Buying remote land or forestry. Unknown owner?

Question

Let's say I'm driving upon the highway and I see a nice plot of land that looks like a good spot to build a new home. How would I go about purchasing that plot of land? In most instances would that land be unavailable because it is next to the highway? Also, what would the case be for more remote plots of land, such as nice spot in the woods for a cabin?

Jay Hinrichs · Answer

Account Closed I am a walking GPS personally ... and i use USGS quads  to find my way.. :)

Account Closed · Answer

USGS Quads - I love it! I wound up with 80 acres outside of Lakeview OR (Circa 2001) (Oregon's "Outback") on a property trade and had to identify the property by GPS. The property is between Crump Lake & Hart Lake on an original U.S. Cavalry wagon trail. The corner markers were placed spot-on in the 1880's and I was able to find them with the GPS hand held I bought for the occasion at 42.330971, -119.869732 or (42°19'51.5"N 119°52'11.0"W) . I planted some trees in a seasonal stream for the next generation. I think of myself as a "Johnny Pine Seed" ;-) Property cost me $900 and I sold it 3 years later for $27,000. A nice return. Never did find the gold they say was there.

Jay Hinrichs · Answer

Account Closed  google maps made just about every other way of doing this obsolete like everything else google has done

Account Closed · Answer

What you say is correct. But I am leaving Google and Facebook. I'm just tired of their snooping and selling my information. I've gone to DuckDuckGo.com which doesn't track you.

https://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-06-16/g...

"While millions of Americans fret over how  it can be possible that their data and phone calls can be eavesdropped  without a warrant by thousands of low level NSA analysts (some even  without High School diplomas), the rest of the world can fret over who  or what protects them from the prying eyes of the Netplex without the  benefit of one of these.

Afterall, 99.99% of the world's internet traffic passes through the good old USA does it not?

And  if Google and Facebook are selling your data to Coca Cola and JP  Morgan, what makes anyone think they won't sell it to the snoops?"

Account Closed · Answer

You can use longitude and latitude coordinates and take those to the county for identification of the parcel and the owner. Or you can do the reverse and go to the county and look it up in the "Book of Maps".

Jay Hinrichs · Answer

quad maps work were there is terrain to identify not so great in the flat lands though  :)  ya that property your talking about is in the boonies for sure..  that part of Oregon has more cow calf combo's than people.

John Acheson · Answer

Michael, I'm currently in the process of selling land like that right now and am getting interest from buyers with lot's of Qs about development. Can I build? Are there utilities? How big is the flat part? Setbacks? I believe it all depends on the city and county and their own codes. It's all online for free and basically you need to look for residential zoning for a home but for a cabin the rules can be very different if not specific for a cabin at all.

Are you going to finance the project? It's possible to get a construction loan for a legitimate home or prefab/mod on foundation but it's very difficult to find a lender for cabins. On the other hand it's easy to find a whole range of cabin builders.

What kind of project do you want? You might start backwards with the final result and then narrow down the land. For example, I want to build the cheapest possible home (owner builder mod) via traditional financing that will appraise as a SFH and then go search for land where mods are ok in the state that your lender is licensed for.

Either way, make sure to do a deep dive into the codes and zoning before you buy.

Buying remote land or forestry. Unknown owner?

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