Choosing a Location to Buy Vacant Land

Location has a large impact on the ability to achieve your desired result with the purchase of vacant property. When choosing a location, there’s a lot to think about, and in this section, we’ll go through the primary factors to consider when purchasing vacant land.

Proximity to Your Current Home

One of the first factors you should consider is whether or not the land needs to be located within close proximity to your current home. In many cases there’s no need to buy land near where you live, but sometimes you may want to be within a certain distance. For example, if you’re building a home and doing a lot of the construction yourself, you’ll want to live close enough to the property that the commute is reasonable.

The good news with land is that you don’t need to be too close to take care of it. It’s not going anywhere. If building on the land, you still don’t need to be there. These days technology enables us to receive high quality images and videos right to our cell phones. A contractor can keep us in the loop as the development progresses.

Looking to narrow the search criteria, consider how close you need the property to be to where you currently reside.

What Can Legally be Built on the Land

The next factor to consider is whether or not you can build what you want to on the land. Get a clear understanding of what it is you want to do and then make sure it’s allowed in the area you’re looking. Local municipalities have jurisdiction over the zoning of the property and will dictate what can and cannot be built on it.

Some areas allow a wide variety of structures to be built such as tiny homes, mobile homes, manufactured homes, and single-family homes. Other areas are more restrictive on what can be built and may only allow single-family homes and modular homes. Review the zoning code and determine what’s allowed before moving forward with your purchase of vacant land.

Climate

If buying vacant land near your current residence, you’ll already have a good idea what the climate is like. However, if you’re buying vacant land in an area that you’re unfamiliar with do some research on what the climate is like year-round.

Perhaps you’re a snowbird and want to buy in an area that you can relocate to during the winter months. Or, the opposite is true, and you love to recreate in the snow. Maybe the doctor told you to find a dry climate with a higher elevation to help with respiratory issues. There are countless reasons to consider the climate when buying vacant land.

A quick search on the internet can tell you what the climate is like in most areas. In addition to reading official weather resources, there are blogs and public forums out there where you can read peoples’ experiences with the climate in an area. Do your research first and make sure the climate will work for your needs.

Nearby Facilities

When looking into nearby facilities, consider health care facilities, shopping, and airports or other public transportation hubs. Oftentimes all three are located nearby one another, so you can usually go to one general location to find them.

Are you more of a city dweller that prefers to drive five or ten minutes to a grocery store, or do you like to pick up groceries once every other week and an hour drive is a fun outing? Do you need to be near a healthcare facility for regular check-ups or can you go in once a year for your routine check-up? Do you travel a lot by plane and driving three hours to an international airport is going to be too inconvenient? All of these items are considerations when looking at different locations for your perfect piece of vacant land.

Activities & Attractions

One of the most exciting things to consider as you’re searching for vacant land is what activities and attractions are nearby that you’re going to enjoy. Think about your favorite activity and imagine having the ability to go do it more often because there is a place located nearby. Or, you could even do it on your own property.

From camping to hunting to backcountry snowboarding trips, the options are endless. Maybe you want to build a yurt in the Rocky Mountains like Joe over at http://www.theyurtlife.com/ and use it as a basecamp for snow in the winter and white water rafting in the summer. Or, perhaps you want to build an amazing off-grid home in the high desert of California and use it as an escape from the city like the guys from Blue Sky Building Systems did with http://www.rockreachhouse.com/ . Whatever your passion, there’s a piece of vacant land out there that will suit your needs.

All of these factors hold a certain weight in your decision-making process on which location works best. Think about what factors are flexible and what factors are non-negotiables. If the location of the land needs to be within 3 hours driving distance from your current residence, that may be the number one factor to start narrowing down your search. However, if you’re more interested in developing a tiny home somewhere, then you may need to be more flexible on the distance from your current residence. As with anything in life, there’s going to be a trade-off somewhere.