Field notes

Land, plainly explained Page 7

Guides and honest answers about buying raw land, living on it, and making the most of your acreage. No jargon, no pressure, just what we would tell a friend.

A two-track dirt road climbing a golden grass hillside toward a large pine under a clear sky.

Buying Raw Land

Easements on Raw Land: Who Can Cross Yours, and Can You Reach Your Own

Most easement articles hand you a taxonomy. The question that actually decides whether a parcel works is whether you can legally reach it, and what somebody else is allowed to do on it once it is yours.

Nov 30, 202316 min read

A low rambling Earthship complex with skylights and a glazed cupola, sitting in sagebrush on an open plain below a long mountain ridge.

Living on Your Land

Earthships in Taos County: What It Takes to Actually Build One

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.

Nov 12, 202311 min read

A small weathered log cabin standing at the edge of dark conifers above a meadow of yellow wildflowers.

Buying Raw Land

How to Find Land for Your Vacation Cabin

The parcels that work for a cabin and the parcels that do not usually look identical in photographs. Here is what separates them, including why the 200 square foot permit exemption does not do what people think it does.

Nov 12, 202312 min read

A small white farmhouse and a weathered red barn standing in tall grass with a hazy mountain range behind them

Buying Raw Land

10 Things to Look for When Buying Your Custom Home Site

The house is the part you can change your mind about. The county, the soil and the property line are not. Ten things to settle before you buy the ground, in roughly the order they bite.

Sep 30, 20236 min read

A wide golden plain with scattered grazing livestock under a heavy bank of cloud.

Buying Raw Land

Your Parents Died Owning Land: What to Do First

Land left in a dead person's name does not sit still. It fractionates, it accrues unpaid taxes, and it can end up sold at auction or split among cousins who have never met. Every one of those is preventable, and all of the prevention happens early.

Sep 12, 20238 min read

An open sage flat running to a low mesa under a pale sky.

Buying Raw Land

Unrestricted Land: What That Word Actually Buys You

There is no legal definition of unrestricted land in any state we sell in. The word usually means no zoning or no HOA, which are two different claims, and six or seven other layers of restriction survive either way. Here is how to find out what really binds a parcel.

Aug 13, 202311 min read

An oil pumpjack standing in a green field under a heavy grey sky.

Buying Raw Land

Mineral Rights: What Rural Land Buyers Need to Check

An earlier version of this article told readers they were protected if somebody else owned the minerals under their land. The state regulators say close to the opposite. Here is what the mineral estate actually entitles its owner to do, and the free afternoon at the county that settles the question.

Jul 26, 20239 min read

A small dark-stained cabin in autumn woods, with a fire ring and turquoise lawn chairs on the leaf-covered ground out front.

Buying Raw Land

Buying Land to Build a Retirement Home: What to Check First

The parcel price is the part everybody checks and the part that almost never decides anything. What decides it is the soil, the water, how far you are from a hospital that admits patients, and when the title actually lands in your name. Three of those four you can answer before you spend a dollar.

Jun 15, 202311 min read

Tall straight longleaf pines standing in rows along both sides of a sand road.

Land Investment

Buying Land for Your Grandchildren: How It Actually Works

Land is one of the few things you can hand down that cannot be wired anywhere. It is also one where the difference between giving it now and leaving it later is measured in tens of thousands of dollars, and where four cousins on one deed can end in a forced sale.

May 15, 202310 min read

A small cabin standing alone on sagebrush ground in Costilla County, the snow-covered Blanca Peak massif filling the horizon behind it under a clear sky.

Living on Your Land

Living Off the Grid: What the County Will Actually Let You Do

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.

Jan 28, 20238 min read

Pale grassland running flat to a line of low banded mesas under a wide clear sky.

Land Guides by Location

Buying Land in Apache County, AZ: What's Actually For Sale

Two thirds of Apache County cannot be bought by anyone, and the third that can is higher, colder and more gated than the listings suggest. Here is what actually governs a build out here.

Oct 24, 201717 min read

A long snow-capped massif rising above a wide sage flat under deep blue sky, one small building at its base.

Land Guides by Location

Sangre de Cristo Ranches: What It's Really Like to Own There

Fourteen days of camping, a well permit with a flow meter, and septic before anything else. What owning five acres under Mount Blanca actually involves.

Aug 1, 201711 min read

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Off-Grid

CHECKOUT TEST - Earthsure Equity 2 - DO NOT PURCHASE

Synthetic property for verifying live checkout and payment routing. Not a real parcel.

CHECKOUT TEST - EPeterson EV Roth - DO NOT PURCHASE

Synthetic property for verifying live checkout and payment routing. Not a real parcel.

CHECKOUT TEST - Earthsure Equity 1 - DO NOT PURCHASE

Synthetic property for verifying live checkout and payment routing. Not a real parcel.

The Buyers List

See new land before it goes public.

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.

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