patrick.net

Do you have lots and lots of money? Like seven figures?

No, but I'm willing to pay in the upper six figures for the right place...

Buy now or be priced out forever.

You're going to pay in the upper six figures to do subsistence farming?

Donate the money to cancer research and then join the Amish.

I grew up in Nevada City in the Sierra Foothills. Awesome country up there. The redwoods are really nice too.

Check out www.landandfarm.com

I do my part -- donate a lot, volunteer a lot of time. And I don't think the Amish would have me.

Still hoping to get some tips on places in beautiful Cal...

Sonoma County is nice, but like anywhere else there are good, better and best areas. It's a very progressive county which is what I like about it. I lived in Sonoma years ago and also in the county area just outside the city limits. I get up there about three times a year now. I have been looking for a piece of rental property with acreage (approx 1 - 1/12 acres) in Sonoma County for about a year or so now. I would steer clear of anything south of hwy 12 If you decide on the Santa Rosa area. Sebastopol and cotati areas are very nice and so is Healdsburg. For the money you're looking at spending, it's been my experience walking around them and pounding the pavement in person is that you either get a nice house on a few acres, or an old and/or crappy, falling down place or module home with a carport on several acres.

If you are set on the Sonoma County area, and you really want to be out in the boonies with your 10 acres, I would look in Mendo County. You get more bang for your buck in Mendo, but it's farther from SF, good hospitals/medical care, etc.

Shasta County (Redding area) is very pretty if you like hunting and fishing and don't mind living in a red county with lots of Republicans. It's pretty, the hunting and fishing is great in the Shasta and Lassen National Forests and some of the best top 10 fishing spots in the country, but not a whole lot else to do. For me it's a beautiful place to visit for the things I mentioned, but I wouldn't want to live there. If you don't mind the conservative nature of the county and enjoy fishing and hunting, it's a great place to live. It's one of those places that I say you either need to be retired or bring your own job with you.

Good luck with your search.

Here you go : 134 acres, 199k.

http://www.redfin.com/CA/POPE-VALLEY/Undisclosed-address-94567/home/21927208

Out of my price and tax range

The thing I thought was most interesting was the taxes - $7700 a year. As time goes on I think we are going to see more and more places where people are selling just because they cannot afford the taxes on whatever they have.

I am also looking for 10 acres and a cheap house, but I also always figure on a place with taxes no more than $1000 a year because I know they will be doubling or tripling over the next 5 or 10 years (if we make it that long) as the govts get more desperate.

Looked at a super cheap house in albany OR yesterday - $25k and $800 a year taxes. Uh huh. Right.

You can look around Lancaster, plenty of land there.

jhall says

No, but I'm willing to pay in the upper six figures for the right place...

20 acres? For high six figures I can set you up with a 2500sqft lot and a 850 sqft house in the heart of Silicon Valley. The benefits are amazing.

1) every drive around to the city you get lots of radio time and get to see all the new models of cars. If you use the right windows you can get a nice tan working on your left side

2) Your kids will grow up with top scores on rigged exams and only know other kids from yuppy families. They will fear being alone and never venture away from the safety of a gated community and bright lights.

3) You get to hear nature at its best through your uninsulated walls. Squires, racoons, birds will feel like they are sleeping with you right in your bedroom. If they are scratching for too long this could actually happen.

4) Freeways are a great place to practice all that formula 1 training you have done in arcade games. With police budgets shrunk to nothing you can do what you want when driving. Your only accountability is when you piss off a vehicle bigger than you. (normally a soccer mom). Watch out then

5) If you are not in debt they you are not living. The more the better. The trick is to get the interest accumulation just matching your take home pay. That puts pressure on you to work harder and get the promotion you deserve. It is a self mediated motivation. Works perfect until it doesn't

6) Lastly, is my favorite. The public transportation system is awesome. If you want to go from downtown San Francisco to downtown San Jose then no problem. First BART, wait wait wait, Caltran, wait wait wait, lightrail. What would take you 45 minutes in a car is a lightning fast 2hr trip by public transportation. Very cool.

Why would you want 10 acres away from all of this. Your Crazy.

That's a lot to pay for a lifestyle that can be lived anywhere else for cheaper.

Live in the sticks, illegal aliens abound, pot growers abound, and sometimes the organized pot growers are also illegal aliens funded by Mexican drug cartels.
OR, try someplace nicer, and bring a million bucks.
Get ready to pay taxes up your large intestine.
San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria. I don't know how much more outrageous the prices are down there however.
Why go from freezing to death to being rained on to death?

Friend of a friend moved here after he fell in love with the area as a teenager.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Shasta,_California
They actually live about 5-10 miles from the town, in a really cool little house, they added a guest house over the garage which helped.

Took me to this lake last time I visited, fairly near his home.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Lake_%28California%29

Just a cool area, a relative lives in Sonoma County, always something going on, but much more populous.

I'm a Broker who works for the wine country group in Sbastopol, there are some very nice properties in your price range from time to time. 11571 Green Valley Rd, 95472 just came on the market for $1.299MM, it is a very nice and usable piece of land bordering a year round creek, 13.59 acres. This is a warm area for greater sebastopol and this is a clean property. Disclosures will be available tomorrow. The main house is 1806 Sq Ft and the second unit is 840 Sq Ft. I highly recommend the "Sonoma County PRMD" website, the interactive map is amazing and you can pull a permit history online that is usually accurate. If you want to know more about me there are 5 years plus of my comments available at Calculated Risk, and more at Bubbleinfo.com

hey this is a first for pat.net
SOMEONE WANTS TO MOVE HERE FROM OUTTA STATE AND NOT THE OPPOSITE!

RentingForHalfTheCost says

20 acres? For high six figures I can set you up with a 2500sqft lot and a 850 sqft house in the heart of Silicon Valley. The benefits are amazing.

What a great post! Thanks for making Silicon Valley sound so appealing. I'll be sure to avoid it at all costs.

clambo says

Live in the sticks, illegal aliens abound, pot growers abound, and sometimes the organized pot growers are also illegal aliens funded by Mexican drug cartels.

This one scares me. My mother lives 45 miles east of Redding and had the Sheriff come out with rifles to bust the pot-growing operation on her land that she didn't know about. It kind of rules out Mendocino County for me...

The good news is this dilemma will force me to take a road trip -- yeah! I love driving around and dreaming, so you may see me out there later this spring, looking all touristy and gawking at you all. Gotta check out San Luis Obispo and the Sierra Foothills...

Thanks for all of your help.

And I hope this reply thing works and doesn't look too weird.

jhall says

This one scares me. My mother lives 45 miles east of Redding and had the Sheriff come out with rifles to bust the pot-growing operation on her land that she didn't know about. It kind of rules out Mendocino County for me...

Good argument for legalizing pot.

BTW, your comment quoting worked fine.

jhall says

This one scares me. My mother lives 45 miles east of Redding and had the Sheriff come out with rifles to bust the pot-growing operation on her land that she didn't know about. It kind of rules out Mendocino County for me...

Good argument for legalizing pot.

Yes. Also, jhall, it is probably similar all over. If pot growers and raids is a major concern I would look for statistics and not make a decision based on one data point from your mother.

Similar things used to happen because of alcohol during prohibition:

Hows this one? Remember "Ponch" from the old CHP TV show? http://www.classiccountryland.com/properties/california-land-for-sale/modoc-county/#page=overview California Pines only $299 down and 10% per year for a $9,000 lot "in the California pines"

Heard of Peak Oil? Worried gas prices are going to the stratosphere? 10 acres is alot of land. Get 2 acres where you can grow food and raise meat animals without having to use mechanized equipment. Learn how to use handtools and get prepared for a difficult tomorrow. Find neighbors that are also making steps for self-reliance as one family can't do everything and you will need to help and trade with each other.

Mudwelly Girl says

Heard of Peak Oil? Worried gas prices are going to the stratosphere? 10 acres is alot of land. Get 2 acres where you can grow food and raise meat animals without having to use mechanized equipment. Learn how to use handtools and get prepared for a difficult tomorrow. Find neighbors that are also making steps for self-reliance as one family can't do everything and you will need to help and trade with each other.

Don't worry about that, all we have to do is lower taxes and the free market will sort all that out. Oh yeah and those dam government regulations!!!

/sarcasm

I am from Northern California and have lived all over the place. It is absolutely beautiful, stunning in fact, and I miss it every minute of everyday (I now live in N.C.).

My family still lives there and my brother and his wife are in law enforcement there.

Things to know: despite the beauty, Clambo and the others are right. This is not the place you want to go to "get away," unless you want to get away to a planet where martial law rules and where even the police won't tread. I kid you not.

The beautiful California of my youth is still there. It is still the best place to look up and see the Milky Way. But, unfortunately it has been invaded and is not safe.

We moved from Minnesota to Redding CA.

We bought 470 acres and built our home on a Mountain top just north (20 miles) of town. It is a 3800 square 2 story with a 6 car garage and all high end amenities. It has absolutely stunning views of the Cascade Range, The Trinities, Mount Shasta and Mount Lassen. Not to mention there is about 3/4 of a mile of a creek with two 20 foot waterfalls. With the land, home and 8 additional beautiful mountain top building parcels we are in to it for just over 1,000,000.

The price for this could no t be touched any where else in CA near a sizable town (Redding, pop 90,000 +) that has everything you need.

You will get about 400% more for your money here than you will any where near the Bay area. We know because we have shopped all of these areas.

Here is a picture of the home. Landscaping not done yet!

waterfalls on the property

I'm not sure how rural you want to be but I used to live in Potter Valley (mendo county) and it was nice. It is out in the sticks! Access to Eel and Russian rivers and a few nice lakes. 30 mins drive from Ukiah (closest real grocery store) and 1.5 hours from Santa Rosa.

It gets a lot hotter here than on the coast. I think this is good if you want to farm as you can grow many many more things.

http://www.trulia.com/property/3075819454-13011-Mid-Mountain-Rd-Potter-Valley-CA-95469

Oops here's a picture of the home.

Right now there are even better deals than this around here.

Definitely an area you need to check out.

Even though the OP mentioned moving for family reasons, Its also worth mentioning that if you really want acres and acres of farmland, I know for fact that they sell acres of land near where my folks live in rural NC for 100's of dollars per acre.... not 10's of thousands. Like way, way , way more bang for your buck.

Kind of interesting to see all the Minnesotans on this post. There are a LOT of Midwesterners that moved here I assume to escape the dreadful winters.

There's a sort of "back to the land" movement in some parts of upstate NY. We've got plenty of cheap land. And cold, cloudy winters. (But not this winter).

http://www.landsofcalifornia.com/california/

Try this site. You can do a detailed search. Every time I think of moving to the country I use it. Good Luck

Also landandfarm.com

The Balletto family put 60 acres on the market west of Sebastopol for $895K. 3 parcels and it is covered by the Williamson act which restricts what you can do with it. It's off Occidental Road and in a warm spot for this area. Prices are down substantially in the Sebastopol area, especially outside of town. There's a gorgeous 2.5 acres outside city limits but in walking distance to town center coming on the market soon. It has a 2//1 refurbished farmhouse and old outbuildings. Not cheap at the expected asking price of $639k but nice enough I bought a lotto ticket.

One further note. Once you get farther than 2 hours from SF in light traffic prices drop very quickly. And we are not at a bottom for raw land, except perhaps for truly premium quality parcels which are few and far between.