I just came into a lot of money. Where should I buy hunting/retirement land???

Status
Not open for further replies.
K

knoxx45

Member
Joined
Jul 19, 2006
Messages
206
Please excuse me if I’m in the wrong category. I didn’t know where to post this, so please move it if it is necessary.

This is my question:

I just inherited a lot of money and want to buy a piece of land to hunt on now, and build a house on when it comes time to retire. Right now I am 31 and married, but no kids yet (maybe in a year or two). The wife and I now live in the peoples republic of NJ, and thus have no rights. We want to buy a couple of hundred acres (I was thinking of at least 200) where we can hunt and possibly fish now, and in the future. When we retire, we want to build a house, probably a post and beam, on the land. Now, since we are about the only family that we have, we have no reservations as to where to buy. I was hoping that some of you folks could educate me a little about places that would be good for this. I know that if I ask 100 people, I’ll probably get 100 different answers, but I’m thinking that if I could get a few ideas, that it would be a start, as I am pretty ignorant of hunting outside of the north east.

I thank you for your help.

Knoxx
 
I bought my property in the Arkansas Ozarks in 1969 for $50 an acre. It's worth about $1,000 an acre now, plus another $1,000 for the timber.

My suggestion is first of all visit various states and decide what "grabs" you. Look at the hunting -- Here in Arkansas, we have bear and elk as well as more mundane game.

Next, look at your time horizon -- what is remote and inaccessable now will not necessarily be so in the future.

Finally, if possible consider how often you will visit the property -- which means something nearby (say in Pennsylvania) may be worth more to you than something in Colorado or Idaho.
 
Huh.

If this "global warming" thing keeps up, the obvious answer is "Alaska" :D.

Seriously though: awesome gun laws unlikely to revert, hunting and fishing galore...rough winters of course but not that bad down in those islands on the SE part...
 
Nice land in some sections of New Mexico.

Nevada in the eastern part has some good areas.

Utah has some good parts.

Eastern Oregon and Washington, Idaho and Montana all come to mind.

I surely envy your problem knoxx.
 
Jersey, eh?

Catch a flight to Casper, or Cheyenne.

Just make sure you are "liquid" before you go. You will never want to return.

Bring a fishing pole and a varmint rifle, hell, and a pistol! Those wonderful folks don't mind.

Just don't say how much better/more sofisticated things are back east.
 
It rains a lot in SE Alaska, but the winters are mild.

You can get an ag parcel pretty cheap up here. If it is "non-subdividable" (I don't know the correct term) the taxes are low too.

The winters don't get too bad until you get pretty far north and inland. Even in Fairbanks, with -50 degree weather, if you dress appropriately, it's not a big deal.

Cold weather is much better than hot. You can always put more layers on, but there is a limit on how many you can take off.
 
Uh, you plan to spend the next 30+ years in NEW JERSEY, when you just came into a lot of money, and you have no family to keep you there?

Not only are there many places to live, there are also many interesting opportunities for building businesses in places that are far more hospitable in every imaginable way. I'm not talking about just RKBA issues, here; I'm 40 and about to have a kid myself.

You know, you could be dead in 30 years. Why wait? And why bring up kids in the congested, socialist Northeast?

No comprender.

It's none of my business; it's just something that I figured I'd inject into this.

Pardon any perceived geographical chauvanism. It's not that. We're seriously considering leaving this place, and it's got a lot going for it.
 
What do you want & afford?

What is a lot of money? A friend just paid $600,000 for a house on 0.15 acre in Los Banos, CA. Pity him.

There is a nice 17,000 sq foot house, 11 br/15 bath on 200 acres with pool, lake, and lots more here for 2.1 mil.

Too much house I'll bet? How about 80 acres with stream, tiny pond for $200,000? That's the going rate in Alabama now. Easy to bulldoze your own private lake.

Alabama's biggest State gross domestic product is cars. Buy where there will be a future. Also buy where there will be water. Forget the dry west.

PM me for more info.
 
I haven't been to a whole lot of places but Colorado (outside of Denver) and northern Arizona are nice. Dry, sunny, and pretty mild temperatures.
 
LOS BANOS!?!?

WHY???

There are places in California where you look at the prices and say, "Well, I can see why people would fight over the real estate here."

But LOS BANOS?!?

(For those who don't know, Los Banos is an old farm town, on flat land, with a truly lousy climate, 2 hours from anywhere you'd want to be, nowhere near a vibrant city, a beach, mountains, or anything else that drives up prices in California. Houses are built on old fields, on just enough land to fit the building, with no views or anything else.)
 
get out of the armpit of the universe!

I used to spend evry summer in NJ.
In the 60' early 70's me and my cousins
the oldest being 14 would walk thru town
with our shotguns to go shoot tin cans at the quarry.
This was in Keansburg,on the shore! My uncles had pistols.
I never meet anyone currently in NJ who has a pistol.

Here in NV I go to see friends on their little ranches and we shoot machine guns
have bonfires open carry in the little town. In the big little city (Reno)
I barely cover my pistol and never worry about printing.

You can carry in your car without a permit. Work is plentiful.
It's a desert with beautifull nooks and crannies of trees and vegetation
 
West Texas

I owned land in Real County, Texas. Seven hundred square miles and 2500 people, half of whom live in one of three small towns. The drive between the two biggest towns was over 20 miles.

Down in the canyon bottoms (Frio and Nueces Rivers) land was a bit pricey, but water was near the surface and fertile soil. My land was at the top of the ridge between the canyons (2300 feet ASL). Lots of exotic game and views for miles. Soil was about zero and my well was 500 feet deep. Farther west near Rocksprings, I hear was even better.

Art Eatman's out in Terlingua. He might have some thoughts. I thought Alpine, TX was a great retirement location.

Best of luck to you.

Bill
 
I think "hunting/retirement" land is a waste of your time and money. Why put off living for when you're old?

NOW is the time for you to move to a free state and put up with the lower wages since you can supplement your income from your savings. I'm sure you're looking at what you can make in NJ and figure you couldn't afford to live elsewhere because you can't make as much, but remember the cost of living is lower most places too so you can afford to live better on less wages. Check this thing out http://www.homefair.com/homefair/calc/salcalc.html

If you own a home in NJ with a reasonable amount of equity you'll be able to sell it and probably buy cash somewhere in flyover country.

If you or the Mrs. is still hooked on the big city amenities, there are plenty of medium sized cities that still have Starbucks and nice restaurants and such.



I would recommend the Colorado Springs area if you were to relocate to Colorado, but there are plenty of good parts of the state (I'd avoid Denver/Boulder because you're trying to get away from that kind of crap, and I'd avoid the eastern plains because ... well there's nothing there ... of course if you want to get a .50bmg you could easily buy enough land out there to shoot it on :) ).

There's free states closer to NJ if you want to be able to return easily to visit friends and the like.



Is there some sort of masochistic part of you that makes you want to stay in the PRNJ (or do you just think you can't talk the wife into leaving)?
 
You are very lucky. I've thought/fantasized about this. I consider myself fortunate. My job allows/requires me to travel about 50% of the time (some years it's 75%). Since 1986, I've been all over the world and to every state in the US except Hawaii at least twice.

My advice to you would be to visit as many places as you can; meet the people; see the land, and catch the bass. You'll find your place. I've narrowed my choices down to two: western NH or east Tennessee.
 
well normally you could say Colorado, Arizona or Montana, but the Calfiornia left is buying those states up as fast as they can. So I would go Ark, Tenn, W. virginia, even one of the Carolina. Also the northeast section of texas, up around Texarkana is very , very nice, big rolling pine hills, snows during the winter, but only lightly, and not a ton of blowing winds.
My great aunt had a place with about 600 acres, and a pear tree in her back yard. The deer just rolled up and sat on her back porch, back yard, under her covered front porch, they were everywhere! it was sick! But let the first day of deer season roll around, and they knew , man. not a track to be found!
 
As long as you don't like mountians or mind heat, humidity, mosquitos, or droughts, Texas is nice. If you do go with Texas, try for the eastern part with the pine trees, I've been scuba diving in Walker county (old quarry pit), and it is prolly some of the most beautiful land I've ever seen. Up around Fayetteville is very nice also, especially with all the interesting Czech/German heritage in the area. The Hill Country is also very nice, but very expensive (west of Austin, at least). Bastrop would be a nice place if you're tired of all the hustle and bustle of the big city.
 
If you're not into the long haul as some here have suggested the northwest (great area BTW), New Jersey to Tennessee would be my answer. I hope to get out of NY one day and live the remainder of my life in a free state.
 
hunting fish property supreme

Back a few years ago I sold 200 acres to a fellow who now has 900 for sale with what he purchased from me
with over 1 mile of shore line on Gatineau River,pickeral, pike big bass,brown trout, and has speckle trout lake, and creeks, it has some fields that could be cleaned up and seeded down that would be a mecca for deer , bear the odd moose as well,there is bucks in this area 275+lbs,
On his east line is a no hunting reserve of about 1000 acres protected by the Quebec Government this would be a amazing place to build a camp great for a group of guys to buy
The last time I talked to him he was looking for $650.000 cdn this property is about 40 miles north of Ottawa Canada which is 50 miles from Ogdensburg NY
 
Find a real estate agent near every national park. Look for land that butts up right against it. Minimum 40 acres, 160 is nice. If at all possible, there should be year round surface water within a five mile easy hike that you can access.

The national park thing is important. I just purchased 40 acres up against a national park in Arizona. BLM land gets sold frequently, your neighbors may sell out to some resort cosortium but national parks NEVER go away. They may increase in size. They may even surround your land but the government doesn't seem to imminent domain them, as I have seen several properties for sale 100% inside national parks. At my land in AZ, I have neighbors on three sides. To the south is over one million square miles of land that will never be sold off, developed, mined, timbered etc.

Areas I suggest looking: west Wyoming, Northern Utah, Idaho, high altitude Arizona, high altitude Nevada, western rural Colorado.

I am also considering looking for contiguous mining patents. You don't own the land, the government does. You do get mineral rights, and I think you can legally keep trespassers off of it. I'm considering it for alternate TEOTWAWKI land ( ;) ) but I need to do more research on it though.
 
Come on down to the middle of South Carolina. We're gun friendly, long hunting season (Aug. 15 to Jan 1 in lowcountry, Sept. 15 to Jan 1 in upstate)
Little hot this time of the year, but great all the other times.
Oh, and this area comes with a built in shootin' & huntin' buddy :D
 
Dude.

Seriously.

You've got an opportunity.

Flee NJ before the relentless sheep mentality corrodes you.

I did, and I've never felt better for it.


e freaking ject.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Navy87Guy
  • Locked
  • Poll
Where to retire?
Replies
6
Views
631
Justin
Justin
W
  • Locked
Shooting on private land...Hunting license?
2
Replies
30
Views
4K
dieselkanic
D
D
  • Locked
Legality of Shooting On Own Land
2
Replies
37
Views
5K
springmom
S
A
  • Locked
Build your own range spinoff
Replies
2
Views
388
Joe Gunns
J
N
  • Locked
Which state/area should I move to...
Replies
8
Views
730
hso
hso
Back
Top