Unrestricted Land

[John Smedrue]

I noticed a Real Estate Agent in North Carolina had some unrestricted land for sale pretty cheap
Unrestricted means you can do anything you want there
Have any of you bought such type of land and lived or live there?
Where are the best places to buy unrestricted land ?
Thanks

 

[Martian]

I would start with areas you might want to live. Hard for any forum members to know where you want to live.

 

[John Smedrue]

I would start with areas you might want to live. Hard for any forum members to know where you want to live.

Preferably an area where you can grow food with long summers. Like California Arizona , Nevada.
My question was does anyone here live on unrestricted land?

 

[Lou Schneider]

Unrestricted land is generally land that no one wants for one reason or another. One problem may be lack of available water. The 3 states you mentioned (Southeastern CA, Nevada and Arizona) are mainly arid desert lands relying on the Colorado River for their water, and an ongoing drought has made the river's flow very low for over a decade. Water storage reservoirs like Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam are at critically low levels. Cities like Las Vegas, AZ, NV) and agricultural users in those states are facing severe water restrictions including no longer being able to legally pump ground water. It's a serious ongoing problem and if the property you're considering doesn't include water rights you can't drill a well, even assuming there's water to be found. You may be able to collect some sparse rainfall off of roofs, etc. but for the most part you'll have to find a place where you can buy water and haul it in to your property, which can be very expensive.

 

[Utclmjmpr]

Also check to see what it will cost the bring in utilities,,, it can really get expensive and on your dime,..>>>Dan

 

[Oldgator73]

We purchased unrestricted land in Virginia. You can put pretty much what you want on it but there are some rules you still have to follow. We purchased a park model RV log cabin. Unbeknownst to us Virginia considers park models single wide mobile homes. We had to have everything inspected by the county. Before you purchase any land do your research at the appropriate offices to see what they require. Do not take a realtors word for it.

 

[John Smedrue]

Be sure you check on the availability of water rights on any land you're considering. There's a decade long drought in the 3 states you listed (CA, AZ, NV) and even cities and large agricultural water users are facing severe water restrictions including the ability to pump ground water. If your property doesn't include water rights you can't drill a well, even assuming there's water to be found. You may be able to collect some sparse rainfall off of roofs, etc. but for the most part you'll have to haul water in, which can be expensive.

A rain catchment system with a large cistern would take care of the water problem But could I build one big enough?

 

[John Smedrue]

Also check to see what it will cost the bring in utilities,,, it can really get expensive and on your dime,..>>>Dan

What about a solar system ?

 

[Oldgator73]

Also check to see what it will cost the bring in utilities,,, it can really get expensive and on your dime,..>>>Dan

Yes! It cost us $12,000 for electric and we still just have temporary power. We do have a spring on the property that can be used for water. A septic will cost us about $15,000.

 

[Lou Schneider]

A rain catchment system with a large cistern would take care of the water problem But could I build one big enough?

It's hard to collect water where it rarely or almost never rains.

Historically water is often more precious than gold in the western deserts. That's why there are so many ghost towns and abandoned settlements. People came to an area to dig out the gold and silver and used the proceeds to pay for supplies (and water) to be delivered to them, often over long distances. Lack of water made it impossible to grow food locally and once the gold ran out it became impractical to continue living there.

 

[John Smedrue]

You can't cache rainfall where it rarely rains. The technical definition of a desert is where the yearly evaporation rate exceeds the annual rainfall. It's hard to collect water where it rarely rains.

Water is often more precious than gold in the western deserts. That's why there are so many ghost towns and abandoned settlements. People came to an area to dig out the gold and silver and used the proceeds to pay for supplies (and often water) to be delivered to the town, often over long distances. Lack of water made it impossible to grow food locally and once the gold ran out it became impractical to continue living there.

There is a couple that built a rain catchment system in the desert with a large cistern. I cannot say if it supplies enough water year round and if they have to supplement.

 

[John Smedrue]

It's hard to collect water where it rarely or almost never rains.

Historically water is often more precious than gold in the western deserts. That's why there are so many ghost towns and abandoned settlements. People came to an area to dig out the gold and silver and used the proceeds to pay for supplies (and often water) to be delivered to them, often over long distances. Lack of water made it impossible to grow food locally and once the gold ran out it became impractical to continue living there.

I can see land with more rainfall than a desert might be a good idea

 

[Mountain high]

The 3 states you mentioned (Southeastern CA, Nevada and Arizona) are mainly arid desert lands relying on the Colorado River for their water, and an ongoing drought has made the river's flow very low for over a decade.

The Colorado River near our home near I-70 Colorado exit 49 is currently not in a drought. Although the media continues to report this river as bone dry. It's most definitely not. Plateau Creek which enters the Colorado at Exit 49 is right up to the highway's edge and it's a rushing rapid torrent the size of a river. 40 million people downstream are dependent upon the Colorado River.

National Weather Service Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service

National Weather Service Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (AHPS)

water.weather.gov

 

[UTTransplant]

You need a lot more education. Go look at Homesteader and maybe even Prepper forums. The RV part of your thoughts is the smallest part of it.

 

[Bobtop46]

The key to your plan is to buy a condemned single wide and land as far out in the country as possible. Demo the trailer and then use the services water, electric, and sewer. Just make sure that you certify the well and septic prior to purchase. You will be subject to county inspections on what you use the land for.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

You need a lot more education. Go look at Homesteader and maybe even Prepper forums. The RV part of your thoughts is the smallest part of it.

I think this is the best advice so far. You can make any area livable if you put enough money into it and are willing to accept some limitations on how you live (vs "city life").

Sun is plentiful in the Southwest but water is not. A good-sized solar set-up can do a lot, but if your lifestyle expects air conditioning you may still come up short. A cistern isn't much value where rain is limited some or all of the year. I have a friend in central Kentucky whose small farm house depends on a 1000 gallon cistern and he routinely runs out of water during the summer and has to have water trucked in to carry them over (and Kentucky gets a lot more rain than Arizona!).

I'm not familiar with any unrestricted lands in the Southwest, so I'd suggest identifying where such a thing might be and start assessing what would be needed to make it livable (and what you consider "livable' to mean).

 

[Utclmjmpr]

In the WEST,,, unrestricted means DESERT.. And that means federal government,, a bag you don't want to be in..>>>Dan

 

[Ex-Calif]

The key to your plan is to buy a condemned single wide and land as far out in the country as possible. Demo the trailer and then use the services water, electric, and sewer. Just make sure that you certify the well and septic prior to purchase. You will be subject to county inspections on what you use the land for.

To reiterate for OP "unrestricted" just means you can go residential, commercial or agricultural

(ETA - The other possibility as Utclmjmpr, says it could also be federal and that's a whole nuther kettle of fish. Although I wonder how much federal land gets sold to someone that isn't drilling, fracking or running a pipeline ;-)

I did almost what OldGator did but It was exactly what BobTop described. My property is Ag1(?) and outside city limits - less bureaucracy on what you want to do but...

Once you decide to do something with it there are county rules and permits.

My property was a collapsed 60 MH. There was a dead well and a septic tank and city power had been run in there but nothing hooked up for about 15 years.

I paid $6k for a new well, about $200 to have the septic pumped out and about $300 to have power hooked up, simply because I had to have a new meter box that met current code. I also put in a 50amp RV service for the RV.

I had another $500 or so in trenching and running buried 240V for the well pump. Another $500 or so to dig up, replace, relocate and fix the 4 inch sewer piping. Maybe another $500 in 1 1/2 inch water piping and trenching and faucets.

I had planned only to live in my RV but I decided later to install a 1700sq/ft mobile home. This required about $800-$1000 in trenching and buried 4 wire cable.

Note that in my County the "owner" can act as his own contractor on everything so I did all my own work, ensuring I met code and the county inspector gave me a green light. The only thing he wanted was a larger grounding cable for the power. Easy fix.

Note - all the prices above pretty much include the rental of trenching equipment.

Bottom line is when you get a piece of property you like, consult with the county on what you really want to do. My Land Contract included an escape clause if the county said that I could not do what I planned to do with the land.

Others are cautioning about services in a remote desert setting and I wholeheartedly agree. You may get a piece of land above an aquafer but you may not be able to get a permit to drill into it - your "rights" to resources under the ;land should be spelled out in the deed. Septic should be easy but as OldGator says I got a quote of $15k for septic as well. As far as a solar array to power a liveabord property you are talking 10s of 1000s IMO.

I will say that as a young man I worked at a sailplane camp in the California desert that had no water. We would haul 5,000 gallons of water in a military trailer and pump it up to the water tower. With a pump you could probably forego the tower but under the tower was also the crew shower - I can tell you there was no shortage of hot water after we made a ho****er bladder - LOL.

We also had a latrine pit which may not be legal today. Another option might be a porta potty?

 

[LMHS]

I used to live on "unrestricted" land in Southwestern NC. It had a house on it but we could have put anything on it. That is probably what is meant by "unrestricted".

My property was bordered on two sides by the Nantahala National Forest. We used to use a gravity spring that was on NFS property as it was feeding several houses (including ours) before the NF was extended to the spring. As long as the water flowed, they had to let us use it. Then one day, the water stopped flowing because the pipe was damaged and we were not allowed to fix it. So we plopped a pump onto the other spring that was right on the property line. The NF tried to stop us but their own property markers were 6" behind the springhead.

Never buy a piece of property sight unseen.

Make sure you have a deeded right of way into the property.

Do a title search. We once rented a place that was right on the Little TN River. The first summer we were there, 6 different people came up our driveway and told us they had bought some land from the sister of the owner that was on the backside of the house and surrounding fields. The sister could not sell any of that land. It wasn't hers to sell.

Make sure you are not in a flood plain.

And make sure you can put an affordable septic system in. It can get real expensive if you have to have the state engineers from Raleigh show up to design and approve installation of your septic system.

If you are buying in the mountains, hope the locals like you.

 

[Tulecreeper]

And listen for banjo music a'fore ya buy.