# Does everyone want 5 acres of untouched land?



## HornyGoatsFarm (Aug 12, 2014)

I'm considering renting land cheaply to some homesteaders.

But I don't know what kind of land would be most ideal to do so.

How much does size matter when it comes to finding rentors? Is residential or just land most wanted?


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## FireMaker (Apr 3, 2014)

Would this be long term type lease? Would you allow them to build a cabin and required buildings to house critters? Contract specifications are important. Need to protect both parties. I know of some folks in IL that would consider it and others up in MN. Really depends on what the ground has to offer. Water, place to grow, place for critters, shade, wood lot to manage are just a small number of factors. Distance to settlement will have different impact on folks.


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## HornyGoatsFarm (Aug 12, 2014)

FireMaker said:


> Would this be long term type lease? Would you allow them to build a cabin and required buildings to house critters? Contract specifications are important. Need to protect both parties. I know of some folks in IL that would consider it and others up in MN. Really depends on what the ground has to offer. Water, place to grow, place for critters, shade, wood lot to manage are just a small number of factors. Distance to settlement will have different impact on folks.


It'd be a long-term lease. I'd allow them to build and house anything the state legally allows.

If there is timber, I'd probably have a clause that some of it has to remain.

I'm currently looking at untouched land in California, Colorado, and Oregon, some of it wooded and some of it not, but all 5 acres or less. I'm wondering if such land would even be wanted for homesteading.


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## ohiotw (Jul 29, 2014)

5 acres is what I'm after in Ohio. Its affordable to many. Not an expert on zoning but with 5 acres small animals should be acceptable which is big, plus plenty of room for gardens and fruit trees. In addition, 5 acres would allow you to use a wood stove to heat without cutting down any living trees. Simply cutting up fallen timber should yield enough throughout the year.


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## EDinTN (Sep 8, 2014)

What about simply rent out RV/camper lots to interested homesteaders?


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## itsb (Jan 13, 2013)

welcome Horny


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## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

ohiotw said:


> 5 acres is what I'm after in Ohio. Its affordable to many. Not an expert on zoning but with 5 acres small animals should be acceptable which is big, plus plenty of room for gardens and fruit trees. In addition, 5 acres would allow you to use a wood stove to heat without cutting down any living trees. Simply cutting up fallen timber should yield enough throughout the year.


I wouldn't want to rent land that I had to improved. And I certainly wouldn't want to build anything on land that didn't belong to me. What happens to the improvements after the lease is up? Will the owner buy them from the tenants, and if so, would that be in the initial contract?


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

I don't entirely get what you're trying to accomplish. But I'll throw out some thoughts anyway.

I can't see a homesteader wanting to rent land from you and then build a house on land they don't own. To me, that makes no sense at all. I could see the potential for them wanting to bring in an rv, a "tiny home" or maybe even a mobile home, something they can pull back off the land if the time comes when they won't be renting from you anymore. 

If you're intending to put a living structure on the property to rent, I would think that would be a good thing provided that structure meets the needs of the homesteaders. That would vary according to the homesteaders, whether there was just 1 of them or whether it was a family of 10. 

For me, I need tillable land. Woods is nice, and having enough that there will need to be thinning and taking of downed and dead wood to maintain a good wood lot would be a good thing if said homesteaders want to burn wood. But tillable land = food, whether for personal use or for sale (or both). I am also not too fond of having a home "in" the woods but would like some space around it, a healthy buffer zone. (I'm thinking fire.) 

How much tillable land? 5 acres is a nice size. No, I wouldn't have food crops covering the whole 5 acres at one time. But that would be a nice size to be able to have really good crop rotations and also some "fallow ground" in the rotation. 

I have some reservations about planting things like fruit and nut trees on rented ground. That's a big investment that's more long term than I'd feel all that good about making on someone else's property. How would I know that I wouldn't spend thousands of dollars and years of care planting an orchard, nut trees, grape vines, blueberry bushes and then 5 or 6 years later, the owner dies and the heirs want their property back. I'd be poop outta luck. So sad, too bad, don't let the gate hit you in the butt of your rv on the way out of the front pasture, and oh, by the way, you won't get a thin dime for any of the improvements. Bye.

I think there might be some value in renting, at least short term. The longer the term gets, the less it seems like a good idea to me. 

Total size of homestead, at least for me, would start looking attractive as the acreage approached 10 acres, more would be even nicer.

Just a few of the thoughts that went through my mind when I read your post.


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## ohiotw (Jul 29, 2014)

Belfrybat said:


> I wouldn't want to rent land that I had to improved. And I certainly wouldn't want to build anything on land that didn't belong to me. What happens to the improvements after the lease is up? Will the owner buy them from the tenants, and if so, would that be in the initial contract?


It says long term lease^^^^. It wouldn't be my first choice to lease either no. I'm looking to buy. However there are many people that don't qualify for the loan that could still make the payment every month and accomplish their dream. My parents rented a farm house for a locked in rate of $200/month for 15 years. They were young and agreed to rent for that amount of time in order to get a low price and were able to save up and have their dream house built after that time.


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

Renting land for someone to improve makes no sense to the person that would rent it... It would cost them 10's even hundreds of thousands to put in water, electric gas and sewer and a house... 

Would you want to do all this on someone else's land, even if you rented it for 25 years?

It's a completely different thing to rent it out to someone who will grow crops on it.. but I can't say I'd know of anyone that would rent to improve to residential..


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## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

ohiotw said:


> It says long term lease^^^^. It wouldn't be my first choice to lease either no. I'm looking to buy. However there are many people that don't qualify for the loan that could still make the payment every month and accomplish their dream. My parents rented a farm house for a locked in rate of $200/month for 15 years. They were young and agreed to rent for that amount of time in order to get a low price and were able to save up and have their dream house built after that time.


He's talking about unimproved land -- which means no house. So, unless it is a locked in 50+ year lease, I can't believe anyone would be foolish enough to sink many thousands of $$ in a place they didn't own.


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## edcopp (Oct 9, 2004)

HornyGoatsFarm said:


> I'm considering renting land cheaply to some homesteaders.
> 
> But I don't know what kind of land would be most ideal to do so.
> 
> How much does size matter when it comes to finding rentors? Is residential or just land most wanted?


Welcome:

The concept is not new, and interesting. There are some here who might be interested, IF you decide to tell them something and IF you have any land to rent.

Where? How much in dollars (free is never really free)? 

Some might be interested in Nebraska but not in Delaware.

Let us know what you have available.


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## Pokletu (Aug 7, 2013)

Well, I'm among those who couldn't get a mortgage.

I finally found land big enough to buy when I discovered the search term, "Owner Financed". I'm almost done paying it off, too!


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## big rockpile (Feb 24, 2003)

Belfrybat said:


> I wouldn't want to rent land that I had to improved. And I certainly wouldn't want to build anything on land that didn't belong to me. What happens to the improvements after the lease is up? Will the owner buy them from the tenants, and if so, would that be in the initial contract?


 Yes I did this one time. Not really a Lease just if I improved the property they would sign it over to me. After cleaned up, built, very livable they made it clear they didn't want to follow through. Found out their Son bought it off them. Took Loan out, sold the 10 acres for $2,600, what he owed on it.  Because he was going to lose it.

big rockpile


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## moonwolf (Sep 20, 2004)

In Ontario some crown land lakefront property came 
for draws with multi year leases (50 if I'm correct ).
The stipulation is that it must be developed with a cabin 
up to code and all things around improving that entangles.
The leases were cheap because the idea was recreational
development in semi remote areas.

I would never consider leasing property for a homestead
unless terms included that land be transferred after so many
years developing it . What would be the point putting in 
your time living there with you own improvements and then
reverting back to the lessor? Where would one be after that?


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## sbonner (Sep 1, 2014)

You might get more interest from lease-to-own deals, assuming you are trying to be that good person who is willing to open the doorway for struggling people to achieve their homesteading dream.

In such a case, you might 'rent' the land to them, but all of that money goes towards an actual purchase. In a long-term lease, you would lock the purchase price in at the time of the initial lease agreement. This will protect you from potential land value drops (unlikely) and them from rampant inflation that might make the land un-purchasable in 20 years (and thus, not worth renting and improving).


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## HornyGoatsFarm (Aug 12, 2014)

simi-steading said:


> Renting land for someone to improve makes no sense to the person that would rent it... It would cost them 10's even hundreds of thousands to put in water, electric gas and sewer and a house...
> 
> Would you want to do all this on someone else's land, even if you rented it for 25 years?
> 
> It's a completely different thing to rent it out to someone who will grow crops on it.. but I can't say I'd know of anyone that would rent to improve to residential..


I thought so, and many others mention this.

I'd like to lease to beginning homesteaders, and lessen the rent over time (especially in exchange for goods and not money).

For the most part, though, I've seen people wanting untouched land, even without a house, on other forums and I wanted to know what serious renters or buyers would want.


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## Teatime (Sep 1, 2014)

There are many options for people to buy their own untouched land with very little money down, no credit check and low monthly payments. I bought my land in Oregon from a guy there whose family bought up a whole bunch of former government land when the government was selling and he offered those terms. The land is mostly divided into parcels between 2 and 5 acres. Mine is 2.5 acres and my monthly payment is less than $150 per month.

I don't know if all of the arrangements are that good but I do know that there are several companies offering rural land at easy terms. I think it would be difficult, then, to interest people in leasing unimproved land. If you're going to put so much work into something, then you want it to be yours, you know?


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## HornyGoatsFarm (Aug 12, 2014)

Teatime said:


> TI don't know if all of the arrangements are that good but I do know that there are several companies offering rural land at easy terms. I think it would be difficult, then, to interest people in leasing unimproved land. If you're going to put so much work into something, then you want it to be yours, you know?


Actually...I don't get it. My parents lease tons of houses they've repaired, improved, and pretty much bought as garbage and fixed up so they could rent them out for tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.

Having lived in 7 houses all my life, my family still owns 5.

Man tenants like having someone else who can fix most of the house if it breaks down (though the dumber ones don't get the idea that they shouldn't be responsible for it breaking).


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## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

HornyGoatsFarm said:


> Actually...I don't get it. My parents lease tons of houses they've repaired, improved, and pretty much bought as garbage and fixed up so they could rent them out for tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.


Renting property with a house is much different than what you proposed in your first post: unimproved land. Why would someone want to rent unimproved land, build a homestead and not own it? As others have said, do a rent to purchase, not an outright lease.


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## HornyGoatsFarm (Aug 12, 2014)

Belfrybat said:


> Why would someone want to rent unimproved land, build a homestead and not own it? As others have said, do a rent to purchase, not an outright lease.


This is why I'm asking.


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