Greening The Desert... For Profit

I've had a good number of years now (20 or so) learning and practicing desert abundance principles and practices.

I'm good at it, understand the rules, and I can bring the green in just a few short years, especially with earthworks.

I've been planning, for a good number of years, on purchasing some extremely cheap Desert land ($500 an acre cheap), applying my knowledge to design a water and fertility harvesting landscape, getting the system established far enough that it will persist and sustain itself for the foreseeable future, and then selling that land at a substantial profit.

Rinse, repeat.

Ultimately, I'd like to make a career of this practice. There's plenty of desert in Utah, and my pioneer forefathers bestowed a legacy of greening the desert upon me, and it would be glorious to demonstrate to my children that you can build a life centered in the Garden.

Any thoughts from anyone about how I might go about making this a reality while trying to make a smooth transition from corporate job to total Garden Everything ™️ instantiation?

Do you think you would buy a big tract and then subdivide? I imagine that doing all the earthworks at once would be most efficient.

Who would you be selling to? I mean, homesteader, someone who just wants a nice place to live, someone who wants a camping spot? I suspect in most cases water sources would still be required for drinking/washing.

Nancy Reading wrote:Do you think you would buy a big tract and then subdivide? I imagine that doing all the earthworks at once would be most efficient.

Who would you be selling to? I mean, homesteader, someone who just wants a nice place to live, someone who wants a camping spot? I suspect in most cases water sources would still be required for drinking/washing.

My answer to these questions is the standard, often maddening, permaculture answer to almost any question:

It depends.

But, a particular opportunity I have observed lies in creating, say, 1-10 acre sites with a cabin. The structure is a big value-add and if there's locally sourced materials and/or sweat equity, then that becomes a more attractive feature. The addition of the beautifying landscape features adds progressively more value.

A possible intermediate step, or even permanent step, would be running these sites as rentals while developing the landscape. A potential buyer might be attracted to a property that offers cash flow.