>>1779824I'm shopping right now for something similar. I now understand why this doesn't work out for most people.
>buy 5 acres of land in a rural area that's 30min to 1 hour outside a (semi) urban centerSounds nice but the problem is that cleared, buildable land isn't cheap and I'm finding that it's not even available. Wooded land is available and cheap to purchase, but expensive to develop to the point where you can live there legally.
Most of the 4-10 acre properties I've looked at had some issue with sewage disposal. Dense woods had to be cleared for a leech field (stumps too), soil wasn't right, too close to a stream, soil was too clay, boundaries too close to the pond, bedrock too close to the surface, previous septic from torn-down house had to be dug up first etc.
Wells can cost thousands to tens of thousands, depending on where you live. Around here, sometimes it's 1500 feet of bedrock to the aquifer. Cisterns aren't always legal. If there's no electric close, that's expensive too, or it takes a big, expensive solar system to provide something first-world like air-conditioning.
Good luck to anyone who figures out how to do a Ted shack *legally*. I think I know now why nobody ever comes back with a happy story about how it worked out.
