Just got back from a 2 hour drive outside of Dallas. I went Northeast-east out of town for about two hours. Glad I did. I found what could be alot of bargain properties outside of a Texas A&M college town.




The area surrounding the property are mostly fields for actice planting. There is one tract of identical size next door to the immediate west. There was once a mobile home on this land. Someday, someone will put a new home there.

To the East of the property there is pasture. For what looks like horse and cattle. That is the property of the only neighbor within 1/2 mile. His house looks like he built it himself.






The terrain is not wooded. It appears as pasture which has been let fallow for 10-12 years. There are some pines and evergreens on the property. Mostly it is mixed grasses about 1-2ft high.

The property is a gentile slope upwards. I superimposed some elevation lines from an online USGI Topo-site I found. Basically from the south of the proerty it slopes uppgradually to the North. There is under 30 ft of elevation gain in this space.


The corner of the property almost touches a reservoir which is only a few years old. To my knowedege, its new and being stocked.

Largemouth bass
White crappie
Bluegill
Redear sunfish

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/...akes/big_creek/

It would be possible to walk under 30 yards with a canoe or kayak to the reservior from the edge of the property. Between the water of the resicvoir, and the fields around in... there are many animal tracks. Looks like deer mostly.

This is may be one of the better properties I have found. There is alot of potential for it.

The price seems a bit high, though, compared to other properties you've been looking at.

True....

But its not in a FEMA Zone "A" Flood Plain or next to a Chicken Farm

What I have been finding is that property "without issues" is going to cost $3k+ per acre if its close to Dallas. If its less than that, there are reasons for it.

The above property already has electric out there. What I am trying to find out about is sewage. There was a mobile home on it at one time. I found where I think the septic tank is on the property.

Whats great about the property is it is on a hillside looking at the reservior. The drawback is that the boat launch for this is close to the property. If you look on the map, you can see a dirt road with a loop on it. Thats the boat launch just south east of the property. So, that is a concern. Will it be crowded? Will it be an asshole magnet?

Yes and yes.

I gotta agree with Chris. Water attracts people. That's likely why they built that reservoir. And for some reason, it seems to attract people with no manners. Whether it's college kids wanting to race around the lake in their daddys' speedboats or bubba-type fishermen who will leave fish parts all over the shore, or families who bring their overweight screaming brats out there to play in the water, there will always be people around. And the number of people there will always grow in number as the place becomes more popular and better known.

To me, the purpose of buying remote rural land would be to get away from people.

You may not have it so bad there, since your property doesn't actually touch the water. But that road will be busy and you'll hear constant noise from drunken teens having parties out there, annoying jet-skis, etc.

What about "public access?" Even if the property isn't on the water, would you still have to grant access to, say, State wildlife officials who need to pass through your land for some reason?

Ouch.
Waddaya mean taxes should be lower?
Build anything on it and they will rape you.

Is this an unincorporated area? If so, why are the taxes so stinking high?

I finally got nailed by the tax man this year, and will have to pay at least 250.00 a year for the rest of my bloody life to rent my land from "The Man".
Gods, how that pisses me off!

I'd only look for land in unimproved and unicorporated areas to mnimize your future taxes.

Actually that tax rate seems about par for rural Texas. It's about 2 percent of the property value. That's a lot lower than they pay in urbanized counties.

I have lived near a boat launch before. Thats why I brought it up. The one I was near however was a major NY Finger Lake. So the traffic was extreme, and I imagine far worse than what this reservior could be. But you never know. It could be awful... could be not that bad.

After looking at the property I asked the Realtor selling it some questions. Turns out, the drawing was wrong.



So it turns out the property is a rectangle of the same size. It just is on the West side of the one shown. This puts it farther away from the boat launch.

Good luck with that. I imagine that rural land will be drying up in short order here in Texas as the population rises - and prices will only go up. Only downside about the land you're looking at (tinfoil hat is on tight) is that wind patterns would carry anything from DFW up that direction, be it fallout, chemical cloud, etc.

I've also started looking around at rural land. There is some good land further South of where you are looking, in the Eustace/Athens area. I looked at 40 acres out there last month. It's a decent area, my grandparents lived there for decades and I used to go out there to visit.

The first area my wife & I investigated was the Athens area. We like that region alot. Especially due south of there towards Montalba. That is some pretty countryside.

The issue for that area is price. Going out southeast down HWY175, the acreage is still pretty pricey. I have not been able to find 30+ decent acres in that area for anything less than $100k. That is just more than I am willing to spend right now. Because raw land in Texas is a pain in the ass to finance, it would require 20% down plus closing costs. Basically to buy in that region, I could either buy flood plain property for slightly less money..... or have a large monthly payment.

In some cases its still both:
http://www.freesteader.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=870

Flood Plain and expensive.

In the past few months of looking, we have kind of refined our search. We started out wanting the impossible: 60+ wooded acres, one hour from DFW, for $75k. Well, thats not going to happen. 5 years ago it could have. Not anymore.

Going Northeast-East, way out I30 turns out has alot more potential. Its not as scenic or pretty as the Athens/Palestine Area. But there is affordable land, with some decent School districts (this is a subject in itself), with good roads and high elevation.

The issue with these is that they are mostly open ground.

I'm not as deep into the search yet. It is disappointing that I didn't start looking at land 10 years ago when the prices were much more managable.