Erika House

Cristobal Cristo wrote:I will give a different advice. If you can, please do not buy land on the desert, especially cold desert. It's extremely difficult to grow in such conditions, even if you have water and good soil. Diurnal temperature changes, very late frosts are the main enemies. Then extreme high temperatures. I'm on the other side of the Sierra Nevada and growing anything is very challenging and needs a lot of investment and I have quality, deep soil and a lot of water. Using desert for grazing is also difficult, because there is not enough vegetation. In the cold desert it's also difficult to acquire wood for heating. If you don't care about these things and just want to build and live in a remote area then please disregard what I wrote.

I've been living in this area my whole life, and have 4 generations of growers' knowledge of this desert to draw on. Not to mention this awesome site.  I wouldn't want to live or grow anywhere else.

Ben Brownell wrote:Hi Erika, one other important topic is to investigate the official flood plain maps that counties will often use to determine legal building sites. From that photo, it appears much of the property may in fact be essentially flood plain, given the greener vegetation and lighter colored surface sediment. Even if you haven't seen it rise above the bank yet, there are statistical models that determine what a 100-500yr flood event will look like and this is often what designates flood prone areas which can't be built on or insured.

Ya, checking the official maps before answering would've been smart.  It is mostly part of the 1% flood hazard zone.  Guess it's back to research mode about the floodplain building codes in this county.

I hadn't thought about the potential accessibility issue!  I will make sure to follow up on that. There's a rail line a mile or so to the east, which is how I discovered this property, driving out there for work with the railroad. I have driven to it, and walked a little bit of the perimeter when I had time, but haven't gone there just to go there.
I was pretty much operating on the idea that I don't have rights to use the water from the creek directly, I will be getting that info officially in the next few days from my realtor.

I've never heard the phrase "wet weather creek". This particular creek usually has some water in it from October-April in a good water year, about half that time in a bad water year. It doesn't have much of a flood plain in this section, much farther upstream is more marshy and that's the area that gets most of the excess, although even in the wettest of the wet years when everything was flooding it didn't overflow its banks a noticeable amount here.
Upstream there's a small town, and much farther upstream are a several large alfalfa farms, and downstream is nothing but sagebrush.

I'm wanting to get it as a long term project, more of a retirement property. Something that I can spend some time on occasionally, building up the land and working on the soil (its pretty alkaline and dusty clay for the most part) without feeling rushed to get building on it right away.  I do know that I am allowed to build on it, I'm just not interested in doing so yet.


Thank you all!  It's really helping me, not only with legal things I need to look into but also with bringing my thoughts and ideas into better focus.

Hi everybody! I'm a first time poster, but I've been reading and lurking on here for years. I've learned a lot and now I'm looking to take the plunge and buy some vacant land.

The property I'm looking at is 18 acres, with a seasonal creek running though it from the northeast corner to the southeast corner. The creek itself takes up approximately 1.5 acres of the property. It's only about 50 miles north of where I'm currently located and is basically the same environment: desert, low rainfall, winter snowfall, 200+ days of sunshine.

I'm hoping this amazing community can help me out, what types of questions I ought to ask about this property, what are other things I need to know in order to make the most informed decision possible?