[K0balt]

Just check eBay. If you want it to turn out good, it’s best to go and see. If we’re talking about $1200 parcels, it costs more to vet than to buy. Just look it over and judge the best you can on the information you can gather, and accept the 30 percent risk that it won’t be what you expected in some way or another. Or, go there. Not worth paying a title agency or any of that crap. Be sure of any tax burden (easily researched) and what the annual taxes, if any , will be.

[bhaney]

Do you have more advice for finding land to buy other than using ebay?

I've been looking for a while for a few acres of unimproved/secluded/wooded land within an hour or two drive away from me here in Kansas, mostly just for bushcrafting or tooling around. The only place I really know to check is Zillow, and while there are a few listings in my distance range, they're typically upwards of $10k/acre. I just checked ebay and saw parcels priced much closer to what I'd expect for unimproved land out in the middle of nowhere, but I couldn't find any in my middle of nowhere, just several states away.

I'm pretty sure there's tons of completely unused land all over the place here that people would be willing to get rid of for cheap, but I have no idea how to find those people. I've considered just going to every small town within an hour of me and posting a "will buy" ad on whatever bulletin boards I'm allowed to post stuff on, but for now I'm still holding out hope that there's a better way. Tips?

[hattmall]

An absurd amount of land is held by people that don't even know it. They aren't looking to sell generally. Lots of inherited and placed in trusts over generations.

Use q public, or whatever is in your area and search for land recently acquired by an estate. Pretty much that means the owner died, there was no clear line of inheritance do typically a distant relative or random person is selling the estate. Try to buy it.

The other is legal notices and government bid sites. You can buy tax owed land, laws vary by state.

[K0balt]

Well, the trick to finding it cheap is to not look for anything/anywhere specific, so I doubt I can help with that. It’s not that I am good at it, it’s that when I’m momentarily bored, I’m not in a picky mood. If it’s cheap and I can imagine a life there, no matter how humble, and it makes me smile, then my wife is probably going to be asking me questions I don’t have good answers for and I’m going to have to work on a reasonable explanation that doesn’t sound like I’ve finally gone off the deep end.

It’s pretty much all eBay for me or local equivalents in other countries. So many rabbit holes.

[moondistance]

Thanks :)