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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: Homestead <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] Rural Land Prices and Conditions
  • Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:25:51 -0700

Global and national economic conditions are much in the news. This being an election year, the American economy will of course
again be rosied up by the party in power in an attempt to hang on to that power. One should therefore read economic news as indication, not fact. Things may well be worse than we are told. Or they might be better.

Rural and urban migration is historically tied to economic conditions. Today, additional factors are affecting rural population. The first is the baby boomers, the leading edge of which are now considering retirement. Many boomers will continue working, using big city wages to prepare. Many will buy second homes intended for retirement destinations. Many such destinations will be in rural places.

The second factor is the Internet. More workers are now able to earn money from homes well away from cities. More consumers can now order food, clothing, entertainment and tools online and have UPS make the delivery. Rising fuel prices will easily justify this new paradigm.

And then there are the affluent, those near the top of the American economic class system, a growing group. These folks are not only driving rural prices up; they want more services, which will raise taxes and increase bureaucracy. "Affluent retirees and other high- income types have descended on these remote areas, creating new demand for amenities like interior-design stores, spas and organic markets. For many communities, it's the biggest change since the interstate highway system came barreling through in the 1960s and 1970s," states Conor Dougherty, in an article in The Wall Street Journal: The New American Gentry.

This time the urban-to-rural migration may have the wax without the later wane. " Millions of soon-to-retire baby boomers, say demographers, will propel this trend for years to come." The rural land price escalation can be breathtaking. In states across the country, developers are positioning themselves for the influx of the affluent. Dougherty notes Valley County, Idaho, about a hundred miles from Boise. "In recent years, developers have snatched up land for $100,000 an acre in some cases, or 40 times what it fetched as farmland. Though home prices here are declining as in other parts of the nation, houses still cost about 60% more than in 2004."

Be prepared. Make your plan. Buy land while you have urban income to pay for it. Don't be one of the many who in ten or twenty years will be saying, "why, I could have bought that land for a pittance of what it sold for yesterday." Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Live in the present but plan for the future. I know these things.

Read the entire article here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120069319738001353.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone




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