Category
Everything that comes after the closing. Water, power, septic, internet, and what it costs to put a roof somewhere that never had one. Most of it came from asking buyers what they actually did once they got out there.
The honest answer is that there is no national number. Published stocking rates run from 1.5 acres per animal unit in North Carolina to over 200 in West Texas. Here is how to get the real figure for the parcel in front of you, free, from the federal soil survey.
Mobile, manufactured and modular are three different things, and one of them has not described anything built since 1976. Here is what separates them, and why your county decides more than the manufacturer does.
Most writing about regenerative farming is aimed at somebody running a thousand acres. On a small dry parcel the principles still hold, the timelines are slower than advertised, and the water law decides more than the soil does.
Every rural internet comparison starts by asking for your street address. Here's what actually works on a parcel that doesn't have one yet.
In several states you are not the one who files the well permit, your contractor is. And owning the ground does not entitle you to the water under it. Here is who permits what, what it really costs, and the free hour of research that tells you how deep you will have to go.
A tiny home is not a legal category. It is an RV, a manufactured home or a site-built dwelling, and which one it is decides where it can go, how it is financed, how it is taxed and whether it holds value. Same house, three completely different outcomes.
Almost every county separates recreational RV use from living in one, and the line is a number of days. That number runs from 21 in six months to 180 a year depending on where you are. Here are the actual ordinances, including the one county that bans generators and the one whose widely repeated limit is wrong.
One average modern wind turbine implies roughly 290 acres of project area, so leasing a small parcel to a developer is not the question. The real one is whether a single small machine beats panels, and the federal cost data has a clear answer.
New Mexico did not legalize Earthships. It passed a two-acre research permit with a hundred thousand dollar surety that waives county ordinances only. On ordinary ground the building is an alternative method needing a sealed design, and the water loop collides with state law at the toilet.
Most off-grid articles describe a feeling. The thing that actually stops people is a permit: in every state we sell in, occupying a dwelling is gated by an approved means of disposing of sewage. Water, waste, shelter and power, in the order the county cares about.
While you are here
Pima County, AZOcotillo, cholla and prickly pear crowd a raised, flat pad across the middle of this acre, the natural spot for a home with a view of the Tucson Mountains. It sits in Diamond Bell Ranch about 33 miles west of Tucson, at 3,297 feet where summers run a little milder. Cell service is strong, and the zoning lets you build when you're ready.
Putnam County, FLArea photosHoot Owl Road is paved and power runs right past the lot, which is more than most of this old Satsuma subdivision can say. It's a quarter acre in St. Johns River country, twelve minutes from Palatka and a short run to Dunn's Creek and Crescent Lake. The lot is mapped wetland and most of it sits in a FEMA flood zone, so it's priced for what it is today.
Hudspeth County, TXArea photosGuadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas, sits about a half hour east of this ground, and the salt flats that set off a war in 1877 are closer than that. It's open desert outside Salt Flat, Texas, with no zoning and no HOA, so you can pitch a tent this weekend and build off-grid whenever you get around to it.
The Buyers List
New parcels come in all the time, and the good ones move fast. Join the Buyers List and we will send you a note when land that fits hits the site. A short welcome series, then new land as it comes in. Unsubscribe anytime.
One email at a time. Unsubscribe whenever you like, and we never share your address.
What you get
