Strategic relocation, random thoughts

[Lodewijk]

This mighe be kind of meandering but I'll try to keep it together.

Reading this article has confirmed a lot of what I've been thinking on and off for a while:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/07/yellowstone-boom-pits-lifetime-montana-residents-against-wealthy-newcomers.html

I grew up in vaguely-rural-suburban New York (Orange County). I got out as fast as I could, because my hometown became unrecognizeable as I went from high school to college. Growing up it was axiomatic that "the city will keep pushing out" and that's what happened. It used to be a small town, with small-town people. Now it's kind of a playground for people who think it's "the country". 

When I bolted to Pennsylvania, life was different. My neck of PA was slow, with good people in it. I ended up leaving to marry and retrack my income, but I've kind of been looking for an endgame ever since. My brother is aligned, and we 100% intend to buy land and build next to each other. We joke about having a compound.

Bemoaning radical changes in lightly-populated areas is kind of a hobby now. You will notice that the realty group in the article above is presented neutrally, but having observed rapid development in "rural" New York, North Alabama, and now Colorado... I think they need to be calculated for. They're not necessarily bad people, but capital zooming in on an in-demand area and buffing it up to sell to out of staters is A Thing. It's also why prices explode and stay exploded.

When certain people complain about "rootless corporate drones" they're complaining about me. I don't take it personally, because I didn't ask to have the place where I grew up priced out of my reach and culturally changed, and I get it. You get damnyankeed enough by families that moved in themselves from out of state 30 years ago, it's just people being people after a while. But all politics being local...

So. Relocating to find a quiet place to be left alone and relocating to set up a survival retreat have a lot in common, and things like the American Redoubt concept are appealing.  My brother and I are trying to model out places that will be safe from internal migration long-term and it gets muddy fast. Idaho and Montana used to be the obvious possibilities, but I'm striking Montana and Idaho is making me nervous. Parts of Wyoming look like they check the important boxes (mountains, good water access, no people) but the population is so low that it won't take many Californians to upend state politics. 

Phone is dying so I'll cut it short. Am I the only one trying to reason through all of this crap? I can't be.

[Mr. E. Monkey]

Am I the only one trying to reason through all of this crap? I can't be.

Considering skyrocketing real estate prices in rural areas throughout the country, I would guess that you aren't.  


Anecdotally, when we sold our last place and moved to Arkansas, the realtors were saying that the Salt Lake area was seeing a significant number of new home-seekers from out-of-state, California for most of them, and then a number of people who had been living in the Salt Lake area were pushing out to our area, to work from home.  I'm sure that's not a unique situation, too.

I'm really not sure how to solve the problem, though.  Potentially huge impact on plans for bugging-out (assuming you don't already live in one of these areas), that must be taken into consideration.

[Lambykins]

Idaho and Montana used to be the obvious possibilities, but I'm striking Montana and Idaho is making me nervous. Parts of Wyoming look like they check the important boxes (mountains, good water access, no people) but the population is so low that it won't take many Californians to upend state politics.

Phone is dying so I'll cut it short. Am I the only one trying to reason through all of this crap? I can't be.

Okay...a couple things to be VERY aware of if you look at property in the western U.S.
Mineral rights and Water rights/water shares.
You can spend hundreds of thousands on a bare piece of property and still not own what's under the ground or even have any rights to a creek or river that flows right through it. Those rights frequently Do Not Convey with the deed! You have to either buy the mineral rights separately (if whoever owns them will sell them in the first place) and you will probably have to buy *shares* of water YEARLY in order to access the water on your property. Even if you drill your own well, it will more than likely be metered and you will have to pay for every drop you use.
Also, if you do not own the mineral rights...whoever does can drill for oil or even dig a mine on what you consider "your land" . If your house is where they decide to drill or dig because a geologist told them that is where they need to, too bad.  Yeah, they'll *compensate* you for the house, but it will never be as much as what you think it is worth.
States where this is common-place: Montana, Idaho, North and South Dakota, some parts of Iowa, Colorado, Utah, some parts of Oregon and Washington state, some parts of Kansas and Oklahoma. Even some parts of Texas.

If you are buying property in the Western U.S., get a damn good attorney and a damn good title search company. Cover your backside!

[Lodewijk]

Idaho and Montana used to be the obvious possibilities, but I'm striking Montana and Idaho is making me nervous. Parts of Wyoming look like they check the important boxes (mountains, good water access, no people) but the population is so low that it won't take many Californians to upend state politics.

Phone is dying so I'll cut it short. Am I the only one trying to reason through all of this crap? I can't be.

Okay...a couple things to be VERY aware of if you look at property in the western U.S.
Mineral rights and Water rights/water shares.
You can spend hundreds of thousands on a bare piece of property and still not own what's under the ground or even have any rights to a creek or river that flows right through it. Those rights frequently Do Not Convey with the deed! You have to either buy the mineral rights separately (if whoever owns them will sell them in the first place) and you will probably have to buy *shares* of water YEARLY in order to access the water on your property. Even if you drill your own well, it will more than likely be metered and you will have to pay for every drop you use.
Also, if you do not own the mineral rights...whoever does can drill for oil or even dig a mine on what you consider "your land" . If your house is where they decide to drill or dig because a geologist told them that is where they need to, too bad.  Yeah, they'll *compensate* you for the house, but it will never be as much as what you think it is worth.
States where this is common-place: Montana, Idaho, North and South Dakota, some parts of Iowa, Colorado, Utah, some parts of Oregon and Washington state, some parts of Kansas and Oklahoma. Even some parts of Texas.

If you are buying property in the Western U.S., get a damn good attorney and a damn good title search company. Cover your backside!

Yeah, got an education when we moved to Colorado. We installed a rain barrel to catch water from our sump (rather than have it dump out into the gravel) and had to get it all figured out. Water rights are very funny in a pitch-black way to my East Coast sensibilities.

Just to clarify... water access meaning I can go fishing.

That's been the biggest shock moving from the Tennessee River Valley to the Front Range. I used to have like 5 different spots within 10 minutes of the house. Now it's at least 45 minutes to get anywhere and you better like company.

[echo83]

Thanks for this post, Lodewijk, and you're certainly not overthinking anything.

I've thought of this myself, too, and I always end up right back where I started. I'm about 25 miles/40 minutes from a major city, but I'm in a smallish town where there really isn't any further development going on. Home prices continue to skyrocket, but there's no new development.

When I first started prepping, my line of thinking was throw on a BOB and head for the woods. A few things changed my plans:

1.) I realized that everyone else would have the same instinct
2.) I got married and had kids
3.) I don't have the budget to purchase land somewhere else

I still keep a BOB at home and a GHB in the car, but my mindset has shifted away from "Can I winter in the woods by the railway," to "Maybe spend a little less money on MREs and more money towards a generator."

The way I see it; no matter where you go, you're going to run into other people if you're all running from something scary enough.

And to answer your question with another question...do you remember the thread on the other site? We talked about what to do if 1.) Your BOL has been occupied by someone else, or 2.) The locals decide they don't want any "outsiders," around...even if they're just staying in their "vacation home."

[KentuckyCarbine]

just a quick thought. for years i wanted a proper BOL and constantly butted heads with my wife who wanted to keep our house and didn't want to spend the weekends being bored in the country (and i cant blame her).

we ended up buying a small 1200 sq ft cabin with 1.5 acres on a small lake about an hour and a half (80 miles from where we live). she is happy to spend time atthe lake and enjoys fishing and boating now. We even go during the winter and just drive the UTV around the "neighborhood".

its not the best spot from a BOL perspective but it is relatively secluded, fun to use during non-ZPAW times and i have buy-in from the family.

i guess what im trying to say is that its hard to find the perfect BOL and when you do it may not be user-friendly for you and the rest of your family. it may also help to reframe the way you think of it from BOL to cabin/retreat/fun place. 

[Lodewijk]

So in my case, it's a little less of "where should we bug out to" and more of "where should we permanently relocate to down the road".

Which is kind of a longer-term proposal. I'll be in Colorado until my kids are grown up, but we don't particularly want to grow old here if the state keeps trending the way it is (and I understand that straight-line projections are not accurate past a few years). So we are trying to scout options NOW in the hopes of buying a piece of property in the next ~15 years and then landing on it down the road, and trying to figure out what the macro trends are is hard.

We will be doing this with my brother, who is a fireman. Priorities are:

- A state that won't wreck his pension.
- Open contempt for HOAs
- Gun laws that aren't on the coastal model.
- The lowest population density we can get.
- Space for meat rabbits and gardening.
- Access to National Forests or similar for bushcraft larping.

We'd like not to have the rug slow-mo pulled out from under us after we sink a lifetime of resources into that, which is exactly what happened to my parents in New York (they're approaching 70 and fleeing to Wisconsin). That's what's got me watching internal migration. I expect Denver and Boulder to be unrecognizeable in ~25 years.

After living there for about a decade I would have been good just heading back to Alabama, Tennessee, or North Carolina. I'd never be a true local but I would gladly have thrown in with my neighbors there if times got hard and that's what matters. But my brother can't handle the heat and humidity.

We grew up next to my grandparents well away from town on a dirt road. Pretty much we're just trying to get back to that before we die.

[Crosscut]

You've got a long timeline to work with, considered buying the land sooner and building on it later?  Buy and payoff the acreage, and later you and your brother build on opposite ends of it, and voila, compound   No idea on how to anticipate future trends for a particular area, but owning the property outright will make dealing with the bank and appraisers a lot easier when you build (assuming you'll be financing some part of the home), even if you have with a hefty down payment.  Mentioned it in another thread but my state holds yearly online auctions for tax foreclosed properties, and in rural areas near federal or state forests a significant percentage of these properties are acreage with a trashed (completely uninhabitable) camper, mobile home, or cottage that often include their own junkyard of crap in the yard.  Basically, someone's old hunting property and retreat that fell into disrepair for whatever reason.  And by "crap" I mean often many square yards of junk, cars, old appliances, or whatever.  These properties usually go pretty cheap compared to turnkey 2nd homes with acreage, and you've got plenty of time to get it cleaned up.  If it doesn't work out or you change your mind in a couple years, list the now clean property for sale and you might make a nice profit. 

[NapalmMan67]

Agree on buy it now and build on it later.  I missed an opportunity for a substantial piece of land 25 years ago, in a place I would have loved to retire.  Now finding anything like what I want is easily 10 times the cost and more than likely out of reach financially.

The best time to plant an oak tree was 10 years ago, the next best time is now.

[superduder]

"my hometown became unrecognizeable,"

Am I the only one trying to reason through all of this crap? I can't be.

Absolutely Not duder,
Every time I have to go back to what once was home,
Socially (HS Reunion),
Family support (most recently Mom's funeral last Nov)
Or to bury yet another friend who lost the struggle to escape that place...
It's like I'm adding verses to the "Pretenders - Back to Ohio".


I relocated to Tucson of all places...
But the BOL/BOP is secluded, Nearest town is only 3300 ppl.
No water, but due to preparations it will work for 30-90 days, hopefully things will have time to settle down in that amount of time,
at least enough for travel to a more hospitable area.
J