Halophyte
12-22-2003, 06:18 PM
Instant Survival Property
Since GIM is about investing with a weary eye towards the future, buying rural property seems to fit right in with survival of the financial fittest. Just like buying silver in today’s depressed PM market a smart buy on survival property can pay untold dividends in the long run. Sticking with my poor boy strategy to acquire and hold long-term investments for my protection - this post is geared towards that goal.
The key to a smart purchase is judging a property according to its resources and not its market value. IOWs, look for the property's natural resources as opposed to its convenience of location, serviceable roads or established utilities. This is where you'll find a diamond in the rough.
Developed parcels are presently priced in an overvalued market with high property taxes to boot. For the long-term poor boy philosophy, that's a big ‘no-no’. Who wants to pay an outrageous yearly tax claim during an up and coming depression era economy? Even if the price is right the poor boy might find it pretty hard to hold that property when things get really rough. Don't count on the county assessors office to give you a break after the dollar deflates - tax liabilities will turn courthouse auctions into a land grab just like it did 80 years ago. Don't fall in this eventual tax trap, instead find a low profile undeveloped property.
While you start your search for that undervalued diamond keep in mind what your minimum needs will be. When it comes to buying rural property, ‘think little’.
The great advantage of buying undeveloped rural property is using it as access to public lands. To do this there is no need to purchase a larger parcel than one really needs. This falls back on the concept of selecting resources over established value. Twelve years ago, I bought a small-undeveloped parcel on a mountain road (also undeveloped). The price was higher per acre being a tiny 2-acre plot but the initial outlay of cash was minimal and buying it gave me instant access to 80,000 acres of public woodland reservation. Imagine this, I became an instant land baron for $1500, with access to unlimited firewood and hunting grounds, all without the tax liability. If you consider firewood a cheap and plentiful resource try pricing a pickup truck load in town, if you take in consideration that cordwood construction is stronger and more thermally efficient that frame built homes you begin to see the resource advantage to undeveloped purchases.
A small parcel purchase pays me back with only a $15 Standing Dead and Fallen permit for cutting unlimited firewood and some of the best hunting in the Midwest, all for an annual tax liability of only $14. If you think this is ridiculously cheap, think about how you’re going to pay those future taxes without a job or means of income. If we think in terms of survival - a jobless life is humbling but a homeless life is degrading. Keep it dirt-cheap.
A Home Away From Home
Let’s say that you’ve purchased your little plot of heaven and you want to enjoy vacationing there and developing it without the longer-term tax liability problem. Again we resort to the ‘think little’ philosophy to beat the tax troopers at their own game. In most states, real property and personal property is taxed separately. Simply keep your vacation home separate from the property - IOWs, don’t build a conventional dwelling on the property until after a monetary collapse. While zoned rural areas will not permit this activity the undeveloped rural backwoods property shows its advantages once again.
Unconventional dwellings don’t have to be uncomfortable or uncivilized. In the rural setting a good older model camper trailer can deliver all the conveniences of modern home including hot showers, satellite TV and cold beer. The older, larger RVs are becoming a real bargain on the market today because of their enormous weight and size making them very costly to tow. Take advantage of the coming sell off of RV toys in the months and years to come and get the largest camper you can for the money, a thirty or thirty-five footer is best for size and comfort. The older Airsteams and Avions are better built than anything coming from the factories today, with higher ‘R’ factor insulation and better overall construction. A $5000, 1978 Airstream is a better buy than its $5000, 1998 competition.
Simply tow it to the property (once), block/level up the trailer, unbolt and remove the axels - the trailer stays while you’re gone away. Building on a small deck and canopy transforms the RV to the ‘vacation home’ while the personal property tax continues its depreciating drop every year!
Your Local Utility Company
While trying to get the local power co-op to run electricity to my property they said it would be at no cost to the consumer according to the Rural Electrification Agency, but there was a hitch – I would have to pay for the power poles. At $600 per pole for running power to my property I was looking at a cost of about 14,400 for that “free” federally subsidized service. NOT!!! For that initial cost I could build a power plant and fuel it for years, and that’s exactly what I did.
Anyone can build a power plant from a 5 hp tiller engine and an old Delco alternator to charge the camper’s batteries. Fuel consumption is about half a gallon a day for all lighting, fans, water pumping and micro-wave/TV appliances used. At about 15 gallons of gas a month (or 20 gal LP w/propane carb kit) I can run the little power plant for the rest of my life compared to the cost of those REA poles, that’s assuming gasoline prices stay the same.
Don’t buy a conventional genset for this purpose. It uses too much gas for too little power produced, especially if you plan to escape to your backcountry home permanently. A 2 KW power inverter hooked up to the battery bank provides more surge power than a 4 KW, 220volt conventional generator, and it does it without all the noise. Run the genset to charge the battery bank and draw power with the inverter afterwards. Quiet, reliable power 24 hrs a day except when charging.
The long run plan is to invest the savings into solar PV panels. Like buying PMs, the solar investment will pay for itself many fold.
Water, Water Everywhere …
… but none fit to drink, that’s if you don’t have a deep well. But wells are expensive projects that require lots of power to operate. For the ‘think little’ philosopher, there has to be alternatives, and there is - from shallow ‘driven’ wells with jet pumps (if the land permits) to roof top rain harvest systems, creek water drop boxes and 12volt pressure pumps. A 200-gallon poly-holding tank resting under the skirted camper makes a great fresh water cistern and you don’t have to go thru the cost of burring it underground.
If your land is located on the high dry plains or desert - you could be in big trouble. The price of the well may far exceed the price of the undeveloped parcel by several times, so think again about the land’s resources BEFORE you buy.
Once you develop a pressurized water system you will need to sanitize the drinking water. Shallow well or wet weather creek water is fine for washing, cleaning and watering gardens - for drinking water use a high quality water filter/purifier. The most reliable models are also the most energy efficient. Two come to mind, the British Berkfield and the American made AquaRain. Both use diatom ceramic earth filter media doped with silver solutions to prevent bio growth. They can produce thousands of gallons (up to 24 gal of drinking/cooking water per day) while using no electrical power. They’re very simple to set up and easy to operate. I highly recommend every family own one, even if you don’t own rural property.
Home Fires Burning
Being located in the middle of forested land, it makes little sense to heat a camper cabin by wasting expensive propane gas, but a wood-burning stove is both a messy nuisance and a potential matchbox waiting to happen. There are two approaches to get that ‘free’ wood heat without all the danger, one is an outside wood-burning furnace ducted into the RV with a 12-auto ac blower cycling on a thermostat mounted inside. The other way is building a small wood fired boiler out of a salvaged gas hot water heater tank (40gal will work but 80gal is best) mounted on top of a homemade firebox. A small circulating pump moves the hot water thru copper piping to a couple of automotive heater cores mounted inside with muffin fans that blow hot air at each end of the RV. A single thermostat cycles the fans/circ pump together to save on power and maintain a constant temperature.
The Unmentionables …
Besides the heating of your RV cabin there’s another potential big energy consumer that robs power thru the use of water – a heck of a lot of water that is. It’s the essential unmentionable toilet. Sewage is both an energy robber and a sanitation nightmare; a freezing cold outhouse is the only alternative, as least until the invention of the composting toilet came along. Sunmar builds the best and a modest investment of about $1000 can outfit your camper with clean, odor free, waterless, sanitary waste disposal. This composting toilet along with a proper sized composting pile (located away from the RV cabin) should provide a family of four the proper facilities - all other gray water waste gets piped to a tiny sewer lagoon.
If you’re poorer than the usual poor boy, you can construct the sawdust toilet. The only difference is, this toilet needs to be dumped into the compost pile daily. There are several plans on the Internet to construct a built in sawdust toilet from 5 gal paint buckets with a little handy woodworking. A PVC vent pipe helps keep the odor away, a 12volt muffin fan robbed from a computer power supply (mounted in the PVC pipe) makes a great odorless power vent. Just switch it on before you lift the seat.
Getting It Together
As insurance against the inevitable SHTF scenario, all key components of your backcountry ‘vacation’ home can be ready to go when the stock market goes on its permanent vacation. Just have your rural property ready with access entrance and ‘building’ site ready, all other amenities can be constructed as time permits while operating on LP gas road reserves.
Having a 500 gal LP tank filled (400gal) on site with locked cap greatly increases your comfort range with gas refrigerator, cook stove and generator having its long-term supply of fuel ready and waiting. Remember that ‘conservation of energy’ is the name of the game when it comes to this instant home away from home - and get that wood heating and composting toilet system up and running ASAP.
Sources
12volt genset plans are from HOME POWER MAGAZINE, an on line, downloadable source. They also have PV charger plans, battery maintenance and much more. LP carburetor kits for most major small engine brands are also available on line, just do a search and/or locate a local propane supplier.
Composting toilets are available thru REAL GOODS supplier on line along with virtually anything solar, PV panels, chargers, wind generators etc…
12 volt Sureflow water pressure pumps and holding tanks are available thru J.C.Whitney auto parts supply and REAL GOODS on line.
Water filters, the AquaRain is available on line at their web site, made in U.S.A., p/u extra filters too.
- Halo
Since GIM is about investing with a weary eye towards the future, buying rural property seems to fit right in with survival of the financial fittest. Just like buying silver in today’s depressed PM market a smart buy on survival property can pay untold dividends in the long run. Sticking with my poor boy strategy to acquire and hold long-term investments for my protection - this post is geared towards that goal.
The key to a smart purchase is judging a property according to its resources and not its market value. IOWs, look for the property's natural resources as opposed to its convenience of location, serviceable roads or established utilities. This is where you'll find a diamond in the rough.
Developed parcels are presently priced in an overvalued market with high property taxes to boot. For the long-term poor boy philosophy, that's a big ‘no-no’. Who wants to pay an outrageous yearly tax claim during an up and coming depression era economy? Even if the price is right the poor boy might find it pretty hard to hold that property when things get really rough. Don't count on the county assessors office to give you a break after the dollar deflates - tax liabilities will turn courthouse auctions into a land grab just like it did 80 years ago. Don't fall in this eventual tax trap, instead find a low profile undeveloped property.
While you start your search for that undervalued diamond keep in mind what your minimum needs will be. When it comes to buying rural property, ‘think little’.
The great advantage of buying undeveloped rural property is using it as access to public lands. To do this there is no need to purchase a larger parcel than one really needs. This falls back on the concept of selecting resources over established value. Twelve years ago, I bought a small-undeveloped parcel on a mountain road (also undeveloped). The price was higher per acre being a tiny 2-acre plot but the initial outlay of cash was minimal and buying it gave me instant access to 80,000 acres of public woodland reservation. Imagine this, I became an instant land baron for $1500, with access to unlimited firewood and hunting grounds, all without the tax liability. If you consider firewood a cheap and plentiful resource try pricing a pickup truck load in town, if you take in consideration that cordwood construction is stronger and more thermally efficient that frame built homes you begin to see the resource advantage to undeveloped purchases.
A small parcel purchase pays me back with only a $15 Standing Dead and Fallen permit for cutting unlimited firewood and some of the best hunting in the Midwest, all for an annual tax liability of only $14. If you think this is ridiculously cheap, think about how you’re going to pay those future taxes without a job or means of income. If we think in terms of survival - a jobless life is humbling but a homeless life is degrading. Keep it dirt-cheap.
A Home Away From Home
Let’s say that you’ve purchased your little plot of heaven and you want to enjoy vacationing there and developing it without the longer-term tax liability problem. Again we resort to the ‘think little’ philosophy to beat the tax troopers at their own game. In most states, real property and personal property is taxed separately. Simply keep your vacation home separate from the property - IOWs, don’t build a conventional dwelling on the property until after a monetary collapse. While zoned rural areas will not permit this activity the undeveloped rural backwoods property shows its advantages once again.
Unconventional dwellings don’t have to be uncomfortable or uncivilized. In the rural setting a good older model camper trailer can deliver all the conveniences of modern home including hot showers, satellite TV and cold beer. The older, larger RVs are becoming a real bargain on the market today because of their enormous weight and size making them very costly to tow. Take advantage of the coming sell off of RV toys in the months and years to come and get the largest camper you can for the money, a thirty or thirty-five footer is best for size and comfort. The older Airsteams and Avions are better built than anything coming from the factories today, with higher ‘R’ factor insulation and better overall construction. A $5000, 1978 Airstream is a better buy than its $5000, 1998 competition.
Simply tow it to the property (once), block/level up the trailer, unbolt and remove the axels - the trailer stays while you’re gone away. Building on a small deck and canopy transforms the RV to the ‘vacation home’ while the personal property tax continues its depreciating drop every year!
Your Local Utility Company
While trying to get the local power co-op to run electricity to my property they said it would be at no cost to the consumer according to the Rural Electrification Agency, but there was a hitch – I would have to pay for the power poles. At $600 per pole for running power to my property I was looking at a cost of about 14,400 for that “free” federally subsidized service. NOT!!! For that initial cost I could build a power plant and fuel it for years, and that’s exactly what I did.
Anyone can build a power plant from a 5 hp tiller engine and an old Delco alternator to charge the camper’s batteries. Fuel consumption is about half a gallon a day for all lighting, fans, water pumping and micro-wave/TV appliances used. At about 15 gallons of gas a month (or 20 gal LP w/propane carb kit) I can run the little power plant for the rest of my life compared to the cost of those REA poles, that’s assuming gasoline prices stay the same.
Don’t buy a conventional genset for this purpose. It uses too much gas for too little power produced, especially if you plan to escape to your backcountry home permanently. A 2 KW power inverter hooked up to the battery bank provides more surge power than a 4 KW, 220volt conventional generator, and it does it without all the noise. Run the genset to charge the battery bank and draw power with the inverter afterwards. Quiet, reliable power 24 hrs a day except when charging.
The long run plan is to invest the savings into solar PV panels. Like buying PMs, the solar investment will pay for itself many fold.
Water, Water Everywhere …
… but none fit to drink, that’s if you don’t have a deep well. But wells are expensive projects that require lots of power to operate. For the ‘think little’ philosopher, there has to be alternatives, and there is - from shallow ‘driven’ wells with jet pumps (if the land permits) to roof top rain harvest systems, creek water drop boxes and 12volt pressure pumps. A 200-gallon poly-holding tank resting under the skirted camper makes a great fresh water cistern and you don’t have to go thru the cost of burring it underground.
If your land is located on the high dry plains or desert - you could be in big trouble. The price of the well may far exceed the price of the undeveloped parcel by several times, so think again about the land’s resources BEFORE you buy.
Once you develop a pressurized water system you will need to sanitize the drinking water. Shallow well or wet weather creek water is fine for washing, cleaning and watering gardens - for drinking water use a high quality water filter/purifier. The most reliable models are also the most energy efficient. Two come to mind, the British Berkfield and the American made AquaRain. Both use diatom ceramic earth filter media doped with silver solutions to prevent bio growth. They can produce thousands of gallons (up to 24 gal of drinking/cooking water per day) while using no electrical power. They’re very simple to set up and easy to operate. I highly recommend every family own one, even if you don’t own rural property.
Home Fires Burning
Being located in the middle of forested land, it makes little sense to heat a camper cabin by wasting expensive propane gas, but a wood-burning stove is both a messy nuisance and a potential matchbox waiting to happen. There are two approaches to get that ‘free’ wood heat without all the danger, one is an outside wood-burning furnace ducted into the RV with a 12-auto ac blower cycling on a thermostat mounted inside. The other way is building a small wood fired boiler out of a salvaged gas hot water heater tank (40gal will work but 80gal is best) mounted on top of a homemade firebox. A small circulating pump moves the hot water thru copper piping to a couple of automotive heater cores mounted inside with muffin fans that blow hot air at each end of the RV. A single thermostat cycles the fans/circ pump together to save on power and maintain a constant temperature.
The Unmentionables …
Besides the heating of your RV cabin there’s another potential big energy consumer that robs power thru the use of water – a heck of a lot of water that is. It’s the essential unmentionable toilet. Sewage is both an energy robber and a sanitation nightmare; a freezing cold outhouse is the only alternative, as least until the invention of the composting toilet came along. Sunmar builds the best and a modest investment of about $1000 can outfit your camper with clean, odor free, waterless, sanitary waste disposal. This composting toilet along with a proper sized composting pile (located away from the RV cabin) should provide a family of four the proper facilities - all other gray water waste gets piped to a tiny sewer lagoon.
If you’re poorer than the usual poor boy, you can construct the sawdust toilet. The only difference is, this toilet needs to be dumped into the compost pile daily. There are several plans on the Internet to construct a built in sawdust toilet from 5 gal paint buckets with a little handy woodworking. A PVC vent pipe helps keep the odor away, a 12volt muffin fan robbed from a computer power supply (mounted in the PVC pipe) makes a great odorless power vent. Just switch it on before you lift the seat.
Getting It Together
As insurance against the inevitable SHTF scenario, all key components of your backcountry ‘vacation’ home can be ready to go when the stock market goes on its permanent vacation. Just have your rural property ready with access entrance and ‘building’ site ready, all other amenities can be constructed as time permits while operating on LP gas road reserves.
Having a 500 gal LP tank filled (400gal) on site with locked cap greatly increases your comfort range with gas refrigerator, cook stove and generator having its long-term supply of fuel ready and waiting. Remember that ‘conservation of energy’ is the name of the game when it comes to this instant home away from home - and get that wood heating and composting toilet system up and running ASAP.
Sources
12volt genset plans are from HOME POWER MAGAZINE, an on line, downloadable source. They also have PV charger plans, battery maintenance and much more. LP carburetor kits for most major small engine brands are also available on line, just do a search and/or locate a local propane supplier.
Composting toilets are available thru REAL GOODS supplier on line along with virtually anything solar, PV panels, chargers, wind generators etc…
12 volt Sureflow water pressure pumps and holding tanks are available thru J.C.Whitney auto parts supply and REAL GOODS on line.
Water filters, the AquaRain is available on line at their web site, made in U.S.A., p/u extra filters too.
- Halo