So you’ve bought land, now what?

It’s very easy to get drawn into the homesteading movement. Especially with all the great helping people with new ideas. There is also the food security, sense of community, and opportunities to learn. But now you have land, what’s next.

Before you hire any expert to work with you, there are many low cost solutions to get ideas. From your local college, extension offices, or federal departments, they all have programs. You can have people do studies, or give you ideas.

Yet there is something far more important. This one thing makes all the difference between a homesteading dream and a nightmare. Save the drama for YouTube. For your land you need more enjoyment, value, and meaningful memories.

Today’s episode has a proven approach to get more done with your land. Take notes. Do this to fight the overwhelm of expert opinion and the unlimited supply of ideas. Don’t let someone hijack your homesteading dreams with overwhelm.

If you own land and want ecologically sound advice for getting more from that land, start with our podcast archive and free newsletter. Join us at https://www.prosperityhomestea...


#HomesteadDesign #LandOwnership #RegenerativeFarming #ConservationLand #StartHomesteading #BuyingLand #LandManagement

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The question comes up quite often wheresomeone has bought a piece of land and
now they want to do something withthat land. They want to have an
expert look at it and tell themwhat to do. I'm going to share
with you some of the approaches thatyou can take and how to get results
from your land, because we're reallyabout maximizing utility value of land while remaining

(00:22):
ecologically sound. And so if you'vebought a piece of land, or you're
thinking about buying a piece of land, I think I could save you a
lot of time and effort when itcomes to professional advice. I'm just in
hit with Prosperity homestead. So firstoff, there's an unlimited supply of federal
organizations, state organizations, experts inthe area of native habitat management or permaculture

(00:47):
design or reginative agriculture that will offeryou advice for your land. Now,
they're going to record podcasts and dovideos, and they're going to have membership
sites like I've got. They're goingto have all kinds of resources, and
so it's easy to become overwhelmed bythe opportunity that you have, whether you

(01:07):
own land today or you're seeking tobuy land. When you first purchase your
land, you are already behind theeight ball when it comes to maximizing value
of that land. So the firstthing we want to do is we want
to have a general idea of whereyour land is going to be, and
then what is the habitat in thatparticular area. So climate's important. Are

(01:30):
you in a temperate climate, what'syour rainfall? You also want to understand
what skills you have. Now,if you've already bought land, you're not
that far behind. We can helpyou catch up quickly. That's the purpose
of this podcast. But if you'reguessing about what you want to do and
you've just got general ideas, it'sbetter to capture all that on paper than

(01:52):
it is to buy a piece ofland that might have a lot of work
to go into it before it getsto what you believe to be ideal.
In fact, once you've bought land, it's best to live on that land
before you get started, or tointeract with that land before you get started,
because once you start putting in foundationsand you're getting permits, you could

(02:12):
run down a rabbit hole that's goingto cost you tens of thousands of dollars,
hundreds of thousands of dollars and producesomething that you may not be satisfied
with. So let's ask why webuy land first. In the approach that
we have here at Prosperity Homestead,we buy land as real estate investors.
Okay, So if you're buying ruralland for farming, if a piece of

(02:36):
land comes up that is typical forfarming, maybe it already has farming on
it, maybe it has farm leases, you may buy that land as an
investment asset and lease it out tosomebody else to farm, and then all
these improvements that you're going to doare like from a landlord's perspective, you
might buy a piece of land thatyou're going to retire to in the future.

(03:00):
So you currently live in the city, you work in the city,
you like to visit the country,and you're going to buy a piece of
land that you will retire to inthe future. You don't know what your
needs are in the future, sobuilding too much on that land may not
serve your interests in the short term. But once you have that land,
you have the Department of Forestry comeout, you have conservation biologists come out,

(03:22):
and you start looking at that land'sopportunity, how does that land express
itself? And then start looking atwhere could you be in that land,
Because here's the thing. If youbuy a piece of land and you fix
the roads, and you fix thewater, and maybe you get basic electricity
out there to a barn or somethinglike that, and that land doesn't turn
out to be perfect for you,then you haven't spend hundreds of thousands of

(03:45):
dollars on buildings in infrastructure, andyou could easily recover and sometimes even profit
from that land because you've set itup for somebody else. Now that happens
very often in my area. Somebodywill buy a piece of land and they'll
split it up into a bunch ofdifferent pieces, and they're going to put
a well, and they're going toput electric and they're going to have a
lot ready to build on. Andso that works well if you're near a

(04:05):
city. It's not necessarily what Irecommend, because I want big pieces of
land, I want miles of trails, I want conservation areas, I want
reginative agriculture. So again you haveto look at what is it that you
want, what are the outcomes you'relooking If you're going to dump your retirement
account into a piece of land andthen build a house on it. You

(04:27):
better hope that land is exactly whatyou need. So that's why we talk
about getting a piece of land anddeveloping it for hunting. Getting a piece
of land and develop it for weekendcamping. You could send in a we
have a lot of videos about forestrymulching. You could send in a forest
multure on existing roadways to open upa piece of land to make it great

(04:47):
for mountain biking, hunting, hiking, family camping, and never at all
spend twenty to thirty thousand dollars ona well, spend fifteen to twenty thousand
dollars on power, spend one hundredthousand dollars on putting a building out there.
You can use that money to buythe piece of land next door and
build your farming empire. Do yousee how this works? But again,

(05:08):
you've bought the piece of land,the Department of Forestry will come out and
they'll help you with a plant Becauseit is possible that that land has valuable
trees on it. It's possible thelands to degrade it in a way that
they might have a program to helpyou with erosion. They may be able
to tell you things about that landyou never thought to know, and they're
gonna give you a written report.The conservation biologist I had come out to

(05:30):
my property pointed out some gras,native grasses they were in the seed bank,
and they uh some ideas for wideningthe trails to stimulate those native grasses.
Also some things to get a bettersurplus of nuts from the oak trees,
and so those two things. Asfar as raising goats and raising pigs.
Now, they did pitch me onquail quite a few times, and

(05:53):
I think quail is interesting, butI'm not gonna have I'm not gonna be
in a situation to have enough habitatfor quail that I want to transition what
I want to do. But again, I never thought of quail. I
had thought about pigeons, I thoughtabout chickens, I thought about ducks.
But again, these ideas are goingto come. There's going to be a
lot of ideas. Now. Ifyou want to hire an expert, because

(06:14):
it doesn't cost anything for the Departmentof Forestry to come out, you've already
paid for that. It doesn't costanything for a conservation biologists to come out.
Again, you've already paid for that. Those are going to be available
through universities, They're going to beavailable through different programs, through an extension
office. Now they're going to giveyou a recommendation and a plan. It
doesn't mean you have to use thatplan. If you're going to hire experts

(06:36):
from that point, you want tobridge their recommendations to your outcomes and desires
for the property by developing a designplan. So we have written design plans
for every property we manage. Everyproperty we caretake, there's a written plan
about what are the expectations of theland, how does the land express itself?

(06:59):
And then from a mapping standpoint,where does certain activities happen, Where
does the market garden exist? Andhow is the market garden laid out?
If you go over to the videosI did on the Sustainable Homestead Institute where
we designed a market garden, weshow the evolution of a market garden and
we show how he went from theVirginia's largest hoogle culture to mounted raised beds,

(07:23):
double reached raised beds, and we'renow in a position of having large
terraces, which is extended amount ofthe square footage. We got a lot
of the aggressive trees like the honeylocustout. It doesn't have to be finished
when you start. The idea canbe up there, but the written design

(07:44):
plan helps us navigate the unlimited supplyof options. And sometimes when you're watching
these YouTube videos and you're coming upwith all these options, the design plan
also helps you start to identify areasof implementation. Now hire experts to help
us with the implementation. So I'vehired laborers, I've hired excavators, I've

(08:05):
hired forest multures, I've hired peoplethat'sk you know, a lot of equipment
because I knew that if I gotthe equipment in up front, I can
open up the opportunities to do theseother things there. But there have been
times that we've started with just hikingtrails. The key is the implementation has

(08:26):
more valuable value than the ideas,because day one on any piece of land,
I can show you how to startgetting value out of it. So
you buy a piece of hunting landand day one hunting season opens, you're
ready to go, what are thefive things we're gonna do before hunting season?
If you have a piece of landthat's degraded day one, what are

(08:48):
we going to do? We're gonnastart removing the trash. The removal of
the trash has more value than havingfive more experts come through and tell you
to remove the trash. And thetrash could be invasive species of plants.
The trash could be left over fromprevious farming activities. Again, the implementation
is more valuable than the ideas therestoration of the land. What does it

(09:11):
mean to restore a piece of land. I get notes where people will say,
I have acreage backing up to thisand it's currently being farm for trees.
I'd like to restore the land.Well, tree farm is a form
of agriculture that can actually help landif done properly. So the question ought

(09:33):
to be is how do we continuea sustainable forestry practice. And of course
the Department of Forestry will help youwith a plant on that they're also coming
and tell you to spray and pray. You can instead in the implementation use
other methods which could be goats undertrees, hogs under trees. It could
be cows under trees. It couldbe a silver pasture system rather than a

(09:54):
polyculture forestry system. Your trees mightbe mature and it's time to take the
trees out. So rather than takingthem out and then then figuring out what
to do afterwards, you can kindof come up with that future paced plan.
Again, that's what a design plandoes. What are we doing now,
what are we doing the future,and then in the implementation we can
start rolling out our projects. Now. Again, a lot of folks are

(10:18):
more creative than I am, andthey want to experience the land. They
want to have those dramas. I'ma really cut and dry kind of guy.
I want to have completed projects andenjoyment rather than drama. So I
want to be able to For example, the project that we're working on right
now, we're dropping three buildings ina temporary location, and then we're going

(10:39):
to finish the buildings off, andthen if they move to a more permanent
location depending on land acquisition, dependingon availability, depending on what's happening on
the land, then that's fine.But where they're getting dropped, they can
sit as off grid cabins until we'reready to use them for something else.
We're setting up camp rather than settingup permanent foundations because again, our methodology

(11:05):
for raising these animals is going tobe very hands on for the first couple
of years because I'm still learning thedifferent methods. We have temporary fencing,
which is not always secure for keepinganimals in, and then ultimately as we
get to permanent fencing, we canbe a little bit more hands off.
So literally, in the nomadic caretakingprogram that we're putting together, I will

(11:26):
literally be sleeping in a tent nearwhere the animals are located, okay,
because I'll be able to maintain andmonitor much better that way. Plus it's
gonna be fun, you know,even if it's just over the weekend,
it's gonna be fun. I'll getup in the morning. Think about this.
When you get a piece of property, or you're thinking about your piece
of property, I want you tosit back sometimes with your with your significant

(11:50):
other, with your kids and saying, hey, look, I'm thinking about
getting a piece of land. Whatwould life be like when we have this
land? You know? Do youwant to wake up, roll out of
a tent, have a cup withcoffee, and then go hunting while it's
still dark outside? Or do youwant to roll out of the tent in
the middle of the day because you'vebeen sleeping in and then have a ice
relaxing little campfire as you have somefood and family and friends. Again,

(12:16):
Department of Forestry is not going tohelp you with that. Conservation biologists are
not going to help you with that. The extension offices are not going to
help you with that. They're goingto give you their approach to how your
land should function. But it's yourland, and so we look at it
from a real estate investment perspective.We look at it from an existing land

(12:37):
use and utility perspective. We lookat it from how can we increase the
property's value. See if day one, you go in on a piece of
land, it costs you a hundredthousand dollars and you do fifty thousand dollars
worth of work, and now theland's worth three hundred thousand dollars because before
it had repairs and had problems,and it didn't have a well. And

(12:58):
you've just transformed this land that hasas much value as the perfect homestead or
food security or financial freedom because you'vejust ramped up the value of that land.
Now we decide, starting small,where do we want to go from
there? So it's okay to haveto drive out to your piece of land

(13:20):
and only be able to be outthere on the weekend. I know,
I beat myself up sometimes because mystuff seems to be taken longer than it
needs to. Client stuff works prettysmooth and happens consistently. But again,
your dream of homesteading needs to bereality, not a nightmare. It needs
to be reality not drama. Andso instead of watching all these YouTube videos,

(13:46):
we come up with a lot ofinputs, put it into a design
plan, and then implement that designplan through a phase or project based approach.
So in my case, I'm goingto start with just goats. It
might be two goats inside of atemporary fence, and I'll move them like
I was moving a herd of thirtyBut ultimately we're bonding the goats to the

(14:09):
activity and to training them to thefences. And if I can't do that
with two goats, how in thehell am I going to do it with
thirty goats? Do you see whatwe're talking about here? You might have
a piece of land and you mightwant to restore land. But if you've
never defined what restoration is in thecontext of your ownership of the land,

(14:30):
as your context of your stewardship ofthe land, as your context of the
skill set on the land, thenpeople like me will be buying your land
after you've been an absentee owner fortwenty years and you still don't know what
to do with it. And I'mgoing to buy it for pennies on the
dollar and then I'm going to transformit and then you can come visit,
which is fine. You know,we can we manage properties that people own
and they come enjoy the property ratherthan have to go through the struggle of

(14:54):
building the property. But my pointbeing is where do you want to be
on the spectrum? So land asan investment, land as farming and expanding
regional food farming or homesteading, aspersonal food security or personal physical security.
There's so many aspects. So ifyou're ready with your land, you don't

(15:18):
have to actually own land or anything, but you just want to sit down
with somebody to bring up some satellitemaps to talk about some ideas and concepts.
I do have a promoculture design certification. I'm a Virginia Master Naturalist.
I'm part of these Native Habitat Managersgroups and I manage habitat is part of
what I'm doing. I have materialson the website I can share with you

(15:41):
if you'd like to sit down andjust do a discovery call to find out
what the next step is. Becausewhat I've hoped to share with you right
now is that's how you do it. You get these agencies out, then
you start a design plan, andthen you figure out what projects you're going
to work on because it's enjoyable.And then from there, where do we
go? Where do we go?How do we get you so that you're

(16:03):
live in the dream instead of anightmare, and that you're learning fast and
implementing more of what you already knowand having those as family relationships and having
those family experiences and having this beeverything you thought it would be. Now
I can guarantee to you that it'snot always going to be everything you thought

(16:25):
it to be because you don't knowwhat you don't know, And so I
can share my experience. I canconnect you with other experts to share their
experiences, but ultimately focus those expertise. If you're paying for experts, focus
them on implementation and design plans,because it is very easy to get overwhelmed
with what all the experts have tosay, what are their opinions, what

(16:48):
could be done? The potential isunlimited, But what actually we're going to
do on your property so that youget the results that you're looking for.
That you build the asset value ofthat land, you build the casual value
of that land, you build theecological and conservation value of that land.
That's where you need to focus.I want to thank you for listening.
I'm just in hit with Prosperity Homestead, where we help you get the most

(17:11):
from your land in an ecologically sound, in a holistic way. We help
you generate more value from that land, which very often is biological diversity,
especially food crops, especially material crops, but ultimately family and relationship crops,
community crops. If you have questionsabout what I've covered today, visit us

(17:33):
at www dot prosperityhomestead dot org.You can ask your questions by simply going
to the contact page and filling outa simple form, and we'll answer those
questions in the membership. I'll answerthem direct, we'll answer them on podcasts.
But if you like to support thesite and get access to more valuable
content, more of what we've sharedhere in detail, then join us.

(17:57):
When you're on that site. Themembership is not nominal and it unlocks access
to a lot of the members' onlycontent and courses. Again, I want
to thank you for listening and beinga part of what we do here.
Keep sending in the questions. I'mjustin hit from Prosperity Homestead and this has
been about what to do with yourland. There's so many ideas. Let's

(18:18):
get a plan, let's get someprojects together, and let's get results.
I'd love to hear your success storiesand I'll see you in the next one.