Title: Arizona land + off‑grid living

[Lachell O Neal]

I recently connected with someone who bought raw land in Arizona and is building it up from nothing. The rugged, off‑grid angle stood out to me, especially with how overpriced everything is on the grid right now. I’m curious about people’s viewpoints on that lifestyle and what draws them to it.

[Bruce Woodruff]

I have done this, currently have one and a client doing one. I'm looking at possibly doing another (and in Arizona, coincidently).

There are many pitfalls involved in finding, buying and building out these types of properties, a primary factor being do you get permits or not? Generally these are very remote properties and the local municipality will never drive by and red-flag you.....so most people go the no permit route. But that has a few problems:

#1 being what @Chris Seveney said.....your equity will always be very low or non-existent. 

#2 being build quality and building code adherence, you will see a lot of shoddy and even dangerous work out there.

#3 Financing will be largely unavailable

But it is still a viable way to go if you can handle the lifestyle and do a solid job on the finished product. If you have the skills yourself, that's the ultimate deal, or hire carpenters/electricians/plumbers for weekend work.

The cool thing is you won't be limited to a typical building style...you can easily go typical stick built, or venture off into the wonderful world of straw-bale, storage container, pole house building methods. YouTube will keep you entertained for many hours doing research, so have fun!

If you want more info or advice, just PM me, I've got tons of info on this and really enjoy it. I'm currently helping someone do this, I helped him find and buy the land and now we're planning out the buildings and trails/campsites/etc...