Buying land advice

[Mpg964]

Hello, I was just wondering if anyone had advice for finding land to build a yurt on. Im looking more in the eastern part of the US. Im also looking to do some small live stock farming. Any recommendations of unrestricted places would be awsome or just some general sites/companies for some good land deals nothing huge maybe under 10 acres unless its a super good deal and maybe owner financeing/lease. Im really open to all suggestions or recommendations and compromises. Thanks a ton hope everyone is staying safe!

[Bob Rowlands]

Can't help you directly. For our story about raw land, upon which I built our home-and three yurts- read on.

We bought 2.5 acres of undeveloped land in the county back in 1987. My wife is an amazing woman. She looked and looked, and we saw a few places but no dice. Too expensive as a rule. Somehow she found this property for a reasonable price. It was affordable then, but not now. We bought this for 27K. Now the few lots left 33 years later are 300K. People are greedy, and they ask for absolutely top dollar because this area is in BIG demand. Cost has absolutely no tie to wages. It is all about zeros and greed.

As a broad generalization, there just aren't enough zeros in the upper income bracket. When it comes to any property, from raw land to developers to builders to real estate people, it is all about how many dollars they can get and it is tough grits for the buyer. That is the simple truth. Greed rules like 99% of the time when it comes down to it, on the upper end of wheelers and dealers. Real world wage earners -me over my entire career- are chump change.

We sold our condo in 2017 to pay off our house loan. We had it priced at 130K and the market is sooo hot we had 10 bids on it in 18 hours, and sold it for 140K. We could have sold it for more but that paid off our loan, the agent, taxes, and we had a few K left over, so good enough.

That same condo is now selling for 170K, just 3 years later. Why? Greed plain and simple. They can get it because the Springs is a VERY hot market. Alot of folks come here from CA and pay CASH because they sold their place for BIG money, and still after buying these ridiculously priced homes here, STILL had 200K left over! Satchels full of cash baby. The greed in the big zeros bracket which defines the wealthy and property, there is NEVER enough zeros in their income. That's the absolute truth. The marketplace drives the pricing, and when it is in demand the price escalates RAPIDLY.

So my suggestion is, find land in a low demand area. Wish I had something more to offer but that is it. Good luck.

[Mpg964]

This was wonderful thank you so much for sharing your story and i appreciate you taking time out of your day to share the knowledge.

[Bob Rowlands]

To be fair, the residential market is cyclic. The flip side to the current hot free market, is to buy inb a flat market. An example is, folks that have their income halved from a husband or wife being let go, become desperate to sell property -price drop!- in a market glutted with foreclosures from other folks that can't make the payments either. In that down market prices of property and homes plummet. Greed goes out the window when you are desperate to sell.

That cycle has happened here many times over the many decades I have been a carpenter. I personally know builders that not only made no money for all their time and efforts, but had to >take money to the closing table< in order to get out from under a construction loan. The worst case scenario was a builder I used to work for that built a house and took 77K! out of his pocket to get out of the loan. The place just would not sell and it was a nice home on a beautiful piece of land.

So pricing relates to feast or famine market.

Just wanted to show the other side of hot market. The ideal time to buy is in a flat market. Not only can the price be negotiated down -as opposed to a bidding war- but you can make demands of getting new paint and carpet.

There are always two sides to the story. There you go. Good luck.

[Bob Rowlands]

Cost of home loans is currently about 3%. When we closed our home loan in April 2000 we paid 7.75%. Then refinanced years later at 6 3/8ths. Then a few years later at 5%. It is currently about 3% here. Now that my friend is mind blowing RECORD low! When Jimmy Carter was U.S. president in ~1980 loans were 18%! 18% vs 3%. If you need a loan to complete your goal, consider those numbers. OK that's all I got. Good luck.