Some of the criteria I used for this short mental exercise.
With in 15 hours drive of home base here in Southern NH.
On or near a lake.
In the mountains.
Secluded with some acreage.
Gun turret... ( Just kinding, but I found one! )
Using this map tool I chose different areas and mapped the distance as the crow flies
https://www.calcmaps.com/map-distance/
Scrolling around different areas I landed in Morehead KY.
There I found this gem, It just sold in June.
My holy shit moment was the taxes. I had to pinch myself. I think we are in the $11,000.00 range here.
Check out this dream bunker for Irish.
LINK to ZILLOW with 70+ pictures.
Maybe it will be for sale in 7-8 years when I'm ready.
I didn't do much research for what Morehead KY is all about. I just like the idea of that little
compound on 1.5 acres. With two separate living quarters and, Oh yeah, a gun turret.
Oh to dream.
You will find many nice places in upstate NY. In the Adirondacks, the Catskills and Finger Lakes. You see the price, then the high property taxes. What you don't see is the ridiculous school taxes that are not on any listing site like realtor.com, zillow or trulia. I found a place 3 years ago on Lake Champlain that was 250 acres. About 500k. The double taxes were insane. You see big days on market for NY properties because people are tax trapped.
ReplyDeletedon't forget about the NY "SAFE" act ! No "high capacity" Mags for you !!! And all your AR-15s are belong to us !
DeleteI'm from KY and Morehead is a pretty nice place. It is not a big city, but they have everything a normal person would need. It is a college town, home to Morehead State University (read into that whatever you will). Also is located in between Lexington and Ashland, right on I-64.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Mt. Sterling; ~32 miles west on I-64. For the longest time we were the first (and only) wet city or county all the way back to Ashland. Pickup trucks from Morehead (and all places east) would come down to buy booze every Friday. Cave Run (just east of Morehead) has some great fishing; especially crappie in the Spring.
DeleteCorrection: Cave Run (just west of Morehead)....
DeleteBTW, that looks like an old fire spotting tower, which may have also doubled as a USCGS survey station.
ReplyDeleteVery nice. I'm looking around as well. Could you imagine the regulars here living within 40 miles of each other? If we all got along in person, it would be wild. If we didn't, there would be scorched earth for miles.... Funny thought for a Sunday AM.
ReplyDeleteIrish--
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking of moving to Laconia (I'm in NYC now);
Can you tell which neighborhoods are to be avoided, which are OK?
Looking for quiet upper middle class area, walkable, close to shopping.
Thanks.
Laconia?
DeleteWon't be at all quiet during Bike Week. That's for sure.
Leigh
Whitehall, NY
There's some nice areas up that way. I would have to do some research for the areas to avoid. The larger cities or border towns with MA for sure. Granted there are some good areas but I don't venture to Manchester or Concord
Deleteas a rule of thumb. Check out the eastern side of the lake up there. Like Wolfsboro. If you email, I will put up a post and get some feed back for you.
Submitting Building Plans to the City of Portland for something as awesome as this, will cost you a night or two in a gay bar, bent over a chair bondage-style. If you won't learn from that they'll demand a couple million in development fees, a few miles of bicycle paths, and then demand you surround your place with free and subsidized housing. Wearing a rainbow shirt and Che Guevera or Biden hat can get those demands cut in half.
ReplyDeleteWhich Portland are you talking about? That does not sound like Portland, TN
DeleteOregon, duh.
DeleteJust because it's not on the market (whenever) doesn't mean it isn't for sale.
ReplyDeleteSteve S6
I could live there if there were no people for 50 miles or MORE.
ReplyDeleteBear Claw
Is middle Tennessee very close to the Tennessee River which is also Kentucky Lake within your criteria?
ReplyDeleteThe Tennessee River is considered the boundary between west and middle Tennessee.
DeleteAnd is also the filthiest swill you ever saw gliding downhill.
DeleteAll these famous country music stars have their mansions on the river... with (literal) shit floating down so bad you don't go in the water. Stay away from Nashvegas.
It overlooks Cave Run Lake, noted for Muskie fishing. That area is in the Daniel Boone National Forest. I agree it looks like a fire spotting tower. Nice area if you like boating and natural settings.
ReplyDeleteWelcome Irish. NH may have the New England beauty, but it is sadly a BLUE haven. I was hoping for some change in 2022, but it sounds like it remained the same. Years ago, KY was more a blue state, but it was also the era of conservative Democrats. That phrase does not exist anymore. KY is now a solidly red state. Take a look at the 2016/2020 presidential election by county and you will see what I mean. Only two KY counties vote reliably blue, and those two counties contain Louisville and Lexington. Those are lost causes consisting of the single largest urban area in Louisville and "old money democrats" in Lexington. Get away from those urban population centers and the state has conservative values.
ReplyDeleteSame can be said for NewYorkistan, Bob. If you break elections down by county, we are a Red state. NYFC is what screws the rest of the state.
DeleteLeigh
Whitehall, NY
Amen to that! Manhattan and the Bronx routinely fuck the rest of the state. The shame of it is, NY has it all: great mountains, lakes, ocean, even some beautiful farm country...if we could only cure that cancer between Westchester and Nassau...
DeleteIt ain’t just NY. Does anyone really think AZ is blue?
DeleteFuckingMaricopa County has been taken over by corrupt Demtards. FMC is where the election results for AZ are stolen.
And thats why I left 8 years ago!!!
DeleteI agree with you guys about red counties. I enjoy (not really; it is masochism) looking at map of the entire country BY COUNTY after a presidential election. Simply amazing how much of the country is red but the urban pop centers make too many states blue for electoral college purposes. My point was despite our pop centers being blue like yours, we are lucky enough in KY to still vote RED house members and senators. True that we have a RHINO in Mitch McConnell (at least he kept Obama from getting the Supreme Court Justice), but we also have Rand Paul! in 2020, every statewide office was red except for GOV, and that was because the red incumbent picked a very public fight with the teachers union and also pissed off republicans and independents by condoning tolls on Interstate 75 two weeks before the election. It seemed like he didn't really want to serve again for 4 years, said everything possible to lose, and still only lost by 0.4%.
DeleteI'm in Communist Illinoisthan and will move the day I retire. Looking for KY,NC,SC,TN.
ReplyDeleteSeveral acres of wooded areas (to be able to pre-dig holes.....
Neighbors should be further away than a pistol shot, but can be closer than a rifle shot.
Moved to KY from Eastern PA and would never go back. I was told people in Kentucky and Tennessee are very polite up until you really pissed them off and then they just kill you. After 21 years I would say that is generally true.
ReplyDeleteWell, ya shouldn't have pissed them off then, eh?
DeleteAnother former resident, born 'n raised in the area. As others said, this is near Cave Run lake, a federal dam project so it's not over-commercialized or a party lake like others. And a lot of fishermen don't want the word out how good it is. This place is really in far end of the spectrum - there's a *lot* more trailers (parks), shacks, and dumps to offset it. But still, it's a nice town. If you check surrounding counties (Fleming, Carter, Elliot, etc.) you can find other v. good deals on properties. You may not get the amenities like water, internet, etc., but yeah, low property taxes make up for it. BTW, vehicles in KY are taxed for *license registration*. My mom just paid $192 for her 3 yr old Chevy impala tag.
ReplyDeleteYou folks moving south from those liberal hellholes.....leave the leftist shit behind. Don't take it south with you. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteIrish - TN has low property taxes, if you stay out of the big counties. We pay less than $1,500 a year for 5 acres, 60x40 steel building and a 3,600 sq ft home we built 20 years ago. Car tags are $100 a year, but sales tax is almost 10%, Eastern part of the state is quite beautiful in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains.
ReplyDeleteYessir Brother! EastTN here!
Delete15 acres on Watts Bar lake, 2000 sq ft new home (builders grade, no McMansion here, but all the same, stick built on site, vinyl siding), $1600/annual tax bill. My pickup is an '01, so was only 5 bucks to register this year, and I got one of the new plates.
Seriously Irish, if you're shopping, get in touch. I did the same thing 8 years ago from Rochester, ny. Should have done it years ago. Look from Chattanooga to Bristol, and all points in between. Stay well away from Sevierville (tourists).
Amen brothers! TN >KY any day.
DeleteSo you don't see the Free State Project folks improving things in NH? They seem to have made serious inroads in the legislature, but I do see that the state is still about 50/50 legislature-wise. Not everywhere in NH is as bad property tax wise, and its hard to believe that those figures include school taxes, which make up 75% of our tax bill here in GA. Interested in your thoughts as we found way more like-minded folks in NH (especially among the FSP group) than we did while looking around eastern Tenn. But we lean more libertarian than pro-war conservative. And then there is the heat/humidity.
ReplyDeleteMe and the Missus have been living the dream since we took the plunge 8 years ago. 43 acres, like minded neighbors, gardens, chickens, solar panels for power. Completely off-grid. 18 miles one way to check my mail at the nearest post office. If you can do it, do it. CL
ReplyDeletePS - forgot this. Property taxes around $1,200 a year UP here.
ReplyDeleteMorehead (Rowan County) is where that gay couple moved from SF some years back and raised a stink with the county clerk. She was wrong - but she was right. Never did hear if the queers moved back to SF. Good country, good people. If you treat them right. Hate to be on their bad side: Shoot, shovel, shut up country.
ReplyDeleteNice looking place and area, I would move there if I had the cash when I retire
ReplyDeleteWOW!!! What a summer home!!!
ReplyDeleteEast Tennessee is nice. Smarter Half and I moved down here 2 years ago from northern Virginia. Had to get away from Governor Blackface and the Dem. legislature.
ReplyDeleteAs my wife observes; "They're so nice down here, they wave with all 5 fingers."
Lots of lakes, rivers, and hunting areas. And if it has wheels and an engine, you'll find it in east Tennessee.
I'm on Watts Bar, brother, we should do lunch at Buds, LOL!
DeleteI live in upstate NewYorkistan. Taxes are high enough, but school taxes are just as bad. Could sell my house because of the market, but the price of homes has doubled around here because the the Covid bullshit. You know, let’s move away from the big city to Hicksville. The average retiree has been priced out of a nice home. Upstate is beautiful but wee are losing ground.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Missouri. We pay less than $500.00 for 66 acres, house, barn and machine shed. 2A plus, if the local police or sheriff assist the feds they are fined.
ReplyDeleteIf you look east of Moorehead, you might find property with a natural gas well on it. Fairly common on the larger properties. The owner years ago got the royalties, and those won't convey, but you should get free gas. It does get cold around there, so that's nice. You could also connect the gas to a "back up" generator.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I searched within a 2 hour radius so that we could weekend even on heavy traffic holidays. WV mountains, two hours and one hundred years away from our Northern Virginia townhouse. Every time I cross the WV line into Virginia I am reminded of the signs in Berlin: now leaving the American sector. Ten commandments on the wall in the school, pledge of allegiance to start the day.
ReplyDeleteWe were looking for 40 acres, fortunately we came across a few hundred that we could afford, giving us lots of privacy in the hilly terrain. My poor wife has put up with austere housing for years while we added and upgraded, but front loading the acreage was the right decision as we have a war chest that can build new and lots of places to position.
New construction is relatively cheep out in the sticks, and twenty plus years of storms and snows and drought and flood and power outages and vegetable gardens have really informed how I would like to build new when we finally sell the town house. My dream house will combine the shelter in place bunker to ride out the snow, power outages and hurricane winds that are inevitable anywhere.
This was a model for the bunker around my place:https://www.redfin.com/WV/BAKER/830-OLD-POPLAR-DR-26801/home/15905098
Though I would top it off with open plan, 360 degree views modelled after something you'd find on Lake Tahoe, maybe on the Incline Village NV real estate listings. Insanely expensive based on location, but I think the designs can be affordable. https://tahoe.com/real-estate/incline-village
An hour further south and you're in Tennessee. Zero state taxes, low cost of living, and up near the border with Ky there's lots of cheap land. It's also a shopping and medical desert with limited access. People are absolutely wonderful but you'll never be accepted, just tolerated. Philosophy tends toward the Marine's motto- be kind, be polite, have a plan to kill everyone. Huge climate variation from mountains to the valleys; be sure you know your level before you bite. Also helps to have iron genetics and a whipcord and shoeleather constitution 'cause you'll need it all as you get older...or you won't get older.
ReplyDeleteThat's a nice little slice of paradise ya found there, and it's only a stone's throw from one of my favorite ranges, too. You'll love it there. When it comes back on market, if you don't grab it, I probably will.
ReplyDelete-- Davis.P
The differences between rural Eastern KY, Eastern TN and most of WV is not that much if you take into account you are in Appalachian Mountain Country. Pick a smaller city that fits your requirements. Don't do Lexington or Louisville area of KY. Nashville, Knoxville or Chattanooga. Charleston, WV is ok but there are small cities are WAY better.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes rural areas in these states so good is the LACK of Diversity!!!!!!