I'll never forget when I sat down with my parents and we talked housing prices. They said "why aren't you building something new if the old buildings are so expensive?"
I had to break it to them that a plot of land is not $10k, it's $200-300k. Then add the actual cost of housing construction and you're easily looking at a MINIMUM of $500k for any new construction
They told me they thought it'd be closer to $100k even after they adjusted for inflation
One of my dad's biggest regrets is that he didn't buy more land. He (we) had an opportunity where a neighbor was fixing to bail and went around offering all the neighbors a chance at parcels of land before put it on the open market.
At the time we were completely debt free, outside of tax liability, and despite the incredibly generous offer, my dad primarily, just couldn't get on board with putting us into debt. Mom entertained the idea a bit more than him, it didn't happen.
And now he's left with regret. None of us are mad at him, he's the only one mad at himself.
What was the offer? 500 acres at only $500 a pop. That was just what he was willing tk let us have upfront. If anyone else passed, he'd have been willing to lat any of us have a go at it.
This was forested, appalachian, new england land. Prime real estate to preserve. But 250k was a heck of a lot debt to end up in, practically overnight, so it's not his fault for passing on the deal. They'd busted their humps ensuring they were debt free for as long as they had been, and as much better off we'd be with the land, they're still debt free today, so it worked out in the end imo.
If it's forested land then most of it should require pretty much zero maintenance at all, other than whatever immediately surrounds any roads or buildings.
You'd be surprised. People love to illegally hunt, drink, and snowmobile on private land. It's not like a full time job, but there's a reason people end up selling land that they're physically far away from.
Mostly tax liability in this case. It was forested and would have remained forested and had no lines or roads through it. At most we'd have kept up with posted signs but that would have been it.
You need to ensure people aren't coming on it illegally to dump, destroy, "camp" until they can try to claim it as their own, poach, steal lumber, or tear up the place with dirt bikes and four wheelers.
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u/Ok-Primary2176 21h ago
I'll never forget when I sat down with my parents and we talked housing prices. They said "why aren't you building something new if the old buildings are so expensive?"
I had to break it to them that a plot of land is not $10k, it's $200-300k. Then add the actual cost of housing construction and you're easily looking at a MINIMUM of $500k for any new construction
They told me they thought it'd be closer to $100k even after they adjusted for inflation