Permies Poll: Do you own your homestead?

There are a lot of different arrangements out there for living on property, but what do Permies tend to do?



If I am missing an option, comment and I will add it! I'm sure I'm missing one or two.

I owned it outright and then took out a loan for renovations, so I marked the poll as "paying off". I think that's normally how people would classify my situation.

We have a little rental house with a little wrap around yard on three sides, and I'm thrilled, because its so much better than a patio or balcony which was our situation before.  There are a few limits on what I can do, but really the landlords are mostly good, they just don't understand dandilions. but there's oppertunity here anyhow, growing what I have mostly in pots and boxes for now, seeing where I'd like to put raised beds once I can acquire them.  Its small but I'm totally okay with that, I will not seek a larger plot until/unless I'm maximizing what I now have, which will take some time, knowing me.

"Other"... My 70 something mom is the official owner, but I will inherit with my sister when she passes.

The poll would not let me answer correctly.

So I did ...

The house is paid for = one apple.

We are paying on the land = one peoples choice.

I live on a land trust, so we technically don't own the land--we have a lifetime lease. We do own the improvements, like the house we built. We  could afford it because we didn't have to pay for the land, because it's in West Virginia where the cost of living is low--so are wages but we are both frugal people so we were able to save enough to build the house, and then my mother left me an annuity of $23,000--which paid for the off-grid solar system (also cheaper because my husband understand electricity and planned and installed it himself) with excellent timing as we were able to take off 30% of the cost in both federal and state taxes, which I would have had to pay on the annuity--now there's no state tax credit and the federal one is about to expire. My adult kids are self-sufficient so no expense there

Two years and three months until financial freedom for me!  

Everything is paid off, all the land, all the buildings (8 of them), tractor, truck, car, ATV, no debt. We did this 2 years after buying the place. My only bills are a small electric bill, insurance and taxes.

I currently own my place outright, but I had a different situation for a few years.

I was not a caretaker, but you might want to add that option, some kind of work exchange.

I had a situation for 5 years in which I knew people who had a remote cabin at 8000 feet, on the border of the national forest, and I lived there.  I did a lot of repairs and improvements.  In the end the owners nutted up, got really unreasonable and difficult to get along with and seemed to overestimate the value of their ownership.

There’s always the chance it will come to that.  I loved it there, but I moved out.

Own the home and a typical suburban lot, big enough for a garden and a few fruit trees. We got married, worked 10 years living in a tiny apartment with 2 kids, to save the cash to buy the home outright.

My theory of money management is 'Don't pay the bank. Make the bank pay you.'

By that I mean don't buy on credit and pay interest. No mortgage. Invest the money, receive interest, until you can buy the thing you want for cash.

In addition I own 1/5 share of the family farm. With my siblings, after our folks passed away. This is fairly recent, and we are not sure what we will do with it, but for at least a year or two we are keeping it. It's small, and income from the land just barely pays insurance and taxes.

Is there a poll option for "it's complicated"? Ha! And does a "wannabe" homestead count? We are quasi-permaculturing a quarter-acre plot that technically belongs to someone else (they're letting us stay and experiment with different gardening practices that can be re-lawned later as long as we keep the property in good condition, cover insurance and taxes, and manage the rental of the basement), but we'll be buying it [paying over years] next year.

We own the land outright (ten acres). If the housing market doesn't tank we will be selling our home we own outright to plow the money into the new homestead. I'm currently looking at kit homes and modular homes. Being so rural there are no options for stick built. Which after our current home's build I'm not looking forward to owning another stick built home. We will be totally off grid and I could use some experienced advice.

Sandy, one thing you might consider is building in stages.  First a great room with kitchen alcove, small bathroom.  Start with what ever you consider essential, in a single space, with planned add ons…  Planning the whole thing at once can be overwhelming, and doesn’t necessarily get you the building you want to live in.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:Sandy, one thing you might consider is building in stages.  First a great room with kitchen alcove, small bathroom.  Start with what ever you consider essential, in a single space, with planned add ons…  Planning the whole thing at once can be overwhelming, and doesn’t necessarily get you the building you want to live in.

That's actually a good idea. I want a summer kitchen for canning and food preservation. I'm also going to downsize our house again and I would prefer to keep that mess out of the home since it will be small. I was thinking about one of the larger shed kits. Something we can throw up in a few weeks and then use as temporary living quarters while we build the kit house. We can not have more than one home on our homestead property. So I have to be careful what I build. I really like two companies https://www.ezlogstructures.com/ and amishbuilthomes.com  Both offer kits and the Amish even have modular walls in their kits. Like jigsaw puzzles for adults. The no cutting requirement was what sold me on the idea.

We own our place (with a mortgage) but don't consider it our homestead. We both were raised in Rural (capital R deliberate) areas and want room to stretch out, plant more perennials, and have chickens and more if we darn well want to. It's starting to look like moving is a dream that will not be realized, but I refuse to give up hoping. After so many downturns, eventually something has to go right, if only to reinforce the law of averages.

We paid off the bank a decade back for our 1920 house and 7 acres.   Yes we pay taxes on it but it is crucial to support the county, which includes roads and much infrastructure,  schools, libraries, the list goes on.  I can't say I begrudge a nickel of that yearly bill.  

I own outright, the hardest way I can imagine. I was madly in love, and my partner had a new job she loved and then she saw a former millworker's shack on a half-acre for sale cheap. She paid cash. Then she found out she had lung cancer. She left it to me. So I began making the wreck habitable as I was pushed out of my job as Land steward at Lost Valley Education Center (East of Eugene in Kesey country.) I used most of my bankroll getting a new roof (beyond my capacity to do that work w/o big help) So I'm still looking at unfinished drywall in places. I concentrate on the 1/2 acre agroforestry system. My son is living in Beaverton happily working in a CAD job, so if you want to live in Eugene some day and want a homestead on a quiet cul-de-sac, we can talk. I plan to live to 90, but that doesn't agree with what's been going down in my family. (at 74 next month, I'm the patriarch of my family, and I've been dead once already, back in the 80's. (shout out to Life Flight!)

We currently own everything outright but did incur some credit card debt... we are considering getting a mortgage to pay off the credit cards and a little extra to complete some projects and have a lower monthly payment...but I don't love the idea of getting the bank involved in our property that we currently own free and clear. This is a difficult conundrum for us right now.

I have been really wary of credit card debt, yeah. I use my debit card most of the time, and have a reserve emergency account in a different credit union. So far, so good.

Last vote in apple poll was on October 21, 2025