21 February 2008 One Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

Most deals that seem to be too good to be true usually are. Kansas Free Land, however, is on the up and up. Basically, the deal is that certain towns in rural Kansas are offering up free land to anyone willing to come, build a house on the land and live on it.  The towns do get something for it, admittedly: they’re fighting declining population as people move away.

So far, thirteen towns seem to be offering up free land:

1. Osborne
2. Atwood
3. Mankato
4. Stockton
5. Plainville
6. Lincoln
7. Tescott
8. Ellsworth
9. Holyrood (Shares website with Ellsworth)
10. Kanopolis (Shares website with Ellsworth)
11. Wilson (Shares website with Ellsworth)
12. Marquette
13. Chetopa

For most of these towns, the offer is basically for free land. If you were to take them up on the offer, you’d be responsible for building a house and the associated costs, finding a job and all of those details for moving to a new place. The good thing is that the relative cost of living is very low, so if you can find a way to telecommute or otherwise earn the sort of salary necessary to live on either coast, you can build wealth relatively quickly.

The minds behind the free land scheme are relying on the same plan that the U.S. government used to get settlers into Kansas in the first place: the 1862 Homestead Act. In exchange for five years residency and development of 160 acres of unclaimed land outside the original thirteen colonies, settlers received title to their 160 acres. Interesting side note: homesteading continued in Alaska well into the 1970s.

I’ve done a little research and found free land available in Australia, and there seems to be some available land in Canada, as well, although I was unable to hunt down a government link.

I like this idea, admittedly, but to make it feasible for my boyfriend and I, there would have to be some way for my boyfriend to be able to turn his job into a telecommuting position, which may not be workable. My job is easy to pick up and move, as long as I have reliable high speed internet access (which most of these towns seem to have), but his is less mobile. It would also require some significant changes to our lifestyle, but most of the changes I’ve thought of seem pretty positive.

Would you be able to pack it all up and move to a very rural area — we’re talking not even on a major highway? Danny’s upcoming move to Texas is one thing, what with his easy access to the big city, but how much would a person have to change her life to move to the middle of Kansas?