Do you own lots of land ( > 2 acres)? If so, what are the biggest downsides?

[K1052]

I lived on a 5 acre plot of mostly grass for about 10 years.

I. Am. Never. Cutting. Grass. Again. Ever.

Will own a condo until my death.

 

[lxskllr]

I've helped a friend take care of a big property the last few years. I hate every bit of it. It's an endless job. I work outside anyway, so after I was finished sweating my ass off 8 hours a day, I got to do some more sweating for dessert.

If you're gonna have horses, fenced areas take out a lot of the work. The horses will handle it. Of course, then you have horses. All the money of boat, 25% of the fun, and horse people are insane.

 

[Zivic]

my thoughts are they aren't making any more land. if you have the opportunity and the funds I say go for it. 7 acres isn't that much. It might take a yr or 3 to get it under control and maintainable, but it wouldn't be of much concern to me. I have my house on an 8.3 acre piece. we farm 6.5-7 of it now and I maintain about 1.3 acres of grass.
if and when we are done farming the remainder and I had to maintain, I would simply plant native prairie grass with some trees. It will require 2, maybe 3 mows a yr for the first couple yrs, but you could always hire that out if you don't think you could handle it. I have neighbors with 3 acres the only maintain .5-1 acre of it.

 

[Ns1]

Zivic do you have a 9-5 day job on top of that?


I'm so glad I posted this thread.

 

[paperfist]

I used to have 3 acres. Mowing sucked. Sucked bad.

 

[waffleironhead]

I have 60 acres. Only about 2 acres are mowed/maintained. The rest is hay field, pasture and forest. The land is primarily used as a buffer from idiot neighbors.

 

[Zivic]

Zivic do you have a 9-5 day job on top of that?


I'm so glad I posted this thread.

I'm a farmer so I'm always/never working... When I moved onto the property I got rid of all the flowers/gardens and put in all grass. I bought a good zero turn mower. I mow every 4-5 days if I can, and string trim every other mow. It takes me roughly 25 minutes to mow. I just run down from my buildings (a mile away) during the day when I have my people set up packing and mow quick and come back.

 

[Ns1]

ah I see. totally different lifestyle.

 

[Ns1]

I'm eyeballing 45 acres of desert/forest land zoned for what I need to do.

Pros: it's a blank canvas and its beyond awesome and there's no grass.

Cons: it's in wildfire country and its a blank canvas

Decisions decisions....





Profanities replaced. Please keep the language above the OT level.
admin allisolm

 

[Red Squirrel]

it's my dream to own tons of acreage one day, idealy at a lake or that has a lake on it. Though most importantly, in a place where I can do what I want and don't have stupid red tape bylaws etc every time I want to build something.

As far as work, it can be as much work as you make it out to be. With that much land, I'd probably build right in the middle, and keep most of it wooded. But if you decide one day you want your own landing strip, or a wide open area, or anything, you can get to work. But you don't have to. Make a small yard, garden w/e and that can be the extent of the work. The wooded area is yours, so no need to worry about ever losing it to some development. So it's still nice to own that much land even if you may not fully use it.

For protection against wild fires I would make sure there is a decent area cut around your actual house, and perhaps look into a sprinkler system and pump that will water the entire area including the roof. Something you can fire up in an emergency before you get evacuated. When there was some fires here some people did that to their cottages and it actually saved it. They ended up with some melted siding and that's about it.

 

[momeNt]

You could buy an air conditioned tractor that pulls a mower as opposed to a ride-on mower.... then you don't have to worry about temps or humidity on mowing days.

 

[momeNt]

my thoughts are they aren't making any more land. if you have the opportunity and the funds I say go for it. 7 acres isn't that much. It might take a yr or 3 to get it under control and maintainable, but it wouldn't be of much concern to me. I have my house on an 8.3 acre piece. we farm 6.5-7 of it now and I maintain about 1.3 acres of grass.
if and when we are done farming the remainder and I had to maintain, I would simply plant native prairie grass with some trees. It will require 2, maybe 3 mows a yr for the first couple yrs, but you could always hire that out if you don't think you could handle it. I have neighbors with 3 acres the only maintain .5-1 acre of it.

Isn't 6-7 acres too little to subsist on? Isn't gross revenue per farming acre something like $700? That's revenue not even accounting for any costs. Are you farming other people's land?

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Could you subdivide the 7 acres into lot sizes that would be more manageable? Then you can sell off what you don't feel like maintaining. A couple of acres is plenty of room for a horse I would think.

 

[Ns1]

2 lots for sale, prime locations

$250k - 2 acres, barn + corral + electricity hookups, proof of water but no well onsite
$299k - 5 acres (~3ish flat and usable for building), no utilities on site but close by

decisions decisions....

 

[Red Squirrel]

With that much land you can also go partially off grid too, so you'd save a shit ton in the long run. Outdoor wood boiler for heat and solar array / wind turbines for power.

 

[Ns1]

How much does it cost/day to heat a 2k sqft house with a wood boiler? Sounds expensive...

 

[NutBucket]

Propane is still cheapest for heating.

 

[Jerem]

Depends on the insulation, outside vs. inside temp, how long you spend inside, time of year you buy your fuel. I'm on propane and August is cheapest for that by about 25%. Not that it would be the same for you but I spend around $700/yr heating 2800sf. in rural Central Ca.

 

[Fardringle]

As others have said, it really depends on what you intend to do with the land, and if there are local regulations that say that you have to keep it "maintained" or not. We have 10 acres, and only about 1 acre of it is actually maintained around the house, patio/fire pit, and the driveway. The rest is wild woods and I like it that way.

We do go around once in a while to clean up some of the deadfall to use for firewood, but otherwise let the forest take care of itself. The wildlife prefer it that way, too, and we get many furry visitors year round including fox, deer, moose, large raptors (hawks and falcons) and lots of little critters like squirrels, chipmunks, and hummingbirds.

Horses are expensive, and probably even more upkeep cost and time than just mowing the lawn/weeds would be...

 

[Ns1]

Horses are expensive, and probably even more upkeep cost and time than just mowing the lawn/weeds would be...

no horses planned, just corgis and sheep.

 

[nakedfrog]

How much does it cost/day to heat a 2k sqft house with a wood boiler? Sounds expensive...

Geodesic dome house!
It sounds like we have somewhat similar plans and concerns, except I'd be up in the PNW. I'm aiming for the "cut grass around the house and leave the rest to the trees" idea.

 

[Ns1]

Have you seen these modern prefab houses? I can buy a piece of land for ~50k, drop ~100k in foundation work, add another ~150k on a prefab (ie HOMB), and it would still be cheaper than anything in my local area.

Off the Grid Solar seems reasonably easy with the various home batteries (ie Tesla PowerPack) and solar panel options. Water though, that's a much different story. I imagine in PNW you can just do rain barrels, here in SoCal I'd probably have to truck that shit in or pay for a hookup.

I can definitely make this geodesic dome house idea work.

 

[Ns1]

damn nakedfrog you blew my mind with these dome houses, now I gotta find out how much it'll cost to build this in SoCal.

https://naturalspacesdomes.com/domes_for_sale.htm#California

 

[mxnerd]

You can go off-grid with Earth-Ship, much prettier than prefab

Self sustaining, solar panel, rainwater, cool house in the summer, warm in the winter, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=earthship

 

[Ns1]

You can go off-grid with Earth-Ship, much prettier than prefab

too much "slab city" for me....and I imagine zoning/code challenges in SoCal...