Buy Land Together in BC

Still Searching....

2009-01-03T15:01:00.000-08:00

Its been a long time since we updated our blog and a lot has happened in our lives! We had an amazing trip through BC in the summer- we saw many great places, met some amazing people and learned A LOT about looking for land- which questions to ask, why what appears to be a "good deal" may actually not, and specifically what we need on a piece of land to meet our lifestyle needs....

We spent the fall of 2008 in Israel, traveling and catching up with friends and family there. We refined our vision in some ways, and expanded it in others. We are now back in Canada, on a gulf island off the coast of Vancouver Island, wintering in a good community with good friends. We're still keeping our eyes and ears open for a good piece of land and good people to share it with and we feel fortunate that the price of real estate is becoming more affordable as the months pass...we figure we have at least another year of good prices before the market starts to change...

Our main focus for locations is on Vancouver Island, from Comox Valley to Cowichan Valley, as well as the Kootenays, primarily areas surrounding Nelson. We still want at least 3 acres for ourselves, more if we are land sharing.

If this is your first time visiting our blog, please read through the previous posts, and don't hesitate to contact us for more information. If you leave a comment and would like a response, please include contact details!

Thank you,

Sarah and Guy

Across BC in June

2008-04-06T16:58:00.000-07:00

We are planning our trip across the southern part of BC for this June. We'll be traveling by Van with our little daughter. We are most interested in looking at land in the Kootenays and we are also hoping to meet up with other land seekers and like minded people out that way! If you have space for our van in your drive way, or a tent in your yard or a spare bed in your home and are able to have us, we would be grateful! We look forward to meeting you!

Warmly,

Sarah, Guy and Aia

Updates...

2008-03-16T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hello fellow seekers of land!

We've had a fair amount of interest generated from our call out for co-buyers for land. We are in the process of creating a mailing group to ease the communications and keep everyone easily updated and in touch. Our near future plans include a trip through Vancouver Island and out to the Kootenays throughout the month of May. Are you on our way? Would you like to get together, do you have land in mind that we should stop to see? Do you have a place for us to pitch a tent for a night or two? We will post more info about our trip plans/dates soon.

A few questions that seem to come up for most everyone in this process revolve around the basic practicalities- time frame, finances, personal land size requirements, lifestyle intentions. If you are writing to us, please share some information about yourself, including answers to the above questions.

Some things that we would like to clarify:

We are most interested in buying a piece of land with another party to whom the land would also be new, rather than buying into an existing land title, although with the right situation/people this is something we would consider.

We are inclined towards building our own home. Personally, we are seeking land without an existing home, however if other interested parties would prefer a built home and have the finances for that portion of the purchase, thats fine with us.

We are hoping to buy land sooner than later. This summer would be ideal. We could wait longer, but we're ready now. We're really interested in finding people with a similar timeframe.

We are currently located on Protection Island, in the harbour of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. We would love to get together with anyone who would like to talk more in person.

We welcome all enquiries, thoughts and suggestions, as well as guests! Please email us at girokincanada [at] gmail.com

More updates soon!

2008-02-28T16:02:00.000-08:00

We will be adding more information, links and useful information soon, so please keep checking back! Also we would love for people selling land that might suit our needs to let us know and we can post it here (for sale by owner only). Others looking for a land purchase share can also email us and we'll post their info here to help connect people with similar visions!

A bit of info on who we are and what we're after....

2008-02-28T09:02:00.001-08:00

General

As all of you who are also interested in having a few acres of land have surely noticed, the real estate prices in BC have gone through the roof and, for many, are simply unaffordable. What can be done? As in the case of many other things, the more you buy the less you pay per item. So our basic idea if that, lets say 30 acres of beautiful land is for sale for $345,000 and we can find 3 interested parties and work out personal and legal issues (See the legal information below) suddenly you can get 10 acres of beautiful land for $115,000 each!

This is not a communal innitiative- the main, and perhaps the only common objective is to be able to afford the land. Having said that, we are social and community orientated people and we are open and interested in some form of communal interaction over time and by consent, whether it is an occasional potluck or the building of a communal workshop....

Legal Information

There are a few different ways to legaly fomalize this ideal:

Subdividing the land: a standard procedure that takes some time and money, but would yeild completely separeated land titles for all purposes. The catch here is that you need to own the land in order to subdivide it. This can be overcome by buying the land as tenents in common and signing a private legal agreement that proclaims the intent to subdivide the land within a set period of time. Another option might be to have a legal agreement with the sellers of the land that allows us to do the subdivision prior to buying the land from them (with the buying parties paying for it).

Tenents in Common: a standard way of owning property together. Percentage of ownership can be defined, shares can be resold and transfered. The downside to this is mortgage issues as all parties involved must sign off on any mortgage to buy a share of the land.

Location

We are interested in land preferably on Vancouver Island, specifically the Comox Valley. Having said that, we are open to may locations, such as Gulf Islands, the Okanagan, the Kootenys or anywhere else that would meet our needs.

Timeframe

We are somewhat flexible with our time frame. Our intention is to thoroughly explore this idea during the next six months. We feel mostly "ready" and are just looking for the right opportunity/people to help bring this together.

A Bit About Us

We are a young family of three: Guy, Sarah and our two year old daughter, Aia. We have been blessed to live and travel throughout the world for many years and we are now ready to create a home for ourselves. Our backgrounds are rich and diverse- Guy has a variety of experience and skills, from goat shepherding, cheese making, construction, carving and woodworking, teaching math, and most recently, stay-at-home father. Sarah has a background in childcare and is currently passionately immersed in her work as a birth and postpartum doula and a childbirth educator. She has experience building natural homes from cob, and some farming skills. And, she can cook a wicked curry for the potlucks! We both play music and speak a few languages. We raise our daughter at home and imagine that we will homeschool her. We look forward to having more children in the future.

Our vision is to have a minimum of 2-3 acres of land where we can build ourselves a small home, have a garden for our own use, raise some goats for milk, chickens for eggs and meat, and maybe a donkey or two, for fun. Basically homesteading. We live a low impact life, meaning we keep things pretty simple. We like to be creative, or to barter in order to meet our needs, and while we certainly have no problem with working for our living, we want that work to be as close to possible to our actual needs- so growing our food, to reduce the amount of work we need to do away from the home.

We are quite social people and enjoy the company of others. We would love to have like minded neighbors, although thats not essential to sharing the purchase of land.

Contact

We invite input and ideas of all kinds. If you have experiences of this sort, or knowledge that is related to buying land in this manor, we'd love to hear about it. Leave us a comment, or for in depth information, please contact us by email: girokincanada[at]gmail.com