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.