Our house in suburbia is on 1 acre adjoining a small 7 acre lake. We also have a home on 2 acres about 1 hours drive away from our primary residence. So, just a little over 3 acres total.
We want to buy a larger plot and build a pretty big house, but we really need to sell house #2 to do that and we can’t seem to find the time to get it ready to go on the market. Work stinks in that regard.
Jammer
Wow! My dad said he tried to buy a few acres in his town (Grain Valley, Mo), which is about 20 miles or so outside Kansas City, and it was 22k an acre. I asked him if he meant 2200 and acre, but he said no, it was 22k an acre. Yikes.
4.01 acres but I think the .01 has been chewed away by the creek over the last couple of years.
I’ve a half acre. I’m waiting for the crusty mean old bastard up the road to die* so I can buy the 10 acres behind me from the widow.
*It’s a sad thing to say but I’ve tried to buy the land for years and we’ve come to a handshake agreement several times. Whenever the lawyers ask him to sign the papers he changes his mind.
Asshole.
I live on 5 acres in Vernon, FL and own 80 acres (two quarter-quartersection squares) just outside of town.
5 years ago land up there was selling for $5000/acre, now it’s going for $8-10,000/acre.
Down here on the beach tiny homesite lots are anywhere from $150,000 to well over a million.
I am sitting on slightly less than 1/6th of an acre, which fortunately has about 2/3rds of its area “unimproved” beyond the addition of lawn. A difficult find in an area of rampant McMansionization of postage-stamp-sized lots, where people read that their structure can only come within four feet of the property line, and by god they’re going to build on every square inch they can.
We have 137 acres, but we are obviously not typical. It’s very difficult to make a small farm like ours work in this part of the country and over the past couple of generations most people, whether they are from farm stock or are urban transplants like my husband, have carved up their land for quick sale. Though this is still considered rural farm country, it’s much more common now to see a dozen 3 or 4 acre home lots all in close proximity to a crumbling 18th century barn than it is to see a small working farm like ours, barn still intact and housing a sustainable flock or herd. Generally the successful farms are of the factory variety: Cultivated land as far as the eye can see, millions of dollars worth of equipment housed in metal structures, and not a pasture nor an animal in sight.
About 25,000 square feet (~2300 square meters) in an inner ring suburb of Cleveland. Most lots around here are about 5,000 or 6,000 square feet. About two-thirds of my lot is unbuildable because it’s in a 100 year flood plain. It’s literally an urban forest.
We live in a small, log home in the middle of 15 acres.
Razorette and I live on 3.4 acres, “more or less,” according to our deed. It’s a small triangle that was once part of the 1,800-acare farm she grew up on; her parents sold the farm to the city of Sterling (Colo.) five years ago because the farm has the second oldest ditch water right on the lower reach of the South Platte River. If you’re from the West, you know that’s pretty damn valuable. If you’re not from the west …well, that’s pretty damn valuable. Water law allows us only an in-house well, which means what comes out of the well has to go into the septic system and be returned to the ground. Thus, we are unable to keep any livestock (unless you count an over-sized yellow Labrador retriever). The irony is that, despite the fact that this land once had an almost unlimited water supply, we now have a very limited water supply that is closely monitored, while all that water flows past in the river that’s just a half-mile away.
Only Mostly Dead and I are co-owners of a piece of land the size of a large postage stamp that our center-unit townhome in the suburbs sits on. According to our county tax assessment, just over 2400 square feet, including the portion covered by the house. Converting that number to acres just depresses me when I realize I could fit 15 of my lots on the lot my parents have in a different suburban area (theirs is a SFH though).
My best friend (we acted as if we were identical twins) growing up inherited about 2000 acres at age 8 when his father died. The largest plot was about 800 acres and it seemed like a whole state (Rhode Island I am looking at you). We could do whatever we desired without police interference or anyone else screwing with us. It was great as teenagers and we could always tell the police to get the fuck out and never come back which we did. Even police can trespass on private property.
Land area was my primary selection criteria when my wife and I bought a house. Having neighbor disputes about 6 inches of land gives me the hives and I think it is unnatural and uncouth in the U.S. which has plenty of land to be had. My 2.5 acres is surrounded by people that have 80+ acres, 40+ acres and conservation land of several thousand acres. I would have it no other way. I am convinced that everyone wants that and that is why U.S. cities are so sprawling.
We have lived on 20 acres for almost 25 years now. 20 acres less 3 acres of highway right of way, with six acres of tax exempt woodland, an obsolete cow/horse/ hay barn, a machine shed and a couple of miscellaneous outbuildings and of course the house and a genuine late 19th Century one-room school house.
There is a difference between rural, small town and city land holdings – based, I assume, on availability and demand. Out here County Zoning ordinances require a minimum of two acres for a rural residence. In town our home was on a 50" by 225" lot but even that would be a huge holdings for friends in metropolitan Chicago.
For the uninitiated, an acre is a square just under 210" by 210". 300" x 300" is just a hair over two acres.
1 acre=43,560 square feet.
I live on a 160 acre cattle farm that I own. It’s in the middle of several thousand acres of timberland, and the nearest neighbors are up on the paved road, 2 miles away. Been here for years and love it!
Originaly, our house was on one acre. The we bought the acre next door to prevent having neighbors. It’s very steep, and rocky. Side of a mountain really. We don’t mow anything, but we did manage to fence off a small part for our dogs.
We also have 40 acres about 45 minutes away. Sometimes we camp there, and I target shoot there. It’s quite remote, and just nice to hang out.
We only have 2 acres. We live on a fairly busy road and have few neighbors. We have a good amount of wildlife despite being smack dab in suburbia. We have a family of deer, hordes of groundhogs, squirrels, raccoons and an occasional possum.
This gives us plenty of room for a very large dog right out the door and a safe play area for the kids. We have a small Basketball court, room to work on an old wooden boat and almost anything else. Mowing and care are the only worries but a large lawn tracker and lawn sweeper take care of these issues.
My BIL has 208 acres up in upstate New York in the mountains. It is incredibly private up there and shows that land ownership can vary greatly. Growing up I lived in NYC first and then New Jersey. In NYC we had nothing, no land at all. In NJ we had ¾ of an acre and it felt like a huge amount. The first house I owned had 6+ acres, over 4 acres wooded. It was nice to have a private wooded path and great places to compost.
I actually find the typical English gardens amazingly small; they remind me of NYC two-family housing, just enough room for a flowerbed and a grill. I like city living, but I like suburban and rural land even more.
Jim
I personally own 1/2 acre, if you don’t count the mortgage.
My family owns (so I’m a part owner) around 250 acres - a quarter horse ranch.
We used to lease about 3,000 acres for grazing.
Wyoming is a great place to live during the two months that it isn’t muddy or winter.
I have about 1.3 acres, most of which is wooded, rather than lawn.
My parents are on about .3 acres, all of it lawn & house.
My inlaws had about the same as my parents, but it was waterfront on a nice pond outside of Manchester NH. (Former camp, converted to a full year home)
Due to some oddity with lifetime deeds held by twin great-aunts who were born in 1889 and died in 1982 and 1989 respectfully, and due to some litigation my sister threatened against a bank and the county where the land is located (full details are odd and way longer than anybody’s interest would allow), 78 acres was recently returned to the estate of my father who died in 1982 as an out-of-court settlement. (A bank had owned them for 20 years since they seized, along with 69 additional acres that have since been sold, for non-payment of a $14,000 loan- the land was not mentioned on the loan, was then worth perhaps $70,000 TECHNICALLY [you never could have gotten anything remotely approaching that]; the land had been leased longterm to a timber company and to a cattle farmer, both leases anulled by the settlement.)
Anyway, under the terms of my father’s will I’m 1/3 owner of 78 acres of my father’s homeplace. The land is mostly pine covered (I posted a thread about the rock piles recently) with some clearing. Also spared from seizure due to complex lifetime deeds were this / antebellum / fixer /upper (home to said aunts up until 1982) and the 2 acres it rests upon (home to said aunts up until 1982), and my grandmother’s house (it needs a little cosmetic work and some plumbing, but the back bedroom is in good enough shape that somebody lives there [that shot was made in reverse polarity- we know who the squatter is but can’t find him to evict him]) and 9 acres it sits upon.
So all told I’m 1/3 owner of 2 “historic homes” and 90 acres. My brother (very rich pharmacist) wants “at least $1,000 per acre” before he’ll even consider selling. (nearest gas station: 5 miles away/nearest supermarket: 20 miles away/nearest neighbor: 1 mile away, nearest rifle being fired at any time in or out of lawful hunting season by people poaching deer and shooting at anything that russles: between 80 feet and 30 yards- yeah, it’s worth $90,000, providing there’s $60,000 worth of gold buried on it somewhere). My sister doesn’t want to sell it at all because “It’s part of our past” (so’s Mama but I’m sure as hell not digging her up and putting her in the recliner) and “you never know- there’s gold and oil in Alabama” (the gold is in pawn shops 40 miles away and the nearest oil, as mentioned, is about 5 miles away and probably $5 per quart for a brand you’ve never heard of). Me: I’d sell my share for $10,000 so fast twould make your head swim, but I’m outvoted 2:1.
Well, technically the bank owns it, but I’m paying mortgage on 2.5 acres of mostly red pine trees. With scattered turkeys.
Can’t have less than 2.5 acres out here - you need that much for the septic drainage per house.