Survivalist.AI

In the last post, in my quest in purchasing land for a homestead, I narrowed down 42 of the U.S.’s largest metro areas to 9 shortlist candidates.

Out of those, I further narrowed the list down to three finalists. Truthfully, all 9 shortlist areas would be excellent choices, but since I have limited time, I really needed to narrow the list down further.

The three winning areas where I will look to purchase land within about 120 miles (2 hours drive) are: Raleigh, NC, Charlotte, NC and San Antonio, TX

Let’s look into the three.

Charlotte, NC

• Population of 874,579
• Great for growing crops with moderate winter and summer average temperatures from 34°F to 89°F and rainfall of 1,143 mm (45 inches)
• Average home price of $399,507 (vs national average of $417k)
• Flat 4.75% state income tax, 0.90% property tax, 7.25% sales tax
• Conveniences: NBA, NFL, MLS teams

I searched for land over 20 acres with a residence, within 120 miles (2 hour drive) of Charlotte and got 171 listings.

The first things I’m looking for are direct access or easement to a road and electrical leading to the home.

I didn’t filter for mineral rights because the search yielded very few results. I think it’s because many sellers or brokers don’t know and thus don’t select the option. Mineral rights are something that can be negotiated anyway. It’s an extremely important thing to own when buying land.

Price per acre varies with proximity to Charlotte, the type and features of the terrain, the kind of residence that’s already on the property, and access.

Price per acre varies from about $5.1k to a stratospheric $210,000 for land between 20 and 100 acres with a residence.

Raleigh, NC

• Population of 469,298
• Great for growing crops with average temperatures in winter of 35°F and summer of 89°F
• Rainfall of 1,143 mm or 45 inches over 114 rain days. 2.5 inches per day when it rains
• Average home price of $457,493, higher than national average of $417,000
• Flat 4.75% state income tax, 0.82% property tax, 7.25% sales tax
• Conveniences: Duke, UNC basketball

The first property that came up was this bargain at $11k/acre. It comes with a 3/2 residence that looks newly renovated, in a cleared 2 acre field. The 25 acres of woods are home to whitetail deer, wild turkey and other small game. One full side appears to abut the highway, so I can check the easement box. Power box can be checked too. Right away, this looks like something pretty decent to look at.

San Antonio, TX

• Population of 1,547,253
• Also great for growing crops with average temperatures in winter of 45°F and summer of 95°F
• Rainfall of 810 mm or 32 inches over 85 rain days. That’s an average of about 2.65 inches when it rains
• Average home price of $311,050, over $100k lower than the national average of $417k
• 0% state income tax, 2% property tax, 8.25% sales tax,
• Conveniences: NBA team, 1 hour 40 minutes from Austin, 4 hours 30 minutes to DFW airport, the third largest international airport in the world

First thing I noticed is that there were 10x the amount of listings compared with Charlotte and Raleigh, for land over 20 acres within 2 hours drive from San Antonio. So there are plenty of choices at present.

While searching by price/acre and limiting the parcel size to 100 acres, the low started from about $5,500 for an 80+ acre property with 3/1 residence and an easement for access. This completely fenced property was less than two hours southwest of San Antonio.

For tracts of land over 20 acres and under 100 acres, the search pulled up multi-million dollar estates close to Austin overlooking the river. The price per acre for some were $500,000+.