Best places (in US) for starting out.

The situation:
I'm currently in one of those places where land prices (and taxes) are skyrocketing.  
(Bad news is I need out. Good news is I can sell what I've got and afford some good acres!)
I work remote, so I could work just about anywhere. I have no social preference on where to live.

I'd like a place where things grow well and as little bureaucracy as possible standing in the way me from building/doing stuff.

If you were in this situation, where would you choose to plant your homestead?  And, why? (pros/cons)

I traveled, searched and researched real estate all over the country...
your question is way too general. Not clear how much money you're willing to pay...how many acres minimum...minimal house standards... are you able to deal with winter which means less growing seasons and fewer food plant varieties, things like that.
They money you're able to pay for the property will be the key deciding factor.

K Eilander wrote:The situation:
I'm currently in one of those places where land prices (and taxes) are skyrocketing.  
(Bad news is I need out. Good news is I can sell what I've got and afford some good acres!)
I work remote, so I could work just about anywhere. I have no social preference on where to live.

I'd like a place where things grow well and as little bureaucracy as possible standing in the way me from building/doing stuff.

If you were in this situation, where would you choose to plant your homestead?  And, why? (pros/cons)

Rural Tennessee (which shrinks somewhat every year as everyone moves here) is really nice, and I am trying to get out of the city to someplace in the country here! Tennessee is right in the middle of the Eastern half of the USA, which can be very nice, as I have family all over!

If I could pick a place, then it would be Portland, OR.

It is one of the best places in the US for bike infrastructure.
It has one of the most vibrate street food scenes in the US.
Just down the road from the amazing Andrew Millison and OSU.
Local geography and climate is challenging for conventional farming but a dream for permaculturists

However, I’ve never been there . . . But I’d never been to Asia when I moved to Singapore . . . Same goes for NJ but I’m no longer talking about that. . .

Second on my list would be Burlington, VT. Read some good stuff about their pioneering and forwarding thinking attitude. Haven’t been there either . . .

Outside the US . . . Vancouver Island, BC or Montreal.

For me I would spend the extra $5,000ish to get a structual engineer to stamp my structure so that I can build anywhere without any worries due to "bureaucracy". Personally I would want to exceed all the bare minimum requirements that the building code list or things like a septic tank/etc I would want to have as a backup so that I can get certified/sell/refiance/reverse-mortage the house in an emergency in the future. Post and beam contruction type with non-load bearing infill walls and a by the book septic tank are the solution to a lot of problems.

It sounds like you are not too worried about the following:
1acres of fruit/nut trees
mushroom/herbs/vegetable garden
bee hives
1/4acre+ pond
chicken coop
3 drawf milk goats.

It sounds like you are mostly worried about:
WATER
- septic system (install a $5,000 septic as a backup and then do your own thing)
- grey water system
- irrigation system (well/city-sourced, grey-water sourced)
- fresh water system (well/city, purification)
- hot water heater (tankless-ondemand, solar 80gal, regular gas-40gal)

ELECTRIC
- house electrical system
- solar/hydro/wind/grid electric source

SPACE CONDITIONING
- Mini-Split Heat Pump (AC & Dehumidification possible heating)
- ERV/Bathroom/Kitchen Venting
- Winter Humidification
- Radiant Floor Heating/Storage
- Heater (Pellet/Rocket/Electric/Solar/Fossil Fuel/etc)

INSULATION
- Hay Bale
- EPS Foam
- 12inch cement/earth/cob/masonary
- Earth berm

STRUCTURE
- Post and Beam+infill/facade (this usually take care of 80% of the bureaucracy)
- Load Bearing Walls

ROOF
- Regular roof
- Green roof/underground roof

OUTDOOR LLIVING SPACE
- living pool
- kitchen
- sofa+firepit
- greenhouse

Can you list all the features/system that you would like your homestead to have, how big do you envision it. Which features/system do you forsee the bureaucracy harrassing you about? And how much money do you have to spend. I can fin an acre of bare land for $1million dollar or for 10,000 or for just $500(if it is a bulk buy). I assume you will build cash and not worry about the mortgage company bureaucracy, because they will want to know if they can easily sell and insure you house in case they have to repo it.

To me bureaucracy is really just boils down to not wanting to waste/spend money on getting a structual engineer to stamp your design plans.

TIPS
- don't get city land get county land so that you can have off-grid water/sewage/electric
   and cheaper land, and bigger parcels of land, steeper/hydro-electric
   neighbors who are less likely to be nosey and report you.

- live close enough to the city so that you can have grid-electric at least as backup, and also for healthcare, supplies, possible as a market to sell or to get trade-folks

We have a lot of these type threads. Maybe check out some of the others. And I agree with Alice, some more information would be good.

I bought a property with two houses that already fit government requirements. Around here unless someone complains and you have some building and septic that look normal you can get away with adding greywater systems, rainwater harvesting and lots of other things without any problems. I would not buy raw land because that's when they start wondering how you are doing things.

I think Oregon is lovely. I moved here 3 years ago. The heat can be bad but the winters are fairly mild so I can grow some things year round. I think being near major cities but not in one. It's 6 hours to the SF Bay Area and 4 1/2 hours to Portland. But that's just me.

If you want to start narrowing down your search by no gubimint bureacurants messing around: much of the South (Southeast), West Virginia, Missouri, Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, even some of rural New England (just not MA or CT) are the places, such as unorganized townships in Maine or parts of NH and Vermont.

In rural parts of these locales there're either no building codes or no one to enforce them.
No well regulations in many of these states either and in some places it's even easy to get rural water service in remote locations such as in Kentucky. Only septic regulations are enforced, but in Missouri you can just build a lagoon, and you only need septic for black water in some of these states and can direct graywater the way you please.

Wherever you choose, be sure to look in detail on how land costs, taxes, overall costs of living, etc will impact you.  Crunch the numbers carefully.  The stats we commonly run into are normally based on average households.  The problem is, if you are posting here, you aren’t average.

I probably need to expand this a little at the risk of repeating posts I have made elsewhere.   I have a friend in North Carolina who bought a homestead.  Only later did he realize he was on a private road and shared responsibilities with a neighbor for road maintaining.  This is a problem with one decides the road needs to be resurfaced and the other doesn’t.  It is a huge problem when a car of drunk teens wrecks their car on your road and blames the road.


Another individual I spoke with moved from California to Georgia.  They were thrilled at the lower taxes.  They were stunned at all the services they had accepted as normal that were no longer available.  The most important one was that they had a son with severe disabilities who lost an array of medical services.