For a first rural land purchase, cheap and remote or dearer with a road?

Question

I'd like the option that actually sells without drama, and I'm stuck between two ways to spend the same $12,000 on a first parcel.

Option one is cheap and remote. Something like 40 acres for $11,000 where access is a two track across a neighbor's land with an easement I'd have to read carefully, and cell service is nothing. The price per acre is a fraction of anything with a road. Recreational buyers do buy this kind of land, and remote is part of the appeal for some of them. If it doesn't sell it costs me almost nothing to hold, taxes on it are tiny.

Option two is dearer with a road. Maybe 10 acres for $12,500 fronting a county maintained gravel road, power at the edge, nothing exotic. Higher price per acre, smaller discount going in because more people looked at it. But I can describe it in a listing without a paragraph of caveats, and a buyer can drive to it in a normal car.

What I can't figure out is which failure I'd rather have. The remote parcel's failure is that it sits for a year and I learn nothing except that it sits. The road parcel's failure is that I paid too close to retail and make $3,000 for six months of work.

I'd rather learn the process on a deal that moves, even for thin money. I'd also rather not pay for the privilege of a lesson. What did people's first land purchase actually look like, and did the cheap one teach you more or just cost you time?

omar_haddad · Answer

Renovation answer applies here. The cheap one with the caveat paragraph is scope creep waiting to happen. You'll end up paying a surveyor, then an attorney to read the easement, then someone with a tractor to cut a path so people can actually see what they're buying, and your $11,000 parcel is $14,500 before a single showing.

paulgrant17 · Answer

@harrow's list is the argument for option two on its own. @verity, does the easement in option one even name the parcel as a benefited property, or is it an easement to a person who's dead? That distinction has ruined deals for people and it's an attorney read in that state, not a guess.

brandonlee36 · Answer

First one I'd want to be boring. Learn the paperwork, the closing, the marketing, and getting paid, all on a parcel where none of those has an asterisk. Save the access puzzles for when you know what normal feels like.

tashaford30 · Answer

$3,000 on six months isn't the disaster you're framing it as if you learn the whole process and don't lose money. I'm planning my first purchase the same way and I've made peace with a small number.

laurenkim53 · Answer

Going to push back on the room. I look at cheap remote acreage all day and the buyers exist, they just take longer to show up and they mostly want terms rather than cash. If you're willing to hold and sell on payments, the remote parcel at $11,000 is where the real markup lives, because nobody competes for it. The road parcel is priced by everyone who mailed the same list you did. The catch is @harrow is right about the path and the sight lines. Remote land you can't walk sells slowly no matter how cheap.

renee_dubois · Answer

@hollow and @thicket are both right and they're answering different questions. If @verity's goal is one completed transaction to learn from, the road parcel does it. If the goal is the best return on this $12,000, the remote one probably wins on a long enough hold. First deal, I'd buy the education.

For a first rural land purchase, cheap and remote or dearer with a road?

6 replies