Saturday, another Freesteader and I drove about 2+ hours south of Dallas to look for property. This region of Texas is south of Dallas, around the Corsicana area. Speficially the place we looked was on county roads south of Dawson, TX.

The property we drove to was remote.




This property was pretty remote. That is probably one of the more appealing aspects about it. It was located on a series of dirt county roads. There were no utilities on the property.

I like this one!
Not sure why, it's flat, expensive and narrow, but I do like it.

Perhaps because it is remote. You don't want power or phone or any of that crap, and you don't want to be near any town.

I can imagine a tiny unmarked rutted track turning off the road. Back a hundred feet in the trees where it can't be seen from the road is a locked gate. Lots of barbed wire and "will be shot on sight" signs.

Then the track leads all the way back to the area by the pond, which is where the homestead is. Nice to have a swimming hole and source of surface water in that infernally hot climate!
Good hunting, good water, trees for firewood and maybe some building material, flat ground for a garden, no neighbours. From a survivalist standpoint, this is the best you've shown so far.

What would make or break this deal is what the surounding property owners are like.


Could you also buy the forested land to the left?

Now, that would make for quite a shooting range...

I agree it has some potential. I somewhat agree with you on price. The thing is, although this property is relatively remote, it still within decent driving time to sources of income. So the price is $1300 an acre which is too much for it. It would be different if it was 60%+ covered with some sort of tree cover. It is not.

It would be different if the property was $900 to 1k per acre.

The long and skinny is another drawback.



Yes it would. It would be an awesome one where 600M practice would be possible. I must admit that has alot to do with my interest as well.

Plant fast growing trees and wait.
Really, once you get the cattle off of it, and plant some real trees, it could wind up looking pretty nice.
What is the average rain fall down there?


Well, you could offer 'em $750 per and see what happens from there.

You'd still need to check out the locals though.

I am bumping this thread to the top. Because this was a property I found early on in my search for acreage, and it ties into another thread.

This was a 75 acre tract which was for sale for $1300 per acre. $97500 for the tract. Because there is no house on it, most Mortgage Lenders will not work with you unless you have documented assets to fully secure the loan. We did not. But we do have a house, no car loans, and zero credit card debit. Something which did work to our favor.

If you look in the pictures, it is relatively arid. South and west of Dallas. The only suitable agriculture for that area is grazing for cattle. That property is quite common for the region. So they already have a monetary guide to go by when assessing a parcel of land. There was no water or electricity within miles. I thought that was kind of a good thing. But not from the bank's standpoint.

The Land Bank for this region would appraise the property at $1000 per acre. Because the Texas Ag/Credit system arrangement, they were the only act in town. So to get a mortgage on that property, the bank would only put up a loan for $75k for it. meaning the remainder had to be secured by us in cash. Plus a down payment on the mortgage, which depending on your credit and appraised value of the property can be fro 10-25% down. Thats a lot of money for "bargain acreage".

This is not the first time I encountered that in Texas. My wife and I were looking at properties in the Ballinger/Winters area. This is in between San Angelo and Abilene. We ran into the same thing, except fortunately the Real Estate Agent was forthcoming on how much down was required to purchase the property we were considering. The thing is, at that time it never clicked that the reason for the minimum (and large) down payment was because the selling price was indeed high for the assessed value.