The Search

We started looking for land near to where we lived, but quickly figured out that the available property was too expensive to meet our needs. We then purchased a fifty-year climate atlas, and used it to identify places that had acceptable weather. Our preference was a minimum number of nights below freezing, with lots of sunshine. We found several areas of Arizona that looked acceptable. The rainfall would only be about a foot a year. So little precipitation scares a lot of people off, which helps keep many of these areas affordable. When it comes to the desert, people seem to either love it or hate it. It suits us though, so we chose some areas that were within a half hours' drive of a small city and within a couple of hours from a major city. After a few road trips and talking to many, many real estate agents, we settled on one area and started narrowing our search. We had already decided that we could handle the compromises of living with a home power system, which would enable us to afford a larger and more interesting off-grid parcel. Off-grid acreage here goes for about $700 an acre in 40-acre parcels, and sometimes much less for larger parcels. Before long we found a negotiable developer who had plenty of vacant land in his inventory. We liked a particular section (one mile square, 640 acres) which had a dog-leg canyon, and was surrounded by government land. These features gave it a natural privacy even better than we had hoped for. Elevations ranged from about 4000 to about 5000 ft. Terrain was very rugged and rocky, with lots of vegetation that stayed green all year. It was on the side of a mountain, without a level patch anywhere. The developer had bulldozed a rough trail. We could get to the site with a truck, so long as we traveled at crawling speed for the last three miles. After looking at some other parcels, we decided that it might take a long time to find anything else we would like as much. So we negotiated for quite a while, eventually reaching a deal that would allow us to spread out payment so that we could buy the property years in advance of selling our current place. Before committing to the deal we had time to verify all the necessary stuff like road access, local material prices, and phone service.

We're still surprised to meet so many people who make only cursory inquiries before purchasing land. If you’re reading this piece looking for tips, here's an important one - Do what it takes to get the facts in advance. It might be a lot of work and require long-distance calls. Paying a contractor for on-site advice might be needed. But the risks of missing some important detail are many, so make the effort.

Interim Research

Before buying the property, we'd researched all of the deal-breaking items. Once we signed up, we got down to business. Some of what follows was done before purchase, some after.

We would be building or improving, and maintaining some six miles of road. I called various experts to get some education on heavy equipment. The prevailing attitude was that anyone trying to do any real work with old (read cheap) equipment would be spending a lot of time, money, and sweat to keep it running. Good advice. But we would have to do it anyway, so damn the torpedoes. 

We talked to two well drillers, and met one on the property (before buying). We learned that finding water at a reasonable depth was often easier near the mountains than a mile away. The driller used his outspread hand as a graphic aid, demonstrating how it gets harder to hit a finger (the water) the farther you are from the mountain source (the palm). We also priced various pump options, and planned for the worst case.

We talked to the phone company to learn about radio-telephone options, and to the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) about road access. We talked to the county about taxes and building permits, and to lumber stores, truss manufacturers, concrete providers, etc.

We sent off for brochures on several alternative building materials, and gathered catalogs and prices of home power equipment. We set out to inventory our current energy use, and investigate ways to reduce it.

And we started drawing a plan of the new building, customizing every aspect to suit our needs.

By the time we were ready to put our current house up for sale, we had a pretty good idea of how the new project would go. We had visited the property about a dozen times, each time getting better acquainted with the site and the local area.

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