- As real estate has
gotten more expensive, people are looking for
more affordable options, like buying their own piece of land and living off-the-grid. Not all off-the-grid
property is created equal. And today, we're gonna
be going over the dangers of buying certain types of
off-the-grid properties, and which ones you
should absolutely avoid. Whenever you're going to any property, make sure you walk the
entire property line to see if there's any kind of junk or things that need to be
removed from the property. Now, you might think that
you've won the lottery if you come upon a
structure on a piece of land that's supposedly vacant. And you're looking to get off-the-grid, but it already has
utilities attached to it. So if you were thinking kind
of only going half off-the-grid and having county water and sewer, problem is this, to remove one of these structures is going to cost you, as
a buyer, a lot of money. So, always walk the property line, the whole entire property line, all the way around back and forth to see if there's
anything on that property that you don't want there. So that way, you can negotiate to have
that removed by the seller at the expense of the seller, not to you as the buyer. And not walk it just the one time. I want you to go there once it's raining, I want you to go to it when it's snowing, I want you to go to it when it's sunny 'cause you're gonna wanna know where the low parts and the high parts are on that piece of property. Wonderful, your piece of
property that you found is really close to water. But do you actually have
water access to this? Are you allowed to use
the water from this canal? If you find a piece of property and it butts up to a river, that doesn't mean you get
to use the river water on your property itself. You might have it all
the way up to that line, and then right at that shoreline, the river belongs to somebody else. So, make sure that you have
rights to that specific water. I've seen it where even utility companies have access to the water but you don't, so you can't even put your dock out there because it doesn't belong to you. One of the best pieces of advice I heard from a person that
lives off-the-grid was you do not want a piece of
property too close to society. And you don't want one
that's too far away. And what he meant by that was he didn't want one that
was too close to the city where he could hear the hustle
and bustle of everything, but he didn't want one
that was too far away, where he couldn't get to a local hospital, or he couldn't get to the local Home Depot within a 30-minute drive. Here's something that most
people don't think about when they're living off-the-grid. How close is the closest fire
hydrant to your homestead? You don't want anything
to happen to your home, and it catch on fire, and it's so far away from a fire hydrant, that your house goes up in flames. That's something you're
gonna wanna consider if you're planning on living off-the-grid. My camera is a little off angle, but you know what I mean (laughs). So I know that if you've
probably watched this video, you've probably watched five other videos about living off-the-grid. And I know a lot of those
videos will tell you not to use a real estate agent. Granted, I am a real estate agent, and I'm advising you to use one. If you're not going to use one, this is what I will advise. Make the piece of property
that you're buying is actually being sold
by a legitimate seller. There are websites out there
that have land for sale and it looks very official. You even go through this
whole process with a contract, and you think that you've
purchased this piece of land only to find out when
tax season comes around, you don't own it and you never did. So, I just want you to be
very, very alert and aware of the piece of property
that you're buying. Make sure the seller that's
selling it actually owns it. The best way to check to make
sure that those people own it is to go into the local tax records. They're public record. It's very easy to find, just type in the address or the lot number and look in that specific area, and you can see who the owners are and who the owners were previous, all the way down. I know a lot of people
are gonna be looking to do owner finance. And when you do owner finance, they ask for a large deposit and you make payments over time, which means you wouldn't
have the deed necessarily until the end of the period of the loan. If the person you've been
paying all these years didn't own that piece of land, who are you exactly paying? And who's property are
you living on anyways? So please check that out, please. I implore you as a real estate agent. One of the biggest things that happens with a lot of properties
when you're looking online, you don't understand
if it has access to it. And if it does have access to it, do you have right to that access? Whenever you're researching a property, find out what the access
to the property is and who owns that access. So that way, you know if you
have to maintain that road because it's going to belong to you after the sale of the property. Another thing you're gonna wanna know if it doesn't belong to you, are you gonna be able to be granted access by the person who actually
owns that road itself? These are the things you need
to research ahead of time. So that way, you know if this
is the right property for you and you're off-the-grid home. So, let's just say the
piece of land that you got is like way out in the
middle of Nowhereville. Think about one thing, Where are you gonna get your mail? Can you get a mailbox on your property or are you gonna have
to go to the post office and pick it up at a PO box? Is that something that even bothers you? And especially if you're looking for an eco-friendly type of homestead, having to travel and use
that gas to go get your mail could be a real problem. So that's something to consider when you're looking at some of these off-the-grid properties. Now, for some people that
are living off-the-grid, the trees are extremely important to them because they like the shade. Now, for other people that
are living off-the-grid, it's extremely important for
them not to have any trees because they're trying to
collect as much solar power and wind power as possible. You can always look at weather
maps to see how much wind actually goes through this specific area, to see how much wind energy
you're gonna be producing. And you're gonna be able to find out how much sunlight comes through as well. Man, it's busy on the river today. Now, there's tons of websites when it comes to finding
pieces of property. You can always look at
Zillow and realtor.com. But there's ones that are
specifically just for land like this one right here. I've said it before in previous videos, and I'll say it again. One of the most important
things you can look at when you're looking at a tract of land is the zoning. So, you can have a huge tract of land and part of it is considered mixed use, some of it is considered agriculture, some of it is considered wetlands. So, when you see the price of the land, and you're thinking, "Wow, that's a great deal for 120 acres." And you only find out that
only like two of those acres are available for you to build, and they happen to be in
the middle of Nowhereville, there's a reason why that
the piece of property was so expensive. Another trick you wanna know about buying an off-the-grid property is remember when I told you before to go look at the tax record to see who actually owns the property? They give you a tax evaluation of how much that piece
of land costs as well. So, even though the
taxes are always kind of a little off on the rolls, it will be close enough. And if they're way off, let's just say the taxes only say that piece of property is worth $6,000 and they're asking 25,000, that's some negotiating room. Do you know that even
the tax assessor knows that it's not worth that amount of money? So, just know that ahead of time, it's a little trickish to know, so you can get a better deal. Everybody likes a deal. I like a deal. I want you to get a deal. Another thing you wanna be careful of is the type of leases that might be already on
the piece of property. Always make sure, always make sure you have
a clear title search. And that's when you get into deeds. So what kind of deed restrictions does this particular property have? Now, let's talk about the type of deeds you can get with a piece of property. When you're looking to
purchase a piece of land, there are five main types
of deeds that you can use. The first one is a warranty deed. The second one is a special warranty deed. Then there's a quitclaim deed, usually to clear up any
kind of title issues or pieces of property
between family members. Then you have the bargain and sale deed, and then you have a grant deed. I won't be going into much
detail of all of these deeds because that would take a
whole entire another video. Just know the warranty deed is best, but most likely, you're gonna be getting
a special warranty deed. The one thing that stinks
about buying any piece of land whether it's off-the-grid or not, is HOA's and restrictions. Even though you think that
this piece of property is a rural piece of property
and nobody's gonna care what you're doing on it, trust me, you need to find out what the
HOAs and restrictions are. Especially if you're planning
on putting something in like an alternative housing
unit, like a tiny home, a container home. And just a little word of warning, if you have some neighbors
that are in this HOA, go to the HOA meeting before
you buy the piece of property to talk to them about your plans of purchasing this piece of property, and what you plan on doing with it. So, I suggest, always check with your
neighbors ahead of time. See if you're gonna get along with them. See if this is something
they will allow you to have. Even though you might not
have neighbors for miles, you wouldn't believe how
close that ends up being if they don't like you. If you wanna know some
more about buying land, go ahead and check out
this video right here. My name is Kristina Smallhorn,
Your Real Estate Whisperer. And I tell you all this because good real estate
information matters.
