Thinking of Buying Land Upstate-Western NY

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We have a lot of city folks moving to the country around us. The biggest things I've seen them have issues with are few contractors, insects, and wildlife. It's not the city. If you are afraid of wildlife, ants, ticks, etc, maybe a nice place in town is better. It's a different culture.

If you don't get worked up over the above or fall high fashion (camo/high visibility orange), country living may be good for you.
 
Wait a minute . . . florescent orange isn't considered fashionable? ;) :)
 
I think it makes a lady sexy! Especially if she'll field dress and drag it out of the woods!

The wife never did that, but she used to clean the cooler of fish I'd bring home from surf fishing when we were dating. Oddly enough I asked her about why it stopped after we got married. I asked her while cleaning some fish..


"Oh, I'm PAST that." She says!


Lol, probably should have seen that coming.;lol
 
Looking at some land locally 43 acres ,taxes are less than $100 a year . But as soon as i build something they will shoot up. Makes me want to live there in a nice RV. I could never live in CA or other high tax state. I just sold a house to a couple from CA who paid as much rent there last year as the entire purchase price of the house i sold to them ,and i thought i overcharged them!
 
mcdougy said:
Not only those things....13% tax on almost all purchases, 30-50% income tax...the list goes on..but we have a prime minister with nice hair.
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I guess that public health care is in there somewhere.
 
sportbikerider78 said:
I can't really see where you are coming from. Canadians pay a tons for motor vehicles and gas. For me, that's a deal breaker.
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There's way more that we all spend money on, than vehicles & gas. Lots of it being cheaper here than there.

Don't want to badly derail the thread so I'll stop there - but I'm very happy to be living where I am. :)
 
maple1 said:
There's way more that we all spend money on, than vehicles & gas. Lots of it being cheaper here than there.
Don't want to badly derail the thread so I'll stop there - but I'm very happy to be living where I am. :)
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Canada is a great place to live. I always thought it was the weather that kept the cost of living up. The heating expense baked into everything cuz the further south i went traveling up and down the coast the cheaper most things were. I guess theres more to it than that . But you know what they say ,you get what you pay for. Been there a few times ,always a good experience. Lots of wood burners up there.
 
Knots said:
I hear you. To ride anything good in CT (and there are good roads) you have to get off anything that looks like a secondary road.
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Back in the 1970's, Rt 7 up in the Cornwall area where I lived wasn't too bad except during summer weekends and the leaf peeper season. The locals all know alternative routes to avoid the tourists. I had a motorcycle then too. The backroads were a lot of fun to tool around on.
 
CT has changed a lot. I grew up in SW CT traveling around to farms with my grandfather would sold farm equipment. Fast forward 35 years and the farms were built upon and our town was a NYC bedroom community. The traffic got relentless and the taxes and regulations ridiculous. I had to get out...
 
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Yes, it really hurt to see nice farms being sold to developers or wealthy New Yorkers. Though I did see some hilarious attempt at making old barns into homes.
 
begreen said:
Yes, it really hurt to see nice farms being sold to developers or wealthy New Yorkers. Though I did see some hilarious attempt at making old barns into homes.
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Some of those come out really nice.
 
Years ago, This Old House took on a project to convert an old barn into a house. They led the poor couple on for an episode or two and then ended ripping it down and replacing it with a brand new timber frame. That's the fate of many old barn to home conversions.
 
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peakbagger said:
Years ago, This Old House took on project to convert and old barn into a house. They led the poor couple on for an episode or two and then ended ripping it down an replacing it with a brand new timber frame. That the fate of many old barn to home conversions.
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That's one of my favorite snow day / to cold to go outside shows to watch, with smart TV's its no problem to hop on youtube, hit up the this old house channel and binge watch a series start to finish.
 
Seasoned Oak said:
Some of those come out really nice.
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Visually yes, though old barn board is fragile and dents very easily. But most commonly they are heating nightmares which doesn't occur to the owner till they go through the first winter. My folks considered buying an old stone barn in Falls Village, but the cost of proper conversion was too much and the size was huge for just two people. Carole King ended up buying it.
 
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Timber frames were the rage for awhile until folks realized they were difficult to heat. Then someone came out with stress skin foam core panels to cover over the timber frames, that worked well but was expensive. Then someone came to the conclusion that the stress skin panels could be used to build a house without the timber frame for far less. Many "timber frames" are now hybrids, use some timber in common spaces but do the majority of the house with stress skin. The other advantage to stress skin is they can be prefabbed at the factory. Supply a foundation and 3 or 4 days and there is a weather tight shell. Detail them right,orient them with good southern exposure and incorporate thermal mass and they can be near net zero homes.
 
Late to the the party, but oh well...

I live in rural upstate New York. I live in a small town, south of Buffalo, of about 1500 including the village and the Amish community. My wife and I love our small town. You can buy a 1500 sqft house in the village for less than $40k. We are 20 minutes from Chautauqua Institution, if you are into that kind of thing. Everyone knows everyone else (including the gossip). This was nice when the ambulance had to get my wife. I knew everyone who came into my house, and my neighbor was the first one here. I can run old engines and tractors at 2am and nobody cares. It's a good compromise for us; it's backwoods enough for me, but close enough to other people for my wife.

The catch? Well, upstate ny taxes suck. I pay over 3k on the 10 acres of ag land my house is on. Small town politics. Those of us who spread manure on July 3rd. Ny rules and regulations ("No officer, we would never shoot a 5 gallon bucket of Tannerite. No sir. Not us.").
Snow. All of the snow. I have been getting up 3 hrs early just clear snow just so I can go to work for the last 3 days! The real grocery store is 1/2 hr away. There's a local superette, but the Dollar General is going to finish that off soon.

Something people forget is that our culture is different than Downstate. The idea of New Amsterdam is a real thing here. A third of my town lives with limited access to electricity and running water by religious choice.

As others suggested,I'd try renting In whatever area you find first.
 
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in some areas if you own enough acerage you can get a split zoning.
 
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