Welcome my Steemit friends today I take you to my pioneer farm - ranch and write a series on it. This is part two .
Buying the Land
I want to take a back step and talk about buying the land from eBay.com and have included a photograph I captured of just a few properties to give you some idea of the auction process.
First of all there are two key search words and they should be used separately. The first is "land" and the other is "acreage". There will be less auctions under the acreage search tag but sometimes there are some and they can be real good deals.
You can also add a tag for your state to determine if there is any land available in your state. Remember, sometimes there is and sometimes there is not. Primarily, I look for auctions which requires the full purchase price in most cases and that land is usually the least expensive. Once you find a property on which you wish to bid or purchase, you have to do your homework and in many cases do your homework fast.
There are two places to get information on the property you are looking to buy and this is the case whether it is an auction or purchased through realty or real estate agent. Be careful, even with an agent. I should be living in Oklahoma on a dream property.
One source of information is the county clerk of the county in which the property is located. The other source is back issues of the local newspaper. Notice of liens, taxes, and auction sales must be published to the public. The local newspapers will also provide information on any proposed projects such as freeways, wind farms, utility easements, railroads and so many others.
So we want to contact the county clerk and ask about this list:
- Liens
- Back taxes
- Clouds or disputes over the title of the property
- Mineral rights
- Zoning
- Water rights
- Easements
- Restrictions
- Utilities
- Road Access
- Building requirements if wanted)
- The Deed - Warranted or Guarantee.
- Address of Where to go to view the paperwork in question
Checking Title and Liens
If you wish to purchase a property on eBay or at any other site that holds land auctions including the county where the property is located, there are tax auctions for properties by counties because of failure to pay property taxes or perhaps seizure for drugs or certain crimes. There are easy ways to do this.
The best method is to call the county clerk and ask about the status of the property over the phone. The clerk can tell you if there are any liens, if the title is clouded or the ownership is in dispute, whether the property comes with mineral rights, how much is owed in back taxes if any and where to go and when to view the records in person.
Tax Liens
Sometimes properties are sold to avoid the taxes due. Don't be a person who gets caught with paying the bill for someone else. Always check for tax liens and taxes owed on a rural property before the property is bid on or bought.
Clouds
Clouds are registered disputes over the property and the title of the property and who owns it. Never buy a property with a clouded title. If you are truly worried, you can hire a Title company to provide a preliminary report. Some title companies will give the information for free if you promise to use their title company to complete the transaction. General the escrow holder in an auction is a title company and they can be called as well as the country clerk.
Mineral Rights
Most city properties or properties near cities or towns have had their mineral rights removed from the ownership of the property. In many rural areas, like the kind you would want to settle, mineral rights are included on the deed and if they are not you can negotiate for them in many cases. It beats having a mine show up on your farm, ranch, or camping paradise. In case you do not know mineral rights include oil, and minerals to include precious metals. Even something like clay or gravel is part of mineral rights and so is rock. These might not seem valuable until the U.S.G.S. or United States Geological Survey gets around to finally surveying and assaying your property for value, like they did here - Huge, Giant, Psychotically Happy Grin!
Zoning
If you want to build on the property, the county clerk can also inform you of any laws that would prohibit building on the property. Zoning is important for property purchase and the clerk can answer this question as well. Again many rural areas have limitations on how small a property or parcel of land can be before anything can be built on the land.
In addition, depending on what you want to do such as farm, ranch, run a greenhouse, feedlot, mine gravel zoning will determine what uses the land is legally allowed to have. Find out about the zoning and what it allows you to legally do on your property before you buy it.
Water Rights
Water Rights is a big deal in the Western United States as water is scarce. Find out if your property comes with any water rights or if you must buy them after you purchase the property. The cost for water rights bought in acre feet in the United States is prohibitive. Unless you are a bonafide rain maker like me with absolutely miraculous skill, and on some days I wonder, water rights are life and death. But as luck and a blessing would have it, just a few minutes after I published the post:
Amen.
Anyways, rainmaking is not a common talent though it can be taught. The class takes years to learn and I charge $50,000 minimum and have never had a student. So, don't get caught without water rights.
If the property has a well or piped in water make sure you taste that water and have it checked. I didn't one time. The seller offered us "cool water" out of a pitcher in the fridge in the house, rather than taste the well and we bought it like fools.
The good thing about that purchase was that even though the well was full of sulfur and the water tasted like motor oil, it was full of chromium picolinate. If you do not know what that does to men. I was putting a wheel on a 1939 Farmall "H" after changing the tire and the tractor fell off the blocks. Oddly, I was able to pick up the tractor while my wife put the blocks back under the axle. Weight of wheel 750 lbs, load on axle a few thousand pounds. Only had my back go out for a couple of weeks. Will you get lucky and have the worst tasting water and have chromium picolinate in it? Probably not.
Easements
Easements - easements are accesses to your property for various reasons. Find out if there is a proposed freeway, mining road that will be running through your property. Easements can often occur because of utilities in the event they wish to expand and serve your area. You never know, one of the easements might be for a major gas or oil pipeline or an electrical trunk line. It is always good to check easements. It is always god to find out if projects that have been proposed to go through your property will have an impact by checking the local paper for notices.
Restrictions
Many properties can have restrictions put on the use of the property by previous owners. Sometimes restrictions are considered clouds on the title as well that limit use.
Utilities
If you actually have utilities available to you on a rural property bought off a auction it is a miracle. Find out what fees are required to hook up to the utilities. Most rural properties do not have a sewer connection. They use a septic tank. If here is one there test the drain and be bold and look just how full the tank is.
Access
Road Access - people get in feuds and even though it is illegal to refuse access to a property called land-locking in most states and areas, it can happen. Find out if the property is landlocked before you buy it not after. Is there an unrestricted easement of access to your property and what about access for property owners past you? How much traffic will pass by your house if everyone moves in to a formerly desolate and uninhabited area? These are important things to check and you might not care if you start getting lonely whoever drives through your property. There is one thing to dreaming of solitude and another to living it.
Building Requirements
Building requirements as to the amount of property that must be owned before building can be allowed varies from place to place, especially in rural areas. This property is 40 acres and it is the minimum in the country out in the rural area in order to build. Anything less and don't put any structure on the property, not even a shed that could store your camping and recreational toys.
How important is this? I bought a property up north and the property was zoned for five acres and build-able which is unusual for that county which requires 160 acres but this property was in an abandoned town. So, what happened was a few years later, it was discovered that the paperwork for the division of the main ranch into five acre parcels was wrong. The allowance to build on the property was revoked making the property worthless. Well, it is not worthless because of the discovery of minerals but you see what can happen. Buying properties is a risky business and is much like buying bitcoin and altcoin only to have the price go down the next day or have the exchange collapse.
You will also want to check for minimum building and maximum building requirements. What if you buy a property and the largest structure can be only a 1,000 square feet or less? What if the property must appraise for $20 million dollars after structure is built? These are things that must be checked. Things like this actually happen to people where they are caught in a vise like this. Be aware of all potential problems with building before you buy.
The Deed
When you purchase a property, you want the highest deed available with clear, unencumbered title. In most states and counties, this is either a Warranted or Guarantee Deed. The names vary so make certain you find out as if all you get is a Quit-Claim Deed; you could be in big trouble later on. A Deed pf Trust means that the property is held by someone else and conditions must be met before a Warranted or Guarantee Deed will be issued, like a mortgage must be paid off.
Contact Information
Again, the county clerk, the Title Company, the local newspaper website, the library, fire, police, ambulance numbers and addresses are something you have to have so now is a good time to gather them all and lay them out in a well organized easy to use manner.
Many times, large ranches and farms, or large wilderness areas will be divided up into parcels for sale by auction or by a land company. If it is by auction, remember, you have to buy enough adjacent land that is joined for building rights or use rights.
The first parcel in a multi-parcel purchase is usually the least expensive. Any adjoining parcels seem to go up in price absolutely high in comparison to the first parcel purchased. Winning at auction for a low price is an art I have down. If you are a crypto trader, you have a good chance of doing it for a lot less.
Good luck - and look what we have to go through in order to even begin to settle or homestead our property unless we have the big bucks because Steemit went to the moon. This is the easy way.
Actual Homesteading or Adverse Possession
Homestead or declaring your property to be homesteaded is legal in many states and protects your property from seizure. Some people think that homesteading is illegal but there are certain areas where a property can be taken by adverse possession from the government even today. Places in Alaska, like above Barrow and even in national parks. You must reside on the property for 5 uninterrupted years and be able to prove that you lived there for those five years.
Purchase is the easiest way by far. If you are caught under adverse possession, you will be removed from the property and have to start all over again. You might also be jailed and or fined.
Mining Claims
Another way to own inexpensive property is by mining claim. The caveat, you must do so much mining and find so much of what you are mining for each year and it depends on each state. A mining claim is 160 acres and generally runs about $200 dollars per year and $500 to $2,000 of work per year. A mining claim is not owned it is granted for a term of 99 years.
You can live on the property, build buildings, raise animals and crops, and do all sorts of things on the property other than just mine but you have to mine. So, many a survivalist, anarchist, recluse chooses this method and if you dig deep enough, you will always find something of value. For one thing, a geothermal power source is the result of mining and mineral rights are required.
Mining claims are bought and sold all the time on eBay and other auction sites and are usually very inexpensive to own.
Conclusion:
So, you want that pristine property that just goes on forever like my place up above in the picture. Believe it or not there are enough of these properties for everyone. If you want one, pull your boots on and go do it. It's the only way it ever gets done. Good luck!
Previous Parts:
Thanks for your visit and I hope you liked this my Steemit friends. Please upvote and resteem and leave your comments and I will answer your questions, maybe in a reply and maybe in a post.