Author Topic: Buying land in a small town to retire in 10 years  (Read 1879 times)

leevs11

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Buying land in a small town to retire in 10 years
« on: September 15, 2016, 02:47:14 PM »
What are your thoughts on buying land in a small town or more rural area with the idea to pay it off asap, then build a home.  The idea would be to own the home outright or close to it within 10-15 years and retire in the lower cost of living area. 

The area is about 3 hours from where I'm currently living and located in a popular tourist area.  Think cabin on a lake. 

Does this make any sense?  Would it be better to just look to purchase a similar home?  My thinking with the land is to take it a bit at a time.  Pay the loan off, then start with the home building process once we were financially ready. 

MKinVA

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Re: Buying land in a small town to retire in 10 years
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2016, 03:09:33 PM »
I think 10 to 15 years is an awfully long time to decide that it is  a good deal to buy the land first. Also, if it is a popular tourist area, I doubt it is overall cheaper. Check real estate tax rates, minimum water rates, gas rates, etc.

Spork

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Re: Buying land in a small town to retire in 10 years
« Reply #2 on: September 15, 2016, 03:21:01 PM »
More or less: this is exactly what we did.

We bought a bit of land near where our parents live back in about 2005.  It had a 30x40 workshop on it with a very minimalist 600 sqft apartment inside.  We used it as a weekender house.  In 2006, we sold most of what big items we had, quit our jobs and leaped.  We lived very minimally from 2006-2009, as it took that long to find reasonable employment.  (My skills are relatively niche skills that don't really exist in small towns.)  When our house sold, we owned the land outright with a bit left over.

We lived in the tool shed from 2006-2012.  We started building a house in March 2011... and it completed right around the first of 2012.   We had enough stashed away to just pay cash and that's what we did.  We did a reasonable amount of the work ourselves, which made the build take longer.  We also didn't complete the house 100%.  (We left the upstairs unfinished.) 

FIRE was in July 2015.  The house is probably 85% completed.  There is one room that is still not complete.  We've started fostering cats, so... the cats live in that room.  It will probably get a little bit completed between each batch of fosters, but the fostering has definitely slowed the process.

clarkfan1979

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Re: Buying land in a small town to retire in 10 years
« Reply #3 on: September 17, 2016, 07:58:37 PM »
If it's going to be a rural town, I wouldn't buy 10 years in advance. I would use that money to invest to get to FIRE quicker. Then maybe 1 year before FIRE, I would buy the land.

waltworks

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Re: Buying land in a small town to retire in 10 years
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2016, 10:25:20 AM »
There will be plenty of rural land available in 10 years, and it will cost about the same as it does now.

Stocks/bonds/etc will probably be worth a lot more in 10 years than they are now.

Which one would you rather buy now?

-Walt