LOOK FOR THESE 8 THINGS WHEN BUYING HOMESTEAD PROPERTY

hey you guys this is josh and carolyn with homesteading family and welcome to this week's episode of the pantry chat food for thought this week we're going to be talking about the eight things you need to know when buying homestead property [Music] all right so today we're going to be talking about the top eight things we think you need to know when buying a homestead property and this is specifically on buying the property not relocating we just did a pantry chat not too long ago on the overall relocation and so that's a little broader topic we're going to dive in here today on some essentials to focus on when you're actually buying a piece of property yeah this is really important there are a lot of people buying new pieces of property right now they're getting out of the city looking for land in the country looking for a home in the country it's kind of a really big movement right now i was just reading a statistic where in new york city alone over about three months 420 000 people have left and that was just an example we're seeing that all over the country we're feeling here in our area people moving in and i know a lot of you in the country are seeing that so it's very relevant right now people are looking at land looking to relocate and buy new property now if you're one of those people this is such an important topic because if you get on a piece of property that's not set up well for homesteading you can have problems for a really really long time so it's great to take these things into consideration make sure you get the property that's going to work for you and for your family long term and even if you're not relocating to a large homesteading property even a suburban lot or somewhere where you're getting away from the city and away from the density all of this still applies so it's really important even if you're going small scale yeah but hey before we get into main topic today yeah we always throw a little chit chat around and answer a question so what is going on with you what you up to the green beans are here yeah it's green bean season um i've got about 17 quart jars of green beans cooling back here that we just canned last night and so we've got that was first picking that's just the start yeah and so it's going to be about every third day for weeks now that we're going to be up there picking green beans and then canning them and eating them so that's going to keep us hopping for a while which is fun i love green beans i i love the process of green beans maybe it's kind of a romantic picture of sitting in a rocking chair snapping green beans watching the kids play you know it doesn't always actually play out that way but in my mind it does so i really like them well for a couple of type a personalities it's a great place to get something done but be relaxed and visit especially at the end of the day so it's a good uh yeah that's a good way to go and you know what was really special this round on green beans is great grandma genie has moved in with us and so she helped me snap green beans for the whole evening just the other evening and uh that was just a really special time getting to sit and snap green beans with her you jumped in multiple people jumped in so generations it really was green beans it was really neat but then we just finished the county fair too yeah we did that was fun oh yeah the kids turned in i don't know a dozen something different entries between them we had jellies jams carrots multiple flowers a bunch of drawings lego creations but yeah a lot of different stuff garden stuff and yeah they did great they did really really well we ended up with a couple of best in classes and a reserve grand champion for hollyhocks for the hollyhocks yeah flowers so cool anyways that was really fun that's always a fun moment it's kind of stressful getting everything turned in and done on time but it's always really rewarding and the kids get a lot out of participating oh butter we got best in class for brianna made butter that's right sure did that was new one yeah we don't think we've done a butter entry before yeah yeah so yeah anyways that was a lot of fun what about you what have you been up to wow well maintaining the garden it's august and so it's finally hot here so we're having to make sure we're keeping the water going and keeping ahead of the weeds which is going well and miscellaneous projects we've got the addition we're starting so working on that framing is going to start soon and buddy of mine is coming up to help us with that yeah so we can frame that up ourselves and um firewood just starting to get the firewood logs stacked up here near the house so we could start bucking them up and getting ready for winter it's hot right now winter is about the furthest thing on our minds and it's hard to think about firewood but here in north idaho it's actually not that far away we are probably less than two months from our first fire yeah well we often have our first uh hard freeze mid-september here to yeah um and then you know so it's not not long before it's cooling off so yep yeah cool weather's coming i'm not quite ready for it yet i need a few more dips in the water yeah a little more sunshine but it's coming so we got to get ready that sounds good okay so we have before we jump in the main topic we were going to answer a question here question um we can both answer it i think all right sue magyari on our last pantry chat the apartment to 40 acres says i have a question why sheep what are you doing with the sheep selling wool for fiber eating the meat i'm curious because i started with sheep and i always wonder what the practical uses are because we started wishing right i can i've also heard that they're a bit difficult to keep healthy so she goes on with other questions regarding that same thing yeah but um but good question really good question absolutely well one we like a well-rounded uh food supply yeah uh two sheep have a good place they graze differently meaning that we'd like to have different meats to choose from when we're working out of the freezer right absolutely right yeah so we like to have different types of foods exactly they're also have a different impact on the land and they graze different plants in the cattle so they're they're very beneficial in a holistic system yes um what are a couple of reasons i know you like sheep and that leads into the sheep that we have i like the wool i like the fire from them and i do we do actually get them shorn you can shear them yourself we have never developed that skill i guess ourselves or the equipment that makes it doable on a on a scale that we would need to work on right um so we bring somebody in he shares twice a year for us and then at least a portion of the wool ice into a local fiber mill that spins it for me and turns it into yarn so i can knit with it all winter or do different crafts with it so i love that the sheep are dual purpose depending on which type of sheep you get sometimes triple purpose um and so we can get the meat and we can get the fiber we just love lamb i know a lot of people feel like it's very gamey flavored and then they'll come and have lamb at our house and they'll go wow i didn't know it could taste like they could be so good so it's very very delicious when it's raised well and um raised on grass right and they can be difficult to care for but they don't have to be and that's that's too much to go into right now but you can find breeds that are very hardy yes and you need the right breed for your land and so we've chosen breeds that are very easy to take care of they tend to be a little more skittish a little more independent but they're very low maintenance so you just got to research your breeds if you're thinking about that find out what's right for you so people are going to ask about that though what breed do we have we have icelandic but the icelandic wool is not next to skin wool that's because they have hair and wool but it's very very tough and very durable so it's noted to be used for things like carpets for rugs for crafts like that that you need something that's going to be very very durable over clothing right but then we also have gautlins which have very very nice wool for next to skin uses so that would be like a merino type of wool so you can actually put that right on your skin so it's nice for things like beanies or sweaters or shirts or whatever you want for that and the icelandic really provides the low maintenance the hardiness the goblins provide the wool and we are looking at bringing in another breed i don't know what yet because we'd really like to increase the size a little bit for meat production they're a little small so just a few things to consider there yeah great questions all righty well we better move along and get into topics and eight things that you really need to know when you're buying a homesteading property these are just things that are important not about relocating but more about just buying property and setting yourself up getting started on a homestead right good okay so the first one is access that's right and this is one a lot of people don't think about and there are about three parts to access one there's the legal part most people understand that think about it but we have seen people buy property and not look in the access find out they don't have legal access that's what title searches are for title reports title insurance you need to make sure you have proper legal access but that's usually where people stop yeah they don't really consider some of the other issues and especially when you're getting into rural country access may go through somebody else's property it may go through national property it sometimes gets longer and so then there's a lot of logistics of maintaining that access and what happens to the road through different seasons of the year that can cause you a lot of problems for getting in and out of your driveway maybe during mud season or snow season and it can also cause a lot of expense absolutely to get your road usable so you really need to think about that that ideal property out in the country with the long dirt road which i always wanted and we've lived on we've had over two miles of dirt road at one point and that can be really neat but if you're not ready to deal with it to deal with your neighbors who's responsible for what section who's doing what what are the conditions like how often does it wash out how often do you get snows that you may not even be able to plow who's going to plow all those things you've really really got to consider along with the cost of it and make sure and factor that into the overall cost and plan because you may have to do road improvement you may need a tractor you're going to have neighbors that have opinions about how to maintain the road if you're sharing it with somebody that's a whole other discussion that's part of access so all these things need to be considered very very important because if you don't have good access and you can't afford to or physically maintain good access it doesn't work and we actually saw a family not too long ago up here by 80 acres beautiful land i would love that land we considered it when we were shopping and they were selling it because of the access issues and they were i mean they were a serious hearty family knew how to how to make it out there roughing it but the access just became too much the issues with it and all of these things had a play in it and they had to give it up so let me take this to a really practical level if you're looking at property and it's got some long driveway and especially if you're saying something like well all we have to do is put a road in go get an estimate for that driveway before you purchase the property because it could be astronomical and talk to neighbors or people in the area to know what is the maintenance going to be realistically find out that plan so you know what your costs are what equipment you need and just what you're going to deal with there just may be times where it's not passable or it's a lot of work before it is passable right and you've got to be able to deal with that good okay so number two is water yes this is really important especially if you're going to be growing anything right yeah well yeah growing anything washing anything drinking water and this is one again that people tend to overlook especially when you start to get out into the country you'll have a piece of a piece of land it's out there ways you're really excited it doesn't have municipal water of course that's kind of a no-brainer if it's got municipal water but you may want to back up you may not have municipal water and i've seen a lot of prop people buy land without water on the idea that that this is a good place to drill a well where you can develop a spring that is a bad bad deal don't do that well so what would you do if you're looking at a piece of property you love the property but it doesn't have a well on it you think everything else fits and you want to make an offer on that property how would you handle that you negotiate the drilling of a well into the price okay even if even if it has to increase the price do it in the sale negotiation but it's contingent that you get water okay and you get a certain amount of water you know whatever whatever you think you need i mean a minimum of like five six gallons a minute you should have but that all depends on what you're doing and family size and everything you're gonna do but negotiate that in so that if you can't hit water for a reasonable amount of price or have the owner do it then you can step away from that property i've seen people drill mo multiple wells after buying a piece of property and sink tens of thousands of dollars into the land and not get water or have it be so expensive that then they're curtailed on other things they need to do before they hit water so have that worked out and of course you might have a spring on hand that's great you need to know the reliability of that over time and what's the infrastructure or what's it going to take you also need to know who has the rights to that spring which is very important because just because there's a spring on your property does not necessarily mean you own all the water rights right every state is different as well yeah and we had to deal with that in buying this property and it had great water has great water but we did have to negotiate and work out the rights to make sure we had that secured of course some other areas you may be going off grid you may be you know working on water collection which can be great but again those are expensive systems and so have a plan know what you're going to do and have the water worked out if you can before you buy the property don't rely on what might happen in the future right that's just can be devastating and this is an order priority access is your first priority then water and of course next we get to power yes good and um you know there's regular power municipal power right or off grid we recommend especially if you're new to this way of life don't start with off grid we haven't even gotten off grid yet we're going to but there's a lot of other things that are more important and you can have a lot of backup systems you can end up chasing around your off-grid system so hard trying to make them work trying to maintain them trying to just get through your everyday life working with your off-grid systems that you end up not having the time or the ability to actually develop the skills you'd need to truly go off grid and cut all of those systems too so it's been very important to us develop to develop the skills first to where if we go off grid it's not a big deal or if the power goes off it's not a big deal right so approach it from being able to uh save your time to work on the skills first and one more on this so say you're buying rural a lot of times with rural properties there may be municipal power available but it's not on the property yet and you may be told it's close close is relative and so you need to know when you're looking at that property where is it you've got to go to the power company you need to find out all the costs associated i have built a lot of homes in rural property and we've built several of our own and developed places and even on this place in building mom and dad's house i made the mistake of relying on what a few contractors told me and it ended up costing a lot more um because it just couldn't work the way we thought it could we knew where the power was and but we didn't get the power company out there until later and it became a different deal so anyways do all those things before you buy the property make a contingency in your offer if you have to but make sure you have a plan and you know your cost because that's another cost that can get way out of hand and all of a sudden you're by the time you get through that your budget's getting eaten up yeah or you've got some things that are very hard to overcome so you really really you've got to have those things worked out okay now this next one may be a little bit controversial to some people because i think we all have this romantic image of moving out maybe the next few actually are maybe a little a little controversial but you know moving out onto this piece of land and building our home and you know the log cabin from scratch beautiful dream it's a beautiful dream but but be careful yeah and so we would advise you really not to buy raw land um you're going to be dealing with some of these other issues that we're already talking about but then you've got to build a house on top of it that's a whole nother journey and there's so many skills there's so much to do trying to build a home develop the land gain skills grow food you've only got so many hours in the day and honestly it doesn't matter how much money you have you can even only hire so many people and do so much at one time even if you have those kind of resources so be very very careful and we would recommend that you you don't start buying raw land buy a piece of property that's um got a home on it that is um is good is in good shape i guess we'll talk about that in a second um it's just a lot to do so look for a home that meets your needs and a piece of property yeah yeah yeah absolutely and i think that goes hand in hand with the next one right which is you know those old farm houses hundred-year-old farm houses are beautiful and they fit right into it we almost did we were looking at a house that was built in 1902 and it was a farmhouse it was set up on 100 acres absolutely it was beautiful i think that the best piece of advice i heard about this is the best way to have an old-fashioned heart farmhouse is to buy a new house and remodel it to look old because old houses come with a lot of problems absolutely they come with a lot of baggage and there's another expense right there's another expense that starts to stack up and so be very very careful when you're choosing a house you want to make sure the house is in a good location on your property one of the things i tell people is try not to go too far from your main access wherever the property line is and the road is a lot of people want to be tucked in and you want privacy but the farther back you are the more challenges you have with getting to it and whatnot so pick a good location good orientation try to get a home that's got good orientation to take advantage say if you're in a northern climate southern western solar exposure different things like that make sure it's in good shape you know you don't i mean you're going to have repairs you're probably going to have things you want to do you might want to find a deal and a fixer-upper that's great but make sure it's doable and this is where you really want to get a home inspection yes again i've built homes all my life managed property and i still want a professional home inspector because he comes in he does that every or she and does that every single day right and so they're going to find things that you might not find and they're at least going to help you have a realistic perspective of what the home needs the condition that it's in and make sure that you can handle that right absolutely okay good well so next we get into you've got your home we get into infrastructure buy property with infrastructure or put infrastructure in and this is not quite so much a do or don't because it's a challenge to find the right balance it's nice to have infrastructure but old infrastructure can need a lot of money too well and i think right now there's a lot of people wanting to move out to the country wanting to start gardens wanting to start chickens maybe raise some meat maybe have some milk goats and you know there's this sense of urgency that people are feeling right now of like wow our food system is a little shaky right now right now absolutely let's get out there and start working right away and you know again there's only so much that you can do in any day in any year there's only so much that you can accomplish having good quality existing infrastructure just moves you ahead honestly probably a year or two because you're not back there building the chicken coop or fencing the garden or all of these basics you're moved ahead to where you can just jump in and start working and that is really really important timewise but make sure that the bare bones it may be fixer-upper but make sure that the bare bones are solid because some of those old properties things are falling down they look really neat they look really cool but all of a sudden you get in there and start using them and you find they need major especially structural renovations or roofing renovations which does not save time in the long run right right so if that's the case you know then maybe you can build your infrastructure over time you just really got to look at everything really carefully obviously and if you can find it great some other good infrastructure if you can find homes that have shade trees in the right places if you look at the old farms they didn't have electricity they didn't have air conditioning they learned how to put trees in the right place that created shade in the summer let light in in the winter maybe provided wind breaks so um if you can find something like that that's a real real asset and consider that it's very very valuable than you know starting from scratch all right then the next one is to be careful about how much land you buy i know right now everybody's like i want 100 acres out in the in the country right that's right it does sound nice and it sounds nice to give yourself some room around you some padding especially if you're coming from the tight city yep but the reality is is having too much land is actually just as crippling as having not enough land well the more you have the more you have to take care of you know 100 acres fenced is great but you've now got 100 acres of fencing that you have to repair or maintain yes and that list goes on and on so make sure you buy within your means or at least if you're gonna buy larger land make sure that it's set up in a way that you don't have to jump in and to do too much or make too much plans you can start with your local zones we call them in permaculture your zone one your zone two get a handle on things and the rest of it can just sit and you can grow in time okay so the zone one zone two meaning the stuff right around your house right right closer to your reach that takes less movement to maintain improve develop whatever you're doing and and you know if you go and buy a hundred acres and the fences are kind of falling down and you go and put cattle on there and you're having a chase fence for the next two years and then you can't deal with the problems with your new house or your garden or whatever there's a million things like that that happen so don't buy don't bite off too much start with what you can handle and either buy a smaller piece of property or buy a piece of property that the larger areas can wait and don't plan to go into them until you get your closer zones under control and manageable i think it's really important to note that you can grow a huge amount of food on a very small amount of acreage if you have good acreage you do not need 40 acres you don't need a hundred acres if you are a small family a couple acres you would be amazed at how much food you can grow on just a couple of acres you really can and even the right five acres you can put a few animals on it even a larger animal like a dairy cow if you've got a few acres or pasture you know it depends you got to weigh all that out but as carolyn's saying you can do a lot on little if you manage it well take care of it well and it's the right land which gets into the last one here number eight which is to make sure you're buying land that's appropriate for the activities you want to be participating in as a homesteader right there's not a right or wrong answer as far as what's the right kind of land the homestead on right we're all different we have different interests we have different resources what are we going to do on the land are you going to be gardening focused you're going to be animal focused maybe you're going to have a small garden and you're going to blacksmith or you're going to do something else and maybe you love wood and you want some timber so make sure it fits what your plans are and be realistic about what you can do and get the right land that's appropriate for that i think that in summing up all of these points the the big thing here is don't react in panic to the current world events and go out and just grab the first piece of land that you ride right cheapest thing you find or the most romantic beautiful thing you find right we've spoken to a couple people who are looking for land right now and the houses the properties are selling so fast that they start to feel like they've got a scramble and make a really quick decision as soon as something comes on the market it is better to slow down stay where you're at for a little bit longer and make the decision that's going to serve you long term with a little bit of extra planning a little bit of counsel from you know getting estimates for things talking to the right people than it is to make this quick change and end up on a piece of property that you're going to wish you hadn't bought in a few years down the line absolutely and just kind of picking up off that as we start to wrap up we did a video not too long ago that has a broader discussion of relocating and a lot of the other elements you want to consider so you can go check that out to dive in a little bit deeper absolutely yeah but buying a property in the country is a great thing it can be a wonderful amazing experience and if you set it up correctly it can really help you to just have a great i guess foundation for the projects that you want to do and for starting to fill your pantry fill your freezer do whatever it is you want to do on the homestead i have at least one more i just thought of oh yeah that's really important okay find out and get to know about your neighbors oh yeah go talk to them know who you're living around before you buy a piece of property and just get a feel for them talk to them ask them how what do you think about somebody moving in here and and you know it's a good time to take some intro some interest in them and find out about the access or water in the area and all the different things you want to know make sure and get to know your neighbors first yeah it's really good if you're looking at moving out to the country to take them a pie or something when you go to ask them take something as an offering that's always a good way to start but hey i have a question for you we don't have soil on this list no we don't isn't soil really important if you're going to move to a piece of property and you want to grow things did i say that did i say soil is really important well you know maybe it's dirt so in general right if you know us you know i'm always talking about soil and how important soil is that is an excellent point right because soil is very important but unless you're working on a commercial level which is not what we're talking about here then yeah you really want to get into soil profiles and understand if you're doing some particular type of larger scale agriculture but for most gardening and even small-scale grazing you can improve the soil okay so a lot of things you can do ecologically biologically to improve your soil and grow a better garden over time takes time takes resources and it can be a consideration you're right but it's not in in the top here okay because you can work with a lot of things if you're not commercially minded if you're going to a larger scale then that's a different discussion unlike some of these other things on our list soil is not permanent and you can adjust it over time you're not going to fix access issues or water issues right but you can fix your soil so it's not so important to choose a property based on the soil it's not yeah it's not that high up on the list if you can get there and you can include that in in the property profile that is a great thing that's a wonderful thing yeah but like you said that you've got some more flexibility there were some of these other core issues you just don't and it's it's a deal killer if you don't have some of these things worked out great hey guys it's been great hanging with you and we will be talking to you really soon goodbye [Music] you

Channel: Homesteading Family

Views: 28,487

Rating: 4.9654536 out of 5

Keywords: Homesteading, Self-Sufficiency, Sustainable, Living, Permaculture, Homesteading Family, Food Preservation, buying land, buying land for homesteading, how to buy land, real estate, buy land, buying raw land, what to look for when buying land, homestead land, urban homesteading for beginners, buy land and build your own house, buy land to build house, buy land or house, buying raw land to build a house, tips for buying raw land, how to buy land and build a house

Id: udSNQjCU714

Length: 28min 49sec (1729 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2020