which block of land?

I'm currently renting a little cottage on a farm and got informed that the council is thinking about deciding that my landlord is not allowed to have so many houses on his land (3 - there's me, there's a small family, and him, about 100m apart from each other). So I'm thinking where to move to if my lease doesn't get renewed because the council will make him tear down my house. The places around here are stupidly expensive (hobby farms with massive mansions on them within 30 minutes of the city, my landlord is one of the last true farmers), so I couldn't afford to stay, but I don't want to move into the city either. I like having no neighbours except horses, cows, sheep, echidnas, rabbits and kangaroos. I found 2 blocks of land near each other 20 minutes further away that are quite affordable. I could probably get a demountable or kit house & the block and be able to afford it. One is 4 or 5 acres, but it is narrow and mostly covered in scraggly trees that I imagine would be a pain to remove. The ground is full of lumps and bumps and rises and falls. The other is quite little (bit over half an acre) and flat and clear and there is no risk of getting any close neighbours because it is an island in the middle of about 4 acres of Crown land. The big one only costs 50% more than the little one but has 8 times as much space. But kind of useless space. And there's the possibility of leasing the Crown land anyway, which would be almost as good as owning it. Both properties back onto a disused railway line which is kind of cool (the reason they are narrow I guess, no one can own the land around the railway line so that makes an automatic boundary) and when I visited the area on Wednesday I'm sure I saw one of those lever tram things lying by the side of it! But I couldn't get there to have a closer look because of the barbed wire fence that ran along the length of the line about 50m away from it. I almost want to definitely buy one of these blocks if only so I can explore the tracks properly!
Anyway, not that you guys probably care at all but do you have any opinion?

Comments

FAST6191
I have no idea about ACT/NSW land regs but being compelled to demolish existing structures that were presumably put up legally and still in liveable condition, and also not being resumed, seems harsh. Anyway assuming that comes to pass and there are no clever legal arrangements that can be made.

Choosing land without visiting it is hard, choosing land without seeing so much as a picture is near impossible.
"the ground is full of lumps and bumps and rises and falls" how bad? Sort of thing you could not fix with a few days and a JCB rental?
If I am looking at land then my bigger concern is usually how to get services (water, sewage, power, telecoms, gas...) if you are going that way, even if you are going off grid it is still going to want some kind of septic system. Barring off grid and septic then if you are surrounded by land that is not yours then that could be even more fun.
 
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HamBone41801
Jeez! Does Australia not have eviction regulation laws? I don't think this would fly in other places.
 
H1B1Esquire
You could look at it as a chance to try something new. Maybe go abroad instead? Japan might be nice for a six-month stretch.
 
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Quantumcat
Oh yeah, I'd love to live in Japan! But I have a job sadly :-p

I probably wouldn't know how bad all the sloping is until I started talking to building companies and they told me how much extra it would be. When I was walking over it I kept stumbling cause I would put my foot in a hole or trip over something. Both of them have access to mains power but no water or sewage, so would require water tanks and sewage tanks. Very surprisingly, my phone had 4G internet. So even if I can't get ADSL I'd still have internet. That was the first thing I checked when I got there :-p

With my current house, yeah it is really weird. Apparently there's some rule where you can't have too many houses of the same size or something. The landlord came over and was doing some measurements, and said he might try blocking off the master bedroom for when the council came to inspect, to make the house look smaller. And then unblock it afterward. In hoping he gives me some more info soon. I don't think I could be evicted before my lease is up but they could definitely choose to not renew it. I'm so sad because it is such a great place to live, cheap, peaceful, and so close to the city, I'd be more likely to win the lottery than find anything in a similar location for a similar price.

What are your guys places like? Do you live in the city or outside it? Do you love where you live or are you itching to get out of there?
 
HamBone41801
Suburbs. Not the best cell-service, but its nice to live near a bunch of old folks. I don't like the town I'm in, but in general the type of area I'm at isn't all that bad. I'd like to move up north when I can. Maine sounds nice. That's years away though.
 
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H1B1Esquire
Understandable that you can't just pickup and move....unless you try a new career? T.E.S.L. could be a great thing to get yourself all over the globe. Maybe this "situation" could be a foray into real estate. At the very least, you'll learn about landscaping.

Currently, I'm trying to get a grasp on what the world is coming to. I've been through Massachusetts to South Carolina and want to see what the west is like (in the next few years) before deciding if America is worth it for me.

I'm about an hour from NYC, but if my asshole cousin stops being an asshole, I'm moving back to the city.
 
FAST6191
Right now I am in a town, moving to the country shortly though. More space to build a big workshop I guess but I am kind of enjoying paring down my toolkit.

Generally I go with what a cheesy song once said
Anywhere I roam
Where I lay my head is home

I am still curious about this legal situation though. Councils deciding how many houses can be on a given plot, possibly changing with the direction of the wind, is nothing new (they all love their fantasy city development simulations played out in real life, and if they have caught the vanity farm virus...) but assuming it was not put up in contravention of an ordinance then getting someone to tear it down because they decided to change* would be something I don't expect to see in somewhere like Australia. That said should they actually have this power I don't see them having to respect the lease agreement as it is not with them, they probably would allow it to run out though if it is only a few months.
That said should it all come to pass as you have said, and moving is not for you, then would you have the option to have a static caravan (there are some really nice ones out there these days) or similar put where the present one is? Some kind of end run around the regs. Most farmers I know anywhere in the world usually appreciate a bit of cash consistently coming in and if you are a good tenant then even more so.

*this assumes the change is not a fire code or overloaded services type thing.

As far as stumbling in holes and whatnot then for building purposes that could all just be confined to the topsoil and would be gone in 10 minutes with a digger.
 
H1B1Esquire
He knows I know how much his rent is, so he can't overcharge me. He lives in midtown Manhattan and wants a bit less than double the rent, which is understandable, but I'm the guy who helped him get his affairs in order so he could even rent the place to begin with.
 
Quantumcat
What sort of country place are you going to have? A couple of acres for some garden and a couple of chooks or something more serious?

In regards to my house - yeah I need to do some more research about that. Maybe the landlord got a letter and misinterpreted it or something. A caravan is a good idea! My biggest stumbling block to getting a new rental is I have two cats. But the caravan would sidestep that, since I would be with the same landlord (or on my own land if I buy one of them, then don't need to wait for anything to be built).

I'm glad to hear that the unevenness of the ground is no issue, that probably puts the bigger place back in front :-) Something I like about the bigger place is at its narrowest point, there's a small paddock with really bright black dirt and really really green weeds growing in it - so I could have a go at growing some crops. It's small enough that doing everything by hand is feasible and the dirt looks so luscious that even if I made lots of mistakes I bet stuff would still grow. I think the previous owner must have grown stuff there and took a lot of effort to improve the soil.
 
Quantumcat
H1B1Esquire - oh I see what you mean. You're pretty lucky to live near NY!! I guess if you have to live in the city that's the city to live in :-p
 
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FAST6191
Chickens are vicious little bastards. No chance of me having those. Not to mention I like being able to leave for weeks at a time at the drop of a hat.

Also very few places are measured in multiple acres here, house included. The UK is a very small place and there a lot of people on it. I am in the south east right now if you want to have a look http://www.rightmove.co.uk/ , anything over 4.5 times annual salary is a risky mortgage and the annual salary is about £27000 (that is a high average too if I surveyed a few mates) if you fancy a bit of maths.

Regarding the ground I did not say it was no issue. I would have to see it and possibly do some tests to tell that as there are still things it could be. However if it is just a few rabbit holes (more than enough to trip and mess up an ankle in, less of a problem if you are digging down a bit and laying a slab sort of thing).
 
Quantumcat
Oh yes I do know what you mean! On my exchange to France my host family were farmers and they had 10 acres. Somehow they managed to grow corn, wheat, and a few other crops plus they had a castle and a bit of forest on their land. In Australia there would be no chance you could make any money on such a small bit of land. You could have a hobby farm sure but you'd need to have a job too in order to live. I don't know if it's because our dirt is poorer, or we give less subsidies, or our prices are worse, or all the above. Their oldest son went on a farming exchange to Australia at the same time, to Broken Hill I think it was (I never got to meet him as he was away the whole time I was there). The farm he stayed at was about 100 hectares and he was totally blown away by the size. Most of it was cracked dry earth but still :-p In the UK I guess it is the same as France, everything is a lot smaller. But you get loads of rain and everything is green and beautiful so you can probably grow a ton more in a small space than you can here. And it sounds like everything is really expensive :-/ Here, you can always find something really cheap if you are willing to move away from civilisation. But in the UK, probably everywhere you go is within two hours of a city! So every square centimetre of land is desirable.
 
FAST6191
Most people here don't really consider cities like that, though depending upon your trade the distance to London might be something. If you want to talk distance from somewhere it is probably distance from the sea
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2012/apr/25/british-town-furthest-from-sea
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/3090539.stm

Also yes the size of farms there is quite amusing to many here. The notion of having a helicopter to go find your cattle.

Land is expensive here, and probably fuel too, but everything else compared to Australia is pretty cheap. The only people to have a caravan in the middle of nowhere and worry about the government either inherited the land or got it in the 70s or something.
 
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FAST6191
London is insane right now. From time to time I do some work for an estate agent, as I sit there twiddling my thumbs (installing, copying, backups... IT is not always action after all) I frequently see people from London come up, act sheepish and ask the estate agent what £300K will get them.
In London in a not as desirable area that gets you a one bedroom flat,
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property...14,51.46331,51.53747&popupPropertyId=48639981
Where London begins and ends right now is hazy (the old standard of within the M25 road holds but every little town just outside it does everything it can to get good rail links, and is functionally just another surburb/area of London for most intents and purposes.

Here (just over an hour by train) it gets you a proper house, I reckon most people that viewed the old place I was staying were from London and the estate agent similarly deals with it. Go a bit further up on the same train line and it goes further but then you are looking at 1h30 or even 2 hour commutes.

You go somewhere in Yorkshire and your money goes even further
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property...=REGION^588&maxPrice=350000&includeSSTC=false

On the flip side go to Cornwall (south west, normally the hottest part of the UK and somewhat desirable to retire to and while the high end is similar to some other places the low end, you don't need a 4 bedroom house as a retired person after all, is more than some expect, which in turn does serve to push many of those which might have grown up in the region out a bit. I have not dealt with the rental market down there for a while but it... reflects the tourist and summer months retirement setup there.

I don't think you get quite the contrast of nice part of San Francisco to town in Arkansas where the factory closed a few years back (if nothing else one employer towns don't really exist here) but there are certainly places where you could live a comfortable life and on the same salary struggle to make ends meet in a flea pit.
 

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