Where else is there free land?

Opportunities for free land are available to those willing to think ‘outside the box’ and take a chance on an adventurous new lifestyle. If you can narrow down your search to a specific region that appeals to you, here are a few suggestions which may yield good results:

Look for care-taking opportunities.

As any homesteader knows, rural homes and properties need to be lived in or they will deteriorate rapidly. Roofs need frequent repair, homes need to be heated in winter to prevent mould and rot taking over, fences need attention, water lines need draining in freeze-ups, and the list goes on. But the life situations of many rural landholders may change. People get old and move to assisted living, but may want to retain their homestead for future occupants.

One of my friends care-takes a magnificent waterfront property with garden and orchard, and is even paid $1500 per month for his efforts. The owner, due to financial misdeeds, will be spending the next 15 years in prison. My friend was thinking out of the box when he found this opportunity!

Care-taking someone else’s property has the secondary advantage of letting you try out the homesteading lifestyle to see if it suits you. When a homestead is already developed, you can learn what works and what mistakes to avoid, and apply this knowledge to your future homestead as it develops.

Look for cooperative opportunities

The mention of the word ‘cooperative’ may stir anti-socialism sentiments among the paranoid and uninformed, but I have been living in a land co-op for 31 years and the experience has been most rewarding. In fact, I owe my homestead lifestyle to the co-op model, since my wife and I could never have afforded the collective land we share with others.

Cooperative living arrangements are nothing new, although land co-ops are not as common as housing co-ops which proliferate in cities and towns. But friends can pool their resources and look for land which can accommodate multiple dwellings. Shared orchard and garden space can make food production practical when more hands are available. In our co-op, some of us specialize in growing certain crops which we share with others in exchange for a share of their specialty crop. It makes the gardening process much easier when you can focus on a few crops rather than trying to produce the many crops which provide a varied diet.

Perhaps the biggest concern in land co-ops is the matter of equity. Homes built on co-ops do not build equity the way homes on private lots do. (Or used to!) It is not easy to sell a home on co-op land, since the buyer needs to be accepted by the other group members. You won’t be able to take out a home equity loan. This can be a good thing though, looking back over the past few years, since these loans have put many people financially “under water”.

Approach holders of large parcels

A group of 6 friends in Oregon approached an older man with 160 acres of land, and made a proposition to him. If he would let them put an organic garden on a piece of his land, they would share the harvest with him. After the first season, the owner grew fond of the company of young people, and offered to let them park their bus beside the garden. The relationship grew and blossomed, and today the landowner has given 5 acres to the young group to build their homestead cooperatively. The landowner benefits by feeling a part of the sustainability movement, and by sharing ideas and knowledge with young people. The young people benefit by having free land, of course, but they also enjoy the benefit of an older person’s experience and perspective.

People’s life situations change over time, and opportunities arise for those who seek them out. If you’re feeling insecure living in the city, or if the notion of self-reliance appeals to you, homesteading can provide a feeling of independence and some measure of control over your life.

Homesteading may seem old-fashioned to many, but we think there’s going to be a lot more interest in this way of living as the global economy continues to unwind.