[cyberax]

Land in the US is _cheap_. You can easily buy a hectare of land in the middle of nowhere for $10k. If you want something more interesting, with your own water source and maybe some trees, you're looking for $20k for a 0.5 hectare lot.

[sacnoradhq]

Getting to it and making a living between it and elsewhere is the problem. (Most American's aren't office workers.)

Also, much of the land isn't exactly ideal due to hazards.[0]

Furthermore, being 10+ miles from a serious hospital is a threat to life.

0. https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/map

[cyberax]

I assume that if you're talking about living "off-grid", then you're prepared to either work remotely, have another residence, or another source of income.

Pretty much all of the US is a potential hazard zone. You have earthquake danger on the West coast, tornadoes on the Great Plains, floods and hurricanes on the East coast, and so on. You deal with that by buying insurance.

> Furthermore, being 10+ miles from a serious hospital is a threat to life.

Again, you can buy air ambulance insurance. It's pretty popular in Alaska, and is fairly cheap (around $100 a year for the family of 4).

I am planning to build an off-the grid house, and it's surprisingly doable.

[oceanplexian]

It's not that it's a "hazard zone", it's that cheap land is bottom of the barrel.

I looked at a lot of these properties. The land is poorly graded, the drainage and soil quality is poor (Will fail a perc test), roads are terrible and wash out, and rural communities often lack basic services. I'm not talking entertainment, I mean your nearest grocery store is a Chevron Gas Station 30 miles away.

A lot more engineering and planning goes into making land livable than simply plopping a house on it and calling it a day.

[cyberax]

Nope. You can buy perfectly good land suitable for habitation for about the same money. I have bought a 100 acre lot with a freaking stream, lake, and a small forest for about $180k. There's even a gravel road to the nearest highway, and it's just 40 minutes away from a fairly large settlement and 2 hours away from a major city.

This is just insane that people keep buying overpriced condos for $2 million apiece in cities, when they can have their own private park.

[bluenomatterwho]

Methinks the kind of financial 'sophistication' which systemically leads to $2 million dollar luxury apartments does not foster the type of person who wants to deal with paying a manager to manage the staff to maintain a personal estate. Yes, I'm kidding, as they certainly wouldn't do these things themselves. Something something about the 'Apollonian' and the 'Mercurial'.

[keiferski]

Most of Appalachia is fine and has no risk of natural disasters.

[Broken_Hippo]

.... Except for rain, flooding, tornadoes, the remnants of hurricanes, landslides, snow...

There is not a place on earth that has no risk of natural disasters.

[keiferski]

I guess? Most of these things are not really major issues for Appalachia. Anyone who has lived there will tell you that. It’s an order of magnitude lower than Florida or California or Tornado Alley.

[fulafel]

Can you commonly live on unzoned land in the US?

(honest question)

[themoonisachees]

I think the point is more that there are swathes of land that are so remote that nobody could tel if you are living on it in the first place.

[LinuxBender]

Mostly yes, but what you can put on the land will vary by state/county. It's easy enough to call up a county office ahead of time and tell them what you plan to do. They are usually happy and accommodating to take in new property taxes. Taxes are not too bad if not building a permanent structure. Some counties have rules about things like mobile homes, water tanks, septic requirements and some of them have ways to get around the rules. Some places have next to no rules and are happy to get more people spending money at the local businesses. There isn't really a generic answer to your question. That's how much it varies by location.