You aren't likely to beat $200/acre, especially if some of it is farm land. Prime farm land in my area goes for 10x that.
If you want to split it with somebody,
make sure you have an extremelly detailed legal agreement. or you might run into trouble. Among other
things, you want to work out:
- Who owns which specific portions, if you divvy it up
- How would members of the group sell their portion of they wanted to
- When can the land be used by which member, and for what activity
- How costs/profits would be divided regarding any development (crops, plots and feed for attracting wildlife like deer, any buildings you want to
construct, paths, etc.)
I can probably think of hundreds more things you want to include in your legal agreement. The one little thing you leave out will always be the thing
that screws you over.
You will also want to check with the zoning for things as simple as... can you build more than one house on the property?
I've though about something similar... like a modern commune. Even if it was just a few close friends or families that lived together, say 4 or 5
families living together in a very large house or several smaller houses, and splitting the cost. Everyone would keep regular jobs, and just do
farming/survival stuff in the evening when they get home, and on weekends (Or perhaps one family tends to the homestead as a full-time task.) Think if
you have $200,000+ of annual income for the group (5 people earning $40,000 per year), plus you are growing the majority of your own food, even
potentially living off the grid. If you're doing subsistence farming, not growing a crop to sell to someone else, you could probably get away with 50
acres or less for 5 families and it would last you the year, fresh and canning for winter as well.
If nothing else, the land will probably appreciate in value quite considerably and make a good investment for everyone involved. If I can't find
anyone interested by the time I'm done college, I'm going to buy my own small farm anyway. It will be a steep learning curve being the
"city-slicker" urbanite that I am, but it will be worth it. I've already been growing my own vegetables and things, I've even considered raising
chickens (the by-laws in my city actually allow you to keep up to 12 bantam chickens in your backyard), but my parents seem to disapprove of that one.
Worst-case scenario, you could buy the land on a mortgage and then rent it out to someone. You own the land, the lease payments pay off your mortgage
and interest, all is well.
[edit on 3/20/2008 by Yarcofin]