In the UK it seems all the websites only seem to sell larger bits of land 10 acre+ which are too pricey for me (1 acre in UK = £10k/$16k on average). Should i try contacting farmers in my local area directly and asking them if they're interested in selling an acre or two to me? or would they laugh me away?

Well that's exactly what im planning on doing soon. You can usually workout who owns it by records e.g land registry or usually the most effective option is asking the neighbours, it's worth asking all of them incase one is wrong.

Apparently my great grandfather bought his farm off someone in the pub so I think we have fallen into to the trap of always buying things from 'an authority' e.g an estate agent or nowadays via a flashy website. As convenient as that would be they always take a cut and it makes land too available for 'investment' so I am glad we are a bit backwards in that regards.

For most farmers it isn't worth their while to sell just a couple of acres. The legal costs, issues of access and the loss of farm payments mean they are unlikely to be interested unless you seriously paid over the odds for it. Where in the UK are you looking ?

Katy Whitby-last wrote:For most farmers it isn't worth their while to sell just a couple of acres. The legal costs, issues of access and the loss of farm payments mean they are unlikely to be interested unless you seriously paid over the odds for it. Where in the UK are you looking ?

herefordshire

id be happy to cover legal costs

In the UK it is really difficult!

Keep an eye out for for-sale signs in areas you wouldn't mind living, within walking distance of me there is a 7-acre, a 3-acre and a 1-acre up for sale (they want ridiculous prices for them, but they are for sale! 3 acres for £100K is silly-money).

Also check out property auctions, land comes up quite often at my local one.

And ask your local estate agents- some will deal with land but it won't be advertised in the windows or anything. My local one is 'Richard Savidge'- if they know you're looking for land they'll forward them on to you. The chain-store estate agents don't seem to do it, but there will be a local one that does.

Websites like right-move do list land, but it tends to be 'development land'- ie they want silly money for teeny tiny parcels of land that doesn't actually have planning permission.

And send some letters to farmers. You can use the land registry to look up land ownership for £3 a time, and send them a letter. I've never actually got a reply doing this- but it is worth a shot.

Any small parcel of land in the UK seems to be considered 'potential development land', even if it doesn't have a hope in hell of ever getting planning permission- people just see those property-development tv shows ad seem to think they're tiny patch is worth more than it is.

One option is to go along to your local livestock auction and get to know some folk. You can ask about and they might know of someone who might be willing to sell. Everyone will be fairly local and will probably know everyone else.

I would consider contacting farmers direct, and have you thought about leasing land? It can be as cheap as £100/acre/yr.

The chance of getting any land at a sensible price close to London and that includes Herefordshire is close to zero frankly such is the competition and the farmers know this .
You would do better I would suggest to move to France Spain portuagal Greece or easten Europe .
You can get a house with land for less than £ 60,000
Or you can wait until the forthcoming property speculation collapse . This will I believe happen but the longer it takes to happen the worse it will be .

David

Just put an advert in Farmers Weekly. Everyone reads it, and the small ads section gets scanned by everyone - no point going to people if they can come to you.

I would add you will cover legal costs.

You will be FAR more likely to be able to secure land if you rent as a tennant rather than want to buy - there isn't a huge amount of land for sale at the moment, but it's easy enough to find small plots on a 5 year tennancy. And, if you find you don't like the lifestyle, you aren't locked up with a big mortgage

Steve Hitchen wrote:Just put an advert in Farmers Weekly. Everyone reads it, and the small ads section gets scanned by everyone - no point going to people if they can come to you.

I would add you will cover legal costs.

You will be FAR more likely to be able to secure land if you rent as a tennant rather than want to buy - there isn't a huge amount of land for sale at the moment, but it's easy enough to find small plots on a 5 year tennancy. And, if you find you don't like the lifestyle, you aren't locked up with a big mortgage

Interesting tips, but for me I want to own the land outright.

Land prices are ridiculous in UK. Even land which is not suitable for farming is expensive. And even if you get some land then chances are there will be no chance of planning permission. It is almost as if someone designed this situation deliberately to force you to be a consumer hooked up to the their profit hungry grid. Insert rant about the global corporatocracy / banking cartels here.

I think it is to do with the high population density in the UK. More and more people getting crammed in to what is actually a pretty small area compared to many other countries. Supply and demand. I also feel that the British are too polite and so put up with much more oppression and bureaucracy than many other nations.

Many have suggested living abroad to escape both the pricing and planning situation. Unfortunately for me I would not be confident to move permanently to a country where I could not speak the language. Which leaves perhaps Canada (too cold?), New Zealand, Australia (too far?). I know nothing of the legal processes in these countries but would guess that given the very low population density and the vast amount of land available (at least in Oz and Canada), these places would see your money go much further in terms of land quantity, and you would have an easier time persuading the local authorities to let you live there.