5 THINGS TO CONSIDER DURING YOUR HOMESTEAD HUNT
Before fully diving in, two quick disclaimers and spoilers:
You do NOT need 50 acres, or even 20, or even 10! to be a homesteader! Yes, you may be a bit more limited with animal capacity, but, with proper planning and creative solutions, you can make any size of land work for you!
There’s a common misconception that “homesteading” means ancient or living off grid or just living so simply that life is overly difficult. Maybe this was my misconception, maybe not – either way it’s wrong! MY definition of homesteading is simple: Living more intentionally with what we’re eating and how we’re living, and doing so in a modern way (so yes, we’re not giving up our Netflix and Chill mentality over here). Bottom line, we want to live well and not be 100% reliant on supply chains for everything (no T.P. shortages for us over here – kidding, kind of).
So, keep number one in mind and come up with what your own definition of homesteading means to you to help frame your search criteria for the perfect plot of land. Another spoiler, there really is no such thing as a perfect plot of land unless you have an unlimited budget!
When we first started searching for land, we had BIG, I mean BIG dreams, and a lengthy list of “must-haves”. We wanted at least 20 acres, a barn, a pond, cross-fencing, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, an office (my husband and I both work from home), great schools, access to sports for our boys, and the list went on with a few extras. Looking back, I laugh because it was 100% not realistic for a few reasons. Thankfully, we realized this about a month into our search.
What we ended up with was well under 20 acres, no pond, no cross-fencing, BUT tons of other GREAT tradeoffs. What we thought we wanted, wasn’t what we ultimately invested in, and we couldn’t be happier! We have been beyond blessed each step of the way during the house hunt and during our first year here! So, based on our experience, here are the top things I recommend you consider during your own homestead hunt:
Taxes & Hidden Costs
Infrastructure
Property Layout
Schools
Acreage & Amenities
Let’s dive in a bit deeper!
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Obviously, you have the list price of the home, BUT if you’re a first time buyer, don’t forget to account for property taxes and other costs like insurance fees that you’ll begin to incur.
We live in an area of Texas where hurricane season can devastate entire communities – not just through floods but power outages which can lead to a lot of lost food depending on how long the outage is. We took into account extra costs that we might have to foot the bill on by purchasing in this hurricane zone.
We also looked at the ages of the homes to gauge what type of other investing we’d need to do to the property. Would we need a new roof or HVAC system at any point in the near future? If so, we weighed the pros of the property with what we’d have to scale back on to develop the property.
Another cost we seriously factored in was the non-monetary cost of needing to travel further to see our loved ones. My husband and I are fortunate to have great jobs where we work from home, so we expanded our search radius to ALL over Texas. So when we weren’t having to necessarily consider weather patterns, we factored in how much more difficult it would be to see my in-laws. I am extremely fortunate to have a great relationship with my in-laws, and my boys absolutely love hanging out with grandma and grandpa, especially having spent so much of their young lives living thousands of miles away from family, so if the property wasn’t absolutely in-line with what we wanted to do long-term, we took this hidden cost into account.
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The former History teacher in me loves throwing this fancy term out when I can so I’ll likely use it a bit here. We severely under-estimated this key word, infrastructure, when looking. There were some properties that were beautiful, expansive, checked EVERY box. Then came the disappointment. There was no reliable internet service for the area! Talk about having the wind let out of my sails.
As remote workers, this was a deal breaker. We found that a lot of properties in smaller, rural areas, didn’t have reliable enough service providers that would allow us to continue to earn a living. We’d love to earn a small income from our homestead, but that takes time so full-time incomes are required to be able to financially sustain our family.
We tried really hard to make it work for one home in particular – everything from researching best hot spots, contacting tons and tons of providers to compare service, and looking into Starlink (Elon Musk’s internet service). We just couldn’t risk not having something reliable. No one likes being on a choppy Zoom call.
In terms of infrastructure, you may need to consider the roads. I’m not talking about dirt country roads, that’s all fine. I’m talking about homes that are on Private Roads – roads not maintained by the county or state, but maintained by the homeowners themselves. I’m not a legal expert or a loan expert, but we did learn that in Texas at least, purchasing a home with a private road can impact your loan terms and requirements (i.e. down payment and inspection). Another thing to consider when searching.
The last thing we took into account with regards to infrastructure was how close the property was to a major road or highway. We were looking for quiet. Our old neighborhood had a massive highway not far away so you’d hear the sounds of drag racers in the late hours. We wanted to avoid this! If the house was set back from the highway but I could hear it, we kept it moving to the next house.
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I’m not talking about the home layout here. That, we weren’t nearly as concerned about. We wanted a lot of land with a little bit of house, not the other way around.
Now, when I say we looked at a lot of properties, it’s not an over-exaggeration to say we looked at hundreds (though not all in person). My husband had this obsession of searching up the actual property lines and boundaries.
It irritated me to no end at first because I’d find a home that looked great, checked the boxes, and then he’d come in crushing dreams after he saw what the property lines looked like. Now, I’m extremely grateful he did this. He was looking from a far more practical perspective than I was.
Some properties were so narrow and long or weirdly L-shaped that it wouldn’t have been very practical for us. Some had a great center stretch of property but then the bulk of the property lines looked as though a two-year old had determined the boundaries themselves with crayon. We knew we wouldn’t necessarily get a perfectly square or even piece of property but we wanted to have a good portion of it with a normal shape to make fencing and usability easier for us.
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This may not be something everyone reading this needs to consider. Maybe you don’t have kids or maybe you’re homeschooling. We have kids and I have ZERO desire to homeschool so schools was important. We knew proximity wouldn’t be just a few minutes away like our suburban neighborhood so that wasn’t a huge factor.
In Texas, school ratings are important to a lot of people. As a former educator, I know that that isn’t always a great indicator of quality of education. What we did care about and look for was school size, programs offered, and what other parents had to say about the administration and teachers.
Our boys were in a very large school district – one of the largest in the state. While this allowed for a great amount of resources to be allocated into the schools, it really de-personalized how the administration and teachers were able to interact with the students and parents. We wanted more of a small-town feel with a deeper connection to the students and families. Case to prove my point, my middle child’s favorite teacher has stayed in touch all summer and is planning a visit to spend a day on the ranch with us and my son couldn’t be more excited to see her!
We also wanted to make sure there was a decent extra-curricular program. Because we’re in a smaller district, this now increases the likelihood of my boys being able to actually play regularly when they’re in the more competitive high-school age groups.
We also looked at reviews and parent comments of a district in online forums and on Facebook. If the rating was mediocre, or even poor, but parents did nothing but tout the positives of some of those items I’ve already mentioned, it made us feel more comfortable with the idea of potentially enrolling our boys.
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Last, but not least acreage and amenities. First, the acreage since it’s a bit more straight-forward. You may think you want 50 acres (I still kind of do) but do you have the capacity to care for that type of acreage? It takes a lot of time and heavy equipment to maintain that so being realistic with what you’re capable of doing should be factored in.
Moreover, think about what you’d like to do with your property. What animals do you want to introduce? If it’s larger livestock like cows, do the math on how much acreage you’d need to ensure they have enough grazing pasture. If it’s sheep or goats, you can fit more animals on one acre than you could with cows. What type of gardening space do you want? How large do you want your garden space to be? Will you need to build animal structures on parts of your property that will cut into your pasture? Again, things to consider with the amount of land you’re looking at.
Now, amenities – and I’m not talking about HOA type amenities, I’m talking about mineral rights. Again, I’m not a legal expert, but we have enough knowledge on what to ask and look for here in the great state of Texas. We wanted to know that whatever we purchased would include all mineral rights. Not to be greedy but just to keep our property free of potential ickiness and litigation if they were found on the property during our ownership. There was one property I loved but the owner had already signed a contract and leased certain pieces of property to an energy company so there were these hideous windmills on the property. If we purchased, we’d have to allow those on the property for the next 7 years! Needless to say, we passed on that piece of property.
Whew! That was a lot! Finding your homestead is a big investment, not just financially, but it’s a long-term family investment so going into the search with the right expectations and things to look for is extremely important.
Ultimately, in framing what your homestead goals are at the beginning, combined with budget and personal needs, you can craft your search to find that perfect place to call home! Happy hunting!
