[17Oaks]

a few of those are >500$/acre, the last one you copied seems to be bogus.

but the search yielded 78 hits. remove the upper limit and the same search generates 23,039 hits.

.3% of listings is NOT what i would call 'many places'

Nice try Rob, but the reality is they are out there and they are everywhere. There is NO one site that shows all properties for sale in the US. So your magic number of '.3%' is not a valid measure.

I agree, the one in NJ seemed to be bogus.

Land at these low prices rarely gets advertised further than locally.

Now $500 is LOW, very low and you are not getting choice property. Lets kick this up a notch to $1000-$1500 per acre. Even here in Texas I can buy good land at that price over in Edwards County (in fact I am looking at 100 acre +/- tracts over there now. Good treed land, LOTS of hunting as its loaded with game.

Fact is there is rural land for sale across the US in every state at <$1500 per acre for small parcel land. If you want to find your best approach is to search at the county level and find a realtor who sells mostly farm and ranch land, not residential. Mostly what you find there is high dollar properties close to the city,

The parcel I am looking at in Edwards county, about 1 1/2 hrs from my place. 140 acres, $140k

http://www.landsoftexas.com/texas/land-for-sale/141.35-acres-in-Edwards-County-Texas/id/1716811

 

[17Oaks]

Look into vegetable Co- OPS. My neighbor has one. He grows all kinds of food in his yard for people to actually pay a membership fee to belong to his CO-OP
They drop by during harvest and take home what they need in veggies for the level of membership they have bought in at. He doesn't sell them the veggies. Only a Membership. And they can pick their food off the vine or from a set of tables he has set up should they not want to bend over that much.

He has gotten so popular that he is leasing his neighbors unused yards to expand his garden. Our yards out here are 3 to 4 acres each. So most enjoy not having to mow it all, and they get a free memberships.

As I understand it, since the membership is the only money exchanged he's not required all the normal permits needed to sell the produce. It's quite a set up over there. But we do live in the Un incorporated part of town. Apparently he's doing well enough it's his full time job.

Some of my neighbors raise a few head of livestock for food on their land I raise mine on the family farm a few miles up the road.

Some barter by bailing hay off their backyards for the livestock. One neighbor owns the bailing equipment and barters the bailing of hay for his animals.
I do welding and fabrication in my shop and the wife has a greenhouse for our veggies. We only grow enough for our immediate family. And then there's the chickens we have for my morning eggs.

I bought in this neighborhood 15 years ago because of the opportunities for the independance of being able to grow food. Oh and the private airport behind the back yard too.

All part of my Master Plan before I retired 5 years ago. Many of us are installing solar panels and wind generators as I type. One neighbor installs GEO thermal heat and ac for a living and he's been helping his neighbors with the technical aspects of their DIY installs.

Let me know if you'd like his CO-OP Web site for ideas. Don't know it off the top of my head.

Wow! All that typed with one finger on my phone....

LOL, Curt, FEW folks know where Rhome Texas is, even those who drive thru it often are not sure...but I do! You damn YANKEE LOL, I retired to SOUTH Tx. Looking to get further away from the growth in my county (top 5 fastest growing county in the US) even tho I live almost 10 miles outside the nearest city.

I started another company here on my place, its a manufacturing company. I went into town and got a DBA for $10 bucks and I don't chit from any govt after that. I own 'unrestricted acreage', I can open a bar or a gas station if I like. So I manufacturer on property, keep worker count low and stay below the federal radar. I sell across the US thanks to the internet. Been in business 4 years and just had another record revenue and profit year. I could fathom living somewhere that I did not have the freedom to start a business when and where I wanted with out getting permission to take a pizz from some 2-bit government worker that can't spell freedom...

Looking at this: http://www.landsoftexas.com/texas/land-for-sale/141.35-acres-in-Edwards-County-Texas/id/1716811

 

[Jace]

WHY ON EARTH would you do such a foolish thing when you could be self employed, have LEGITIMATE business expenses, and pay yourself around the poverty level for your other expenses!?!?! (here's hoping the new poster is not a troll)

I'm not intending to troll, but like value, I suppose trolling is subjective.

Why on earth would someone spend time to arrange their affairs around arbitrary rules instead of doing something productive? Because of men with guns. Why on earth would someone consider voluntary trades between consenting adults illegitimate? Because of men with guns. Why on earth would someone give men with guns the amount of money they decided for the amount and kinds of service they decide to deliver? My guess: the guns.

I wasn't saying that my suggestion was the best way to avoid men with guns. But if you want your life arranged around what men with guns want, that's fine with me.

 

[Ga_Mtn_Lady]

I had thought about selling excess produce as a sideline as well. Is it possible that you could run a porch "business" and ask for donations? Put up a sign that suggests the value?
Cash only, of course.

Your success would probably depend where you live and the culpability of your neighbors. In the old days you could slap up a fruit stand and leave a payment box on the honor system but that won't work today and if you have to deal with HOAs then you're doubly screwed.

The co-ops charge a monthly fee for baskets of veggies. Can you do the same except call it a "donation"?

Works in North Georgia. My Neighbor does it every year. All are right though. There are way too many regulations. I know 'cause I was around when there weren't too many and yes, it was better. What a mess we've made of things?

 

[HL431]

Nice try Rob, but the reality is they are out there and they are everywhere. There is NO one site that shows all properties for sale in the US. So your magic number of '.3%' is not a valid measure.

I agree, the one in NJ seemed to be bogus.

Land at these low prices rarely gets advertised further than locally.

Now $500 is LOW, very low and you are not getting choice property. Lets kick this up a notch to $1000-$1500 per acre. Even here in Texas I can buy good land at that price over in Edwards County (in fact I am looking at 100 acre +/- tracts over there now. Good treed land, LOTS of hunting as its loaded with game.

Fact is there is rural land for sale across the US in every state at <$1500 per acre for small parcel land. If you want to find your best approach is to search at the county level and find a realtor who sells mostly farm and ranch land, not residential. Mostly what you find there is high dollar properties close to the city,

The parcel I am looking at in Edwards county, about 1 1/2 hrs from my place. 140 acres, $140k

http://www.landsoftexas.com/texas/land-for-sale/141.35-acres-in-Edwards-County-Texas/id/1716811

The Jersey listing could be one with deed restrictions limiting or eliminating the possibility of further development. Therefore the acreage, while nice to have loses all of its value.

Very popular tactic here in the Northeast to keep areas open space.

27% of the remaining open space in my township is permanently deed restricted so as not to be developed any further.

And the township buys more of the rights up every year.

 

[broncoII]

I have a little gas station/store near my house. On weekends I can fill up the back of the side by side, and make a few quick bucks selling to the weekend people. Had a sheriff's deputy pull up one day, and thought "Oh s**t." he bought tomatoes, and two bags of purple hulls, and was on his way. Two more came by the next weekend. I'm not competing with the store. All they carry is little stuff for campers, and fishermen. I set up way over by the edge of their parking lot out of the way. That way I'm not in their way, and can't be mixed up with their business. The cream crowders are a big hit too.

 

[spameggsbaconandspam]

I find it interesting that the constructive comments in this thread have received approximately 0 acknowledgement from the OP. I wonder why? The comment about the farm co-op nailed it perfectly for example.

Back to the brewery thing, it turns out many say you'll need $500k minimally and $1m+ to be more realistic. That $5k license is most certainly not what is holding anyone back. Incidentally, the brewer's license appears to be $3k in Florida.

http://moderntimesbeer.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-start-a-brewery

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/how-much-would-it-cost-to-start-a-microbrewery.45808/

 

[Casio]

A lot of people have really great suggestions, and I appreciate all of them. Ultimately, I think co-ops are a great idea, but I don't produce anywhere near enough volume for something like that; if I did, then paying for a stand at the local farmer's market might also be a good option. I was mainly interested in just selling small amounts of extra produce from time to time.

With respect to the microbrewery idea, my husband was a professional distiller for many years and has lots of contacts in the winery/brewery/distillery industry. We had a good idea of what we'd need in terms of equipment, supplies, etc, had a group of people interested in going in on it with us, and we had an opportunity of buy equipment at a significant discount.

We crunched some numbers, came up with something that we thought could work, and then talked to several friends who had started smaller breweries and distilleries to get a better sense of what we'd be up against. The $5,000 annual fees were really the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of the nightmare bureaucracy that would be stepping on our throats.

With all of the red tape required, including the endless wait times for approval (months...months more, even years of waiting for everything could be possible, during which time we'd have to pay the overhead costs of the supplies), for the small scale we were looking to start on, it just wasn't financially viable.

There are several beer co-ops opening around the country which were able to get started with a fraction of the amounts the 'average' brewery requires, which was what gave us the idea initially to look into it. The Buffalo Beer Co-Op is a good example of this.

I'm not trying to say that nothing can be done - clearly small businesses ARE opening. The point of my post was not to say that it is IMPOSSIBLE to start something, just that at this point, the bureaucratic nightmare that is our government is actively working AGAINST starting/running small businesses, and once that happens, the destruction of the economy is assured and there goes the empire.

To think about how impossible it feels to do anything entrepreneurial (at least to do it legally) in a country that was built by millions of immigrants who opened their own businesses with very little collateral and little to no business experience (and thrived) is just so disheartening.

If today's bureaucratic hell existed 100 or even 50 years ago, how many businesses would have even been attempted?

 

[juskom95]

I find it interesting that that the constructive comments in this thread have received approximately 0 acknowledgement from the OP. I wonder why? The comment about the farm co-op nailed it perfectly for example.

Because some states put restrictions on actions like that?
Something you seem to be missing is that each city, county and state has their own restrictions. So a type of business that is legal in one state may not be legal in another. The rules also change if the proprietor is a citizen of that state or not.

If you want to share, what is your business in? I'm curious and it might shed light on any disconnect that is happening.

 

[spameggsbaconandspam]

Did the OP state that co-ops are verboten in their district?

Edit: I see our posts were just crossed.

 

[juskom95]

Did the OP state that co-ops are verboten in their district?

They did give reasoning once or twice, mainly due to volume of produce. The same as purchasing a stall in a farmers' market.

 

[Ianpatrick]

I have a small business in addition to my day job. I earn about $10,000 a year doing it. I have to pay city/county taxes and I have to fill out a property listing of each item that I own and then pay taxes on that property. The form is not intuitive and I called the tax office to ask them if they had someone who could help me. The receptionist who answered was extremely hateful and told me that I should KNOW how to do it as it wasn't that difficult. I asked her if she could walk me through and she stopped me mid-sentence and said "just pay your taxes". I asked to speak to her supervisor and she said "well, you can go that route, but I will recommend to my boss that we audit you".

So I gave up and filled it out as best as I could and paid the taxes.

 

[Roberto Rodriguez]

Nice try Rob, but the reality is they are out there and they are everywhere.

Now $500 is LOW, very low and you are not getting choice property. Lets kick this up a notch to $1000-$1500 per acre.

well yeah, when you change the threshold by a factor of three that changes things a LOT.

I never would have said a word if the original post specified that threshold.

 

[orangenomad]

Do your neighbors also raise produce? If not just sell to the immediant neighbors. Lot of people around here have a little sign they put out a cutsey sign that says EGGS. It does not say eggs for sale, if someone comes by that you know and stops to ask about eggs you offer to sell them some. If some stranger comes and asks about the eggs you say, oh that's just a yard decoration. I have a friend that has a sign that says Julie's Garden and has removable drop down shingles of different veggies, she puts out the ones on hand and people know to stop if they want green beans or onions or whatever. Of course that would only work if your neighbors knew about the arrangement and wanted to buy.

 

[nuttyirishman]

Everyone wants their chunk of the pie, 'everyone' wants to tax the 'evil' business owner and never stops to think about the real world consequences of those practices.

Your being far too kind. In reality, most Americans are just too stupid to understand that every expense that government imposes on a business gets passed on to them, the customers, in higher prices. It also may very well be another job opportunity lost.

 

[Forrest Mosby]

If the total of all my taxes is higher than 60% of my income....which it is...then "The Empire" has become a suckhole for socialists...which it has...bring on the Goths

 

[nuttyirishman]

Don't give up! I live in a suburb of Detroit and live on a county road. It is a city of over 100,000 people. I live on 2.2 acres which is a HUGE lot for my area. I hooked up with a local tree service and had them start dumping hardwood logs in my side yard for free. I hired a guy off Craigslist that needs to stay under the radar and he processes the wood for me and racks it for $25/face cord. I sell it for $90/face cord or more for smaller quantities.
Inevitably, the city started hounding me. I got out my cell phone and drove around in a 1/4 mile radius from my house and found all the violations that they have let slide for years and recorded them. I burned them onto a DVD and the waited for the inspector to come again. When he did, I told him what I had done. I also told him that if he came again before these other issues were addressed that I would take the city to court for harassment and intimidation. Never heard from them again.

 

[The Old Coach]

Unmentioned so far, in the area of regulation, is the opportunity that regulations provide for graft. My long-ago (1980s) brother-in-law was a custom homebuilder in S.E. Massachusetts, also licensed in Rhode Island. While he built strictly to code, his budget for payoffs to inspectors was, he said once at dinner, was $10,000 per house in Mass, and $20,000 in Rhode Island. I tried becoming an independent sales rep when I lived in Rhode Island, about 1990. Just because I had a two-line listing in the yellow pages, I got threatened for a "donation" to the Police Benevolent Association, and another one from the firemen. $100 was about the minimum to shut them up. Had to file with the state tax people for a reseller's tax number, even though I would never have had possession of anything I managed to sell. If I had used my demo equipment set to do a paid service job in Michigan, even once, I would have been required to pay a fixed "business tax" of something like $1000. (Actually, I did do that, but never admitted it.) Feds wanted $25,000 to "certify" my principal's system, which was already certified to meet the German PTB standard. After a year I'd had enough, sent the demo equipment back, and returned to wage slavery.

@Rodrigues: I spent two years searching West Virginia, southwest Virginia, and southeast Ohio for a retirement BOL. NOT ONCE did I see any land less than $2500 an acre, and most was twice that. For RAW LAND, some of it so vertical that only a mountain goat would survive on it. One offering had been clearcut, and the loggers cut such bad access tracks that erosion was taking half the land down the creek. Another could be accessed by going a mile+ uphill on foot or on a dirt bike, but no 4WD vehicle could have done it. Yet another was right in the lee of a 500 foot power plant stack. In the end I lucked onto 11 acres of steep hillside pasture, with an abandoned but (barely) fixable house for $50,000, and you can believe that I camped there a whole weekend waiting for the RE office to open so I could be first in line on Monday to put in my (cash) offer. It was by far the best opportunity I saw in all that time. (The bank that owned it was so shocked by my cash that I had a purchase and sale signed that day. RE broker told me later that he had a dozen people wanting it by Wednesday.)

If you see land anywhere for $500 an acre, it's got some sort of major disability. No water at all, nearest town is 100 miles away, landlocked inside other holdings so there's no access at all except by helicopter, it's all swamp that the EPA won't let you drain, out west it's abandoned lead mines. In coal country here, about the worst thing you can have is a mine tailings dam uphill, and even then they still want $2K an acre.

 

[aramchek]

I've never been to a townhall meeting in my community because I'm generally happy with its ordinances. I understand that alot of new housing developments, and large parts of the US, are more strongly "run" by HOA's. I don't know why. Maybe the developer of a neighborhood or townhome wants to maintain visual uniformity, property values, etc. So common things outlawed are clothing lines, ham radio antennas, working on cars in your own driveway, etc.

As for the actual town/city that won't allow the selling of curb-side vegetables, you may have the citizens themselves more to blame than government. These rules don't get into their books by accident. A meeting was held at some point in the past, nobody showed up, and the rule was put into the ordinances. And the only way to strike it off is to get alot of people mobilized. But we live in an era of apathy, so I wouldn't expect much here...

I was reading about the collapse of the Roman Empire awhile ago, and something stood out: Roman citizens actually gladly accepted being conquered by the barbarians, as long as it would mean an end to the crippling weight of government taxation and bureaucracy.

http://mises.org/library/inflation-and-fall-roman-empire

I can't stop thinking about how our society is getting pretty close to the breaking point of crippling government interference.

As examples, when signing up for Obamacare, I had to predict what my 2015 income would be. Now I have to make damn sure I don't earn more than that, or else I will have to pay heavy penalties.

Also, I have a huge garden, with more veggies than my household can possibly eat. I thought it would be fun to have a little farm stand to sell the excess, but after spending a full day getting pinballed between various city/town offices, I was finally told that they wouldn't issue me a permit to sell my garden produce because I needed to sell from a building that has PUBLIC BATHROOMS and a whole litany of other things. All I wanted to do was sell some freaking kale and carrots, but apparently that's illegal without permits which I don't qualify for, and I don't have enough volume for it to be worth my time selling at a farmer's market.

When I saw this article, it sounded a lot like what I dealt with:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-...2-02/new-jersey-teens-just-learned-what-happens-when-you-start-business-america

My husband and I have come up with several intriguing business venture ideas over the past year, but the weight of all the permits, paperwork, and applications have led to us scrapping all of them.

How can our economy ever improve if individual economic initiative is so consistently strangled? Why do politicians pay lip service to improving the economy when the answers to improving it are so ridiculously obvious? MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR SMALL BUSINESS TO OPERATE WITHOUT CRIPPLING BUREAUCRACY/PERMITS/APPLICATIONS/TAXES and we will thrive.

At this point, I think I'm getting ready to welcome the barbarians, too.

 

[Roberto Rodriguez]

Don't give up! I live in a suburb of Detroit and live on a county road. It is a city of over 100,000 people. I live on 2.2 acres which is a HUGE lot for my area. I hooked up with a local tree service and had them start dumping hardwood logs in my side yard for free. I hired a guy off Craigslist that needs to stay under the radar and he processes the wood for me and racks it for $25/face cord. I sell it for $90/face cord or more for smaller quantities.
Inevitably, the city started hounding me. I got out my cell phone and drove around in a 1/4 mile radius from my house and found all the violations that they have let slide for years and recorded them. I burned them onto a DVD and the waited for the inspector to come again. When he did, I told him what I had done. I also told him that if he came again before these other issues were addressed that I would take the city to court for harassment and intimidation. Never heard from them again.

THIS ladies and gentlemen is why the empire is crumbling. not because of burdensome regulations.