LandBook: The small landowner's guide to buying, improving, maintaning and selling rural land

by Neil Shelton

Written for the small, private landowner, LandBook covers a multitude of the specific needs and concerns of land ownership including: -The mechanics of buying and selling land -Tax sales -Road-building and maintenance -Measuring land and estimating acreage -Legal descriptions and the PLSS -Well drilling -Land clearing -Pond building -Deeds, covenants, and easements - Reducing interest costs - Rural fencing - Foreclosure -Prescribed burning -Re-establishing native forest and prairie

Genres: Nonfiction

152 pages, Paperback

Published November 24, 2014

Reviews

[Connie Ferrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

really enjoyed this book which is like a popourii I of interesting facts and suggestions about land ownership

It gave me a good inexpensive way to more or less permanently fix our rutted driveway and introduced me to realities of buying land. Humorously, well-written it's is a charmer to read and good to have nearby as a resource.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good, quick read. Gets right to the point with no mindless filler.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

It isn’t often I laugh out loud reading a book on land financing and surveying, but here we are. Very useful book, but had to dock one star because I wish it contained just a bit more detail in the early chapters on selecting the land you should buy. As a total beginner, I’m looking for more information like how many acres and what types of features are optimal for different uses (firewood, livestock, etc), ways to potentially make income from land... Overall though, a helpful and surprisingly entertaining book!

[Ryan MacInnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for those who know nothing about buying land. A few of the tips and tricks feels really outdated but what do I know, maybe a lot of land work is outdated.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped my husband and I understand the basics of rural land purchasing, including what questions to ask when considering land. We knew absolutely nothing about this topic, but thanks to this book, we feel like we have some solid working knowledge. It's written by someone who was part of the 1970s back-to-the-land movement, and who has experience buying and living on rural land, and experience in real estate. (Also, it's funny!)

[Barbara Bamberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Of all the things on Earth that money can buy, none of them quite compare to the earth itself, that is, to land.” This simple but profound statement opens the new, updated edition of LandBook, by Neil Shelton. Shelton knows land. Besides being a real estate expert who has practiced everything he preaches as a back-to-the-land proponent living somewhere “deep inside the Ozark forest,” he created the websites OzarkLand.com, the first online land sales outlet, and Homestead.org, featuring weekly articles for those who live, or would like to live, the homesteading dream. This latest, larger and more extensive edition of Landbook includes three new chapters with big color photos. There are more maps and diagrams and instructions for understanding them. After helping you through the land purchase -- stuff like auction sales, quit-claims, interest rates, deeds and registrations that make up this sometimes daunting process -- LandBook moves on to the next stage: the things you need to do to the land once you get it, including clearing and road building, with detailed illustrations to help you understand the actual work involved. House placement, well digging, fencing, and pond building all are covered, examining the where (on a hill, through the woods, along the property line), the why (where will the water collect, how much forest or garden do you want) and the what/how of these crucial decisions, with before, during and after pictures. Shelton’s wisdom can help you protect your land from fire and flood as well as from the taxman and the banker; he offers stats on owner financing that may surprise you. It’s important to note that this is not a book about flipping – it’s about getting the acreage of your dreams, a place to live on and care for. Still, Shelton is knowledgeable about strategies for selling your land and moving on with minimum hassle, if that becomes necessary. Appendices cover typical corner markings for your survey adventures, samples of various kinds of documents, and a glossary of legal and land-related terminology.