(posts split from another thread - Tobus)

Not to drag up an old thread, but I've been referencing this thread lately for information. Theduardo, I'm glad you posted some of the maps you did, as well as the info we talked about. I know it's a hell of a threadjack, but oh well. The damage is already done.

I have known a particular friend for a number of years who is a partial owner of about 200 acres up in the Panhandle of Texas (Wheeler County). It's an old family farmstead. This person owns it jointly with siblings and uncles and such. They have all collectively decided to sell it. This friend, however, would like to retain some ownership of the place, mostly for nostalgic purposes but also as a potential home. This friend knows that I'm in the market for cheap rural land that's remote.

So we've been talking about it. And we may just go take a drive up there in a few weeks to look at the place. It's about a 7 hour drive from where I currently live, so it would be a weekend trip. Anyway, the 200 acre property is mostly grassland. It has an old farmhouse on it, a windmill for water, an old barn, etc. There used to be a large garden and a fruit tree orchard, although I understand those have gone untended for years and are likely gone.

Looking at the maps Theduardo posted, it's definitely one of the least populated counties in the State. Which I find attractive. Precipitation-wise, it only gets about 22 inches of rain per year, which isn't very much. But I understand that the old folks who lived there never had any problems with water from the well. I'd definitely want to check into that some more.

Some research into the county statistics show that it has decreased in population by 8% in recent years. So the population is shrinking, but it has a lower poverty rate than the Texas average. This area of Texas is decent for wind power as well as solar power. And land is cheap - about $400 per acre. The region mainly produces cotton and a few other crops, but is mostly grassland prairie. Plains. The soil is better quality than where I currently live.

So the downside of it is that rainfall is scarce and the landscape is flat with very little trees. The location is about halfway between Oklahoma City and Amarillo(90-100 miles either way). It has cold winters compared to what I'm used to.

The idea is that if my wife and I were interested in the area, we might buy the bulk of the land (probably about 170 acres) and our friend would retain the old house and about 30 acres. We would buy just the raw land and cultivate/improve it over time with the plan of eventually moving out there. Fulfilling my dream of building a straw bale house that's solar/wind powered, with a garden and orchard and pastures for the horses. Even if that plan couldn't be fulfilled for another decade or two, at least we would have the land and be able to treat it as a weekend place or investment property.

There's a lot to think about, of course, on what we would do with it. That's assuming we are even interested. Right now it's just a preliminary idea. But with the right forethought and improvement, it could be made into a viable 'retreat' or retirement property. And the price is affordable. Hell, at $400 per acre and 170 acres to purchase, that's only $68,000. I could probably sell my current house today, take my profit and pay CASH for the land out there, then just borrow enough money to build a home there. That's not feasible right now, of course, due to work limitations. But it's just a way of putting the money angle into perspective.

So right now I don't know if this will go much further than just talking about it. Or taking a look and deciding we don't like it. Or figuring out that the land just isn't going to sustain us and our horses. I've got a lot of research to do. My thought is that I have to find a balance between population and precipitation. The wettest areas of Texas are the overcrowded ones. Taking a trip up to the Panhandle would allow me to check out a large swath of Texas as we drive through it to see what we think.

Any thoughts?

I would suggest splitting this post off into the pilot of its own thread. Perhaps call it Texas Panhandle Property/Wheeler County or something like that. That way we can perhaps do more focused research on that region which could help us and others via a search engine.

From reading what you have posted, it certainly seems like a viable plan. Mostly due to the low cost and being patient on improvements. My concerns would be relatively simple: Income & water. Everything else is fluff. You are still 90 minutes from a decent sized city. So its not like you are that remote.

I googled a Wheeler, TX photo for people so they could get an idea. It really is nice looking out there. But considerably colder.

Being 90 minutes from a major city is not too bad. It's close enough for a day trip to pick up supplies, but far enough away where you can get away from city people. Ideally, I'd be a little farther away than that (at least two hours), but that's where this property is.

As far as income, I have several options there. I had a conversation with the regional vice president of my company a couple of years ago and mentioned to him that my wife really wanted to move to another area of Texas to be closer to her kids and grandkids. His response was that if I needed to do that, he would make every accommodation for me in order to keep me with the company because he valued my expertise. Basically, I would work from the house and tele-commute. As long as I had high-speed internet and a phone/radio, I could do my job almost as effectively as I do it here in the office - most of my time is spent on the computer in AutoCad anyway. Of course, that conversation happened before I was promoted to the position I hold right now, where I am a department head and have people working under me. So if I were to do that today, I would obviously have to give up my management position, and it would be a career killer within the company in terms of future growth. I'd probably have to take somewhat of a cut in pay too. But I have little doubt that I could remain employed with my current employer, performing engineering designs for this office, and still make more than twice the median household income for Wheeler County. In other words, I could live very comfortably there, remaining employed with my current company. And perhaps branch out a little into some local engineering consulting work.

At the very least, remaining employed with my current company would allow me to make the transition there with no real risk, until such time as I felt I wanted to go a different career direction. So the employment end of things might be OK.

As for water, it turns out that Wheeler County (and most of the Panhandle) is on the Ogallala Aquifer.




However, not the entire county. The southern end of the county (which is where this land is located) is either inbetween aquifers or it may even be part of the Seymour aquifer. And that's a concern. I will have to do more research on these aquifers and see how reliable they are. Having a rainwater collection system is part of my plan too, but with only 22" of rain per year, that won't amount to much. And with weather patterns changing over the next several decades, it may get even worse.

The picture you posted is beautiful, Theduardo. I've never been that far north in Texas, so I don't know what it looks like personally.

The property is near the small town of Shamrock, TX. Here are some links to info on the county and town (for my own future reference).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamrock,_Texas
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48/48483.html

I can see why you are excited. That area is great big sky country, and great if you want to have a lot of space for not a lot of money. Because you are within 2 hours drive of not one, but two major population centers, it really does make the idea viable. granted you may have to do some driving... but it means you do not have to go too far to get supplies or employment as needed. These two things being required to be established unless you hit the Lotto.

I will copy/paste the maps over here:





You are going to get some cold weather and snow. Often feet of snow. So I would be prepared on that. This in itself is no big deal. But coupled with the lack of trees because its prairie, you may have some issues keeping warm in the winter by cord-wood.

Now, with some planning, you can find some fast growing, ornamental based trees to plant out there ahead of time. Plants with the express purpose to be burned. Where ideally in 8-12 years you can have a near steady annual supply of firewood. But its going to take time and planing to achieve that. Checking the Texas Tree Data-base for Wheeler County, you have a few options to achieve this.




The relatively low "pay-to-play" numbers for the property makes it very appealing.

My strategy for such a purchase would be the opposite as yours. I would finance the land through a Land-Bank. Probably on a fixed 30-yr note. The payments would be relatively small. Less than many peoples car payments. If I was to sell my primary house one day, I would use the profits to put a lump sum payment on the Panhandle land note and use the rest for property improvements.

Much of my reasoning is for taxes. For example, once the Panhandle property had a shelter on it, you could claim it as a secondary homestead. Then deduct the mortgage interest from your taxes. The already small payment would then be used to reduce your taxable income at the same time. I'm not sure if a home improvement loan can have tax deductible interest, or has the relative same protections to the buyer as a land mortgage does.

Hopefully, by then later using the funds from the sale of your primary home for a payment on existing property, you could reduce your capital gains liability. For the sale of your house without rolling the funds into a new home is often taxable.





I understand the talking VS buying aspect. You have to do that to make the call on investing $68k+. So it does not bother me, I know where you are at.

The section of italics was done by me. Something I wanted to comment on.

From a south and western Texas perspective, the areas with water are the most crowded. Thats tough to argue against. However, what I wanted to point out was that there are areas which are too wet to support a population. Where the ground and soil properties are too unstable to support a slab-based "house-farm" on 1/8 acre lots. And in the swamp and flood plain areas which are more practical for timber farming, agriculture, or having the State buy out to flood for a reservoir.

The population/precipitation balance is a critical one. In my personal case for finding a plot of land to settle on, it was a deciding factor. But admittedly, my personal interest and passion has been centered on growing and cultivating plants. Not everyone wants to do that.

My belief is that population pressures and growth in Texas is going to cause some major strains on our water supplies in the future. This is half based on "tin foil" and half on recorded history of the region. But water has always been an issue. Right now we have it good. But by 2020 or later we may see a return of a great drought.

My gut call on the situation you have described is "go for it!". The issues I would have to temper my excitement with is the lack of water, much colder winters, and shorter growing season.

I seem to remember my Geology professor always preaching how some day soon the Ogallala aquifer was going to run dry. That same aquifer feeds western Kansas, which provides all the water needed for their crops. The water situation there is so extreme they (western farming states) want to divert 40% of the Missouri river to ensure future water. Just a thought, I may be full of shit though!

Rain barrel guide

Every inch of rain that falls on a 1000 sq foot catchment area will colelct 600 gallons of water. Assuming you could build a 1000 sq foot catchment appliance (roof maybe), you could collect 13,200 gallons of water a year. With some storage capability, that's 36 gallons a day. If you built a seperate 1000 sq ft appliance, say 20x50 made of galvanized roofing material, and you could store it, you'd have 72 gallons a day.

I think with some ingenuity and water storage ability, you could do okay out there.

The colder winters are going to shorten your vegetable gardening, but there are ways to handle that. Reusable solar appliances, like these, or these, could get extend your growing season longer or even year round. I've been looking around the web lately for season extending methods and these two books come highly recomeded.

Solar Gardening: Growing Vegetables Year-Round the American Intensive Way

Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long

Another added benefit is that when the food rioyts come, peopel will starve to death long before they get to your place.

What are you waiting for?

If your wife is OK with this kind of change, I'd be selling my stuff and getting ready to move today.




I'm sorry, but I'd trade that "cold, nasty winters and short growing season" for what I got any day of the week.
It snowed again up here last night! My garden is really gonna be late this year. I'm not worried though. I'm sure I can still get plenty of tomatoes in the green house and plenty of potatoes in the raised bed gardens.


Sounds great! I'd seriously think about an earth sheltered home though. Keep it out of the wind, face it south and you won't have to worry much about heating it in the winter.



I wouldn't worry about it. A solar powered pump can lift water from 600 feet down with just a few panels.
If you can afford to drill the well and set up the pump like we described elsewhere, you'll have all the water you need.
The key is having enough cash up front to establish the well.



Do it now, while your young! It's much easier to homestead when your young and still adventurous, and your back is still strong.
The key is if your wife is willing or not. That's the only deal breaker.

Yes, the cold winters and lack of trees are my wife's two main objections. I think maybe EtdBob hit on the right idea with an earth-sheltered home that would be easier to heat in the winter. Plus, since this is prime tornado country, being down in the earth might be a benefit. My wife has already stated she would not live up there without a good storm shelter. I must admit that the whole idea of actually having the ability to put part of your home underground is a new one to me. I must get past this mentality of "you can't dig here, there's rock under the ground".

A south-facing earth-sheltered house would be pretty ideal, actually. And for heating it, I'd definitely have to plant some trees that I could rotate for timber crops. Plus use water barrels inside the south windows for radiant heat. The good news is that if we decided we liked the area, we'd have plenty of time to plan and research on just exactly what we want. I could even try my underground house idea for the storm shelter, using the corrugated steel culvert sections! And a greenhouse for gardening would be part of the construction project, as well as a barn for the horses that's attached to the house.


I'd want to really put some thought into the best rainwater collection system possible. And I'd use every drop I could catch. All outbuildings would have a catchment system. And I'd probably want a big 1,000 gallon or 2,000 gallon tank for storage. Even if the rainwater doesn't fill it, I could use it for storing well water from the solar well pump or windmill. The windmill is probably the best option for drawing well water in that area of the country. It's got a longer life expectancy and it's all low-tech mechanical, so an idiot like me can work on it.


Truth be told, I've given the idea some serious thought over the last couple of years. My wife and I have been a bit at odds on where we want to go, though. She wants to go further east towards the Waco area. I want to go further west. Every time we talk about it, we just kind of politely agree to disagree and never make any real plans to do anything. Even with this property, it would be a hard sell on her. I don't think she's too keen on the idea just yet. So that's really what has held us back. Aside from the fact that I make a good living and would like to be able to save some money and get financially "established" before chasing dreams. It's important to her to be financially stable, and that's non-negotiable. She has lived rougher than even you live right now, Bob, and she doesn't care to go back to it without having a financial safety net. I don't really blame her, knowing her history like I do. So I have to tread lightly and take my time in convincing her.


Yep, cash up front is key for a lot of things. I simply don't have tons of cash. So I'll have to take this project (if it turns out to even be one) very slowly, one step at a time.

I would then research the Waco area. To my knowledge her reasoning has to do with family, right? Not to pry into your business on a public forum, but that issue is going to be tough to overcome. You better embrace it or plan on staying put. I do not want to be the crusher and destroyer of hopes & dreams here. But I am married, and its foundation is based on compromise.

There are some areas around Waco with a relatively sparse population. Freestone and Limestone Counties are not too bad. I have looked at some properties in a 90 minute radius around Waco. There are some regions of land in the $1500 per acre price range. You can find reasonably priced land out that way, but it will be way more expensive than the Panhandle.

But even so, please do not take this as discouragement. Living in the Panhandle would be cool. I would seriously consider it as well if I had not already committed to a plan.




Side note: Here is a property I found on the web in the Limestone County area. Its pricey from my standards and sold. But it was a great deal:

http://www.flyinglandagent.com/fr178.htm

+1 on what he said. Of course, I'm sure Tobus knows this.

I was on my way to homestead up in Alaska, but Heidi wasn't comfortable moving that far from her family. Heck, she was only just 18 when we married so I certainly understood.

So, we wound up stuck down in the lower 48. Now I'll never get a chance to be a real backwoodsman.
Oh well, probably saved me from dying of frost bite anyway...

The good part is that before we married we discussed this whole homesteading thing, and it took us all of three minutes to agree upon what we wanted to do.

She had no problem with the whole build yer own homestead and live up in the woods thing.



Yikes! Tornados? Better put everything underground!
Just find a nice east-west ridge and dig everything in - Home, greenhouse, barn and all. That would be really cool!
Er, assuming you can dig easily enough in this area.

I'm gonna build an earth sheltered greenhouse one of these days, just as soon as I got the time...

Only possible drawback is that you can't easily collect rain water offa an earth sheltered home because the roof is usually a foot thick layer of sod.


I'm not so sure about this. An electric pump has but one moving part, the rotor, which is directly coupled to the impeller.
A solar power system for it has no moving parts and no batteries.
Not much that can go wrong, really.

With an old mechanical pump you have to worry about the pump leathers wearing out, and it has complicated linkages.
Also, the sun is more reliable than wind in the summer, when you really need the water.



Well sure. We all gotta make a living. But if you can sell your home and come up with enough cash to buy the place with a little left over to get started, and you think you can telecommute and keep your current job, you have a great opportunity.

I would pay for it all up front is possible. Get completely out of debt, and move onto the land at once.
If you can pull this off, just think - You could live on next to nothing if you had to.

If you sell your home and get a loan for the new place, you could loose everything and find yourself out on the street should you loose your job because your Boss decides he really doesn't like telecommuters or a good recession hit us.

To me, this is really putting yer back against the wall. It's just not the way I think, and I sure couldn't do it just so I could blow 60 grand on a fancy new home on land I don't own.
It locks you into the position of Must Earn Lots Of Cash for many years to come.
Heck, your in that boat already, so what did the change accomplish?

If you own the land, well, you'll always have a home. Shelter is quite easy to come by really, and you can build as fancy as you wish as time and money permit.

Once your on your own land and debt free, your a completely different animal. No matter what happens in the world, your set.
I'm sure your wife can appreciate that.



I bet one of the best ways would be to visit the land in the spring when it's nice and green. Spend some time wandering around the place.
Then you'll both know if you can fall in love with the place or not.

Eh, one way to save money would be to purchase less of the land. Could you make due with "only" 100 acres?

Would your friend let you live in the old farm house while you built yer new place?

Yep, that is the crux of the issue. Her kids and grandkids live east of Waco, in the Mexia area. So do her parents. But it's the kids and grandkids she's primarily interested in. Right now, it's a good solid 4-1/2 to 5 hour drive to see them. The Panhandle would be much farther.

But we've gone back and forth on this issue. I detest that area of Texas, for various reasons. Not all of which I really want to talk about on the internet. But suffice it to say that the people in the area don't appeal to me. It's a poor region, lots of welfare riders, lots of meth labs. Not my idea of the perfect place to live. The terrain is pretty boring, although compared to the Panhandle it's about the same or a bit better. And they do get rain in that area. I just can't get past the demographics of the region as well as the price of land. And that whole side of the State is filling up with people.

So it's an issue that doesn't seem to be going away. I guess we'll see what happens. Need to talk to her some more and try to get her excited about a place that we both can live with, which satisfies all our criteria.

Outta time. Will respond to more later.

On a side note, use Google maps to check out the areas of "Eldorado Center", "Rodney", and "Union High" Texas. These are areas North East of Mexia which are mostly farmland. Its rolling hills and quite beautiful in my mind. There are many dirt and gravel County Roads in which you could find yourself a nice parcel without neighbors. I looked at a 75 acre tract for $97k awhile back. Which is not too bad. It really is a remote area.


As to not the best of people and the meth labs... I understand totally what you are saying. That concerns me too. However, it would be fair to say that any region you are looking for bargain properties are going to have those two problems. North, East, South, West, or Panhandle Texas is going to have those issues.

Water is still and issue in that area. I know that one parcel we looked at you were not permitted to tie into the local water system. You were on your own. I found that area of land as a bargain because of this water issue. Still I ended up passing on it, partially because the area land bank also devalued the land in regards to borrowing and getting a note. So it required a larger than normal down payment.

I guess when I found my property, it was only possible because I changed my preconceptions. Ended up reaching this point in land searches where I was longer looking for a wooded wonderland. Once I gave up on that, and instead just started looking for a blank canvas... my budget property searches finally took off.

Dude, why would you go from a $68k profit to having to borrow money? You should take the profit, reinvest it while you scale down your living for a year or tow and let that money grow to be able to pay cash for the whole thing.

I'm not saying I would do that, necessarily. I just used it as a point of reference to say that the land is cheap and it wouldn't be much of a burden. The equity/profit from my current home could cover the cost of the land, and then my only expense would be on building a new home and improving the place.

Hell, it would be a huge trade-up. About 10 times more land than I have now, and the cost to build a home like I want is pretty cheap. I'd end up with lots of land, a new house, and about half the debt I currently have. That's a winning scenario all around.

But "reinvesting" money right now is a very bad idea. What would you suggest I invest it in? Everything is losing money right now, or is about to tank. Ain't no way I'm going to sell my current homestead to go back to rental living, even temporarily - that's just a poor idea all around. It's like throwing that money down the drain. And I'm not interested in "scaling down" for a couple of years. There isn't any real way I could scale down anyway, unless I got rid of my horses (which isn't going to happen). Nah, it's only upwards and onwards from here, as far as my plans go.


Well, Bob, the thing I was getting at is that solar systems wear out in a couple of decades, even when maintained properly. The panels lose efficiency over time and eventually stop working. The thing about windmills is that there are some out there that have been going continuously for well over 100 years with regular maintenance. A well made windmill is a very simple device that can be repaired with simple tools. If a solar panel stops working, there ain't nothing I can do about it.

Folks have been using windmills for hundreds of years. It's low-tech, old-world technology that is tried and true. Plus I just love windmills. They're an iconic thing in Texas. No rural homestead is complete without one. I've been wanting one for years.


Actually, that's not true. Check out the map below, keeping in mind where Wheeler County is from my previous posts. It's a favorable spot for wind-powered devices. Considering that the wind tends to blow both day and night and the sun shines only during the day, I would think wind is much more reliable in the Panhandle.

I would, of course, use a combination of solar and wind power for the electrical generation to power the house and such. But for drawing water from a well and pumping it into a storage tank, wind power is what people have relied on for centuries.





Actually, we are planning on perhaps taking a trip up there in May. So it would be the best part of springtime for taking the trip, when the land looks green with new growth.

The details on splitting up the land would be worked out later, after we've decided whether we're even interested. This friend who is part-owner is going up there with us to show us the place and familiarize us with the area. And I think that this friend would probably be amenable to sharing the old farmhouse with us while we built a new place.

How about land?




Excellent! Be sure to show us pictures!

Expect land and all real estate to keep heading down. Inflation in goods, and deflation in assets. That doesn't mean don't do it. If you expect to liver there soon and there afterwards, your fine. If you buy it and hold it for awhile, then you're likely better off buying it later at a cheaper price.

There are markets that are growing Tobus. We can start a different thread to talk about that if you want. I don't want to hijack this thread. Just pointing out there are some good investments to be had out there. There are plenty of money-market funds that are still making money. I made over 10% in the first quarter this year on my several money-market accounts.

The idea in 'scaling back' would be to dump a bunch of cash into a market with decent earnings with the idea that you could make more money in a market over your real property investment (paying your current mortgage). As Chris said, real property is headed down right now. (Of course out here it's still a sellers' market cause of the boom. We won't see the effects until we hit >$5/gal for gas.) 'If' you were to sell your current spread, there's a good possibility of you making enough on the total profit from the home in a reasonably short amount of time that you could pay cash for not only the land, but the house as well. A year longer with some proper investing and you could even recoup the cost you paid in rent that amount of time.

Anyway... sorry to hijack...

Here's what's cool about that. Wheeler County is experiencing a decline in population (down 8.1% since 2000). Along with that, one would expect the real estate market to tank as well. So land is getting cheaper.

In my current location, though, the population is growing at an alarming rate (up 14.5% since 2000). Land prices have skyrocketed here and the trend doesn't show any signs of stopping. This area of Texas (Hill Country) is hot right now. Especially anything within driving distance of San Antonio. Even with the economy starting to turn down, I think the market is still strong here locally, even if it's turning to crap everywhere else. I can use that to my advantage if I wanted to. I could turn my current property at a profit and buy that homestead at their loss, which would make the best of both situations. Selling high in order to buy low.

Some other stuff I wanted to post here for my own future reference:

Solar insolation map of the USA (Wheeler County is in a better solar zone than where I live currently, as well as being in a better wind power zone which I posted earlier):




Another take on the average precipitation in Texas:




County tax rate comparisons:

http://www.county.org/resources/countydata...ates/index.html

(my county's rate as of 2006 was 0.6433, where Wheeler County was at 0.3052 - less than half the taxes)

The real estate market dealing with homes is going to plummet. That I have little doubt in. But raw land and acreage has been steadily climbing. With no signs that its going to drop off any. I really think because there are quite a few other people in the world who realize that gold has past the point of buy in, and raw land is nearly the next best thing.

Now, if you have a $350k home on a 1/8th acre lot in a suburban house farm... yer screwed. I imagine you will be able to snatch them up at half the price in a few years. But acreage outside of the immediate sphere on a metropolitan area will remain stable with a slow, yet steady value climb.

How about investing some of that $68k in gold, Tobus? Isn't gold doing very well right now?

Man, I really hope you guys get this land if it's what you're looking for!

At this point, I don't really have any interest in investing in gold. Since it's doing very well right now, it's probably not a good time to get 'in' on it. But anyway, what I'm looking for is not necessarily a financial investment. It's an investment in my future: a homestead I can cultivate over the rest of my adult life to make into the kind of place I want to live when I retire. The kind of place I could call home that would sustain my wife and I regardless of what the rest of the world is doing.

That's exactly what I'm looking for. But I think I'm willing to pay a little more per acre for less land so I can get some trees with the place.

Come on up and buy that place. I dont mind the small drive to see ya neighbor. Dont go by charts to figure on a piece of land. Some of them are close to true but add in wind for a generator,solar,and think about underground house possiblities and you have your self a nice place. If, you have kids that changes everything though,unless you home school.
But if you buy it email me and maybe we can get together, I am not far from Vernon on 287.

*shudders at the thought*

Nope, no kids. I have step-kids but they're all grown up. My only 'kids' are my horses and my dog.

We haven't yet gone to look at the place. Those plans kind of got set on the back burner since my wife is not too excited about it. We're trying to find a weekend we can go, but I don't know if it will happen. This was kind of a long-shot anyway, in terms of convincing her to move there.