crops, having animals, etc)

7) Homeowners Associations can be a huge pain in the ass. The benign ones might do as little as simply maintain roads and a common gate. The worst ones heavily restrict what you may build on your own property, and charge a large monthly fee. They aren't always a dealbreaker, just make sure you are OK with whatever power and fees they have.

Only a consideration if you have kids (based) and are planning to send them to public school (utter negligence). I strongly discourage sending kids to even the best public school, they're all corrupted. But sometimes it matters for extracurricular activities if you're home schooling. Also, highly rated school districts help boost property values over the long term.

Things to look up that aren't in the listing:

1. Who owns the land around you
2. How far is town and stores
3. Demographics of the area
4. Crime rates
5. Local politics and recent events

Spoiler: more explanations

1) This is important; are your neighbors individual people, or industries that might cause noise and pollution? Owned by individual people, or large families? Is the local forest owned by the state as a preserve, by a private foundation as a trust, by a corporation as an investment asset, or by a logging/mining/farming company that plans to tear it down in the future?

There's a number of different websites to check this, some national, but state-specific ones are usually better. Sometimes they're even cross-referenced with voter registrations so you can see how many people actually live there. I recommend searching for "my_state parcel viewer" to find one. Otherwise, many of the national ones like Regrid will give you basic info but require a paid account for more. Some will let you do a day pass for a small fee, which is worth it once you've chosen an area and want to investigate.

2) Also important: Do you mind driving 20 minutes to a grocery stores? How far away is the nearest hospital? Is the only food store in town a convenience store, or a dollar store? Are you OK living somewhere with no food or pizza delivery? This is a matter of preference, just be aware of the lifestyle you're choosing and convenience you may be giving up. Be careful not to move into a food desert.

3) It's always better to live near people like yourself. Check average age, income, educational level, and yes, race.

4) Self-explanatory

5) Skim a few weeks of local newspaper headlines to see what's been going on, and what the people care about. Browse the meeting minutes of the last few local council meetings to get a sense of what they are doing. This should alert you to any meaningful controversies, and the direction of the area.

Note that this is just focused on land buying itself. There's a whole ton of other things to look for in houses, but I'll let someone more expert in that offer advice. Either way, whether you're buying raw land or one with a house on it, you'll need to check all these things.

 

[Darkholme's Dungeon]

Water rights in the western states are a big thing. Easement rights (make sure in paper). Larger properties survey since old survey lines aren't accurate.

Also talk to the county folks (don't tell them what you are building, if anything) and get an idea of how they are for building a house. Some counties are complete jackasses and make everything a slog because they hate new developments.

 

[Lord Xenu]

I like this site:

https://www.recreationland.net/

Listings usually cover the important stuff for your planned usage.

Edit: I didn't realize the site was Ontario only. Nobody wants to relocate here, not even other Canadians.

 

[WilliamDeLaPole]

When I bought land, I called various county services to ask questions, then went from there. They usually have federal and state websites on hand to give you the official data you're looking for. Sometimes, they didn't have a department for zoning and just told me to call the fire department to make sure my buildings are fire safe. In some cases, they have 100 year flood info and will print it out for you or email you. You usually can look up previous owner information on the county treasurer website.

If you're really worried, ask a real estate agent for their resources, they have access to listings that aren't available online and websites that let you look up information. Make sure you get a great title company that will answer any questions you have about the property as they find it. There's usually a standard property line included based on previous court info, but you need to directly verify if it's recent information and if it's been certified by a land survey. Land surveys are expensive, but they'll give you exact property line details. This is more likely a problem if you're way out in the boonies and there's little updated property line data. You could potentially find that the property you purchased was significantly more or less acreage than you paid for.

Look up local wells and how far down you have to drill to get to them. Check laws about water catchment. If you're in a region that gets a lot of rainfall, you likely can get away with surviving only on water catchment alone. Some places encourage rainwater catchment, others have barrel limits.

Be careful about endangered or protected species/habitats. You can't build at all within certain distances of them. Easements, HOAs, and deeded access are something you need to be careful about. Make sure access is directly detailed in the deed and not just a verbal agreement between the previous adjacent owners.

I also liked to watch those "driving through (location)" videos to see what the area looks like. Some places have a ton of videos like that, you can directly see what it looks like during the day and at night. If you're able to go to the location yourself, you should. You can also talk to your potentially future neighbors and ask anything you need. Some will be happy to help, others not so much, but how you choose to approach and the language you use can make a big difference.

In short, I recommend calling or visiting county offices and asking for resources. Ask a real estate agent to send you some off market listings. Talk directly to the neighbors if you can.

Edit: Also check for underground pipelines and cables beforehand.

 

[beholdachair]

These are the most important questions imo,

And for the next post's first list, directly below it, those points don't matter. Yes, I will make my case as to why. Though I started to like the list further down, that starts 'Who owns the land around it'.

The mindless would get land where there'a an HOA, and similarly care about the institutional failure called 'schools'. The mindful homeschool, and are off-grid. Some go further and get allodial title, removing it from the county altogether.

A remote piece of land with water, gas included (a well) in the deed, low population/aging county, no public transit. No way in hell that has anything to do with 'hook-ups', 'outages' or 'utilities'. Fuck all that.

If you're rural, the power quality will suck. DIY your own solar with an EG4 6000xp, 25kw of batteries and call it 'good'. Your power will be far more reliable than some Tesla-failed, boomer-tier shit, strung-up on old trees along the roads.

Probing tax sales in an area with less competition for land, may be of benefit to your search.

Speaking of roads, the land must have access. Someone else cannot just arbitrarily cut-off all access to a private piece of land. There has to be an easement. Now, the road/driveway may only be passable on horse, or on 4*4. You'll have to sort that out.

I hate to pick and choose. I scanned this thread instead of reading it intently. So on the last point, for checking on underground pipes, e.g. 811 will only mark public utilities. There can be plenty of undocumented plumbing: Do call, but then dig carefully.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

This is where you start your search - https://www.landwatch.com/land.

Great filters to narrow in on where you want and what your budget is. For instance, let's pretend I wanted to move to New Mexico and cook meth like Walter White, well I couldn't do much better than $6k for 62 acres in New Mexico with a stream and road access - https://www.landwatch.com/lincoln-county-new-mexico-recreational-property-for-sale/pid/420833004

 

[Antarctica_Bound]

Check out farm credit cooperatives for financing instead of regular banks, they typically have very good terms plus you become a part-owner of the co-op and get paid dividends when you borrow.

 

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

I understand that I need to go to the land personally, so when your on land what should you look out for that tells you this land is great to buy,

Go there in the driest, hottest part of summer and just listen. Do you hear birds and insects? That's a good sign, it means there is reliable groundwater and enough condensation from dew to support flying insects and spiders. Consistent presence of herbivores like groundhogs and deer are also a good sign.

Check topography to see if you are in a drainage basin for a river as sediments will drain downhill and accumulate in the lowlands.

And of course look at the plant life. Conifers are typically a first-stage forest reclamation of garbage soil similar to hackleberries and alianthus. A lush understory rich with moss and lichens is a good sign of fertile land once you clear the trees.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

There's an older book called "Finding & Buying Your Place in the Country" which you should thoroughly read.

The main take-away for you is - if you don't know what the fuck you're doing, buy something that is "ready to go".

In other words, don't buy land expecting to plop a trailer on it, buy land that already HAS the trailer on it. Yes, it may cost more upfront but you're saving yourself time and hassle down the road.

It is much MUCH harder for local governments to tell you to STOP doing what is already being done than preventing you from doing something that hasn't been done before - so if you have a trailer with septic they almost always have to let you repair/replace the septic, but if there's no septic they may put thousands of dollars worth of obstacles in your path.

You will NOT find a diamond in the rough; people aren't stupid and if a great deal were to appear it would be snapped up right away. What you CAN find is something where you don't care about the problems that scare others away: ugly trailer, bad location relative to the nearest big city, noisy road, next to the train tracks, etc.

Or move to the high desert where it doesn't really matter.