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Posted: 6/6/2024 3:33:00 PM EDT
[Last Edit: Brandi]
We are looking to buy some land within about an hour of Snellville. Use of land would primarily be target shooting, hunting and just hanging out in nature.
There seems to be a lot of "you don't want to buy in this area because...", so I'm curious if anyone who's familiar with this area of GA could recommend an area that theoretically would be a good place to buy? We don't really want to invest this much money into an area that's about to turn into a mini mall or is going to be populated with crackheads. The fact is, neither of us know anything about buying land and while we have a good real estate agent and we've learned all the gotchas to look out for like existing leases, flood zones, property surveys etc, and I want to make sure we've covered every base possible. Hence wanting to ensure our future little piece of the wild doesn't end up next door to a subdivision in five years. Any advice from those of you who've been there, done that? Especially if you know this area? |
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[Last Edit: kristen]
[#1]
You are going to have to go east or south. Everything else is already “Atlanta.” Walton county is the next domino to fall. Morgan and Newton counties have some open land but get ready to pay up. 10 acres across the street from me went for 24k/acre.
If you can get land next to tracts that are under Conservation Use Assessment Valuation (CUVA) there are time constraints that may hold off development. You will need more than “a few” acres to shoot safely. Have to determine where an errant bullet will land. Fortunately for me, I have 1.3 miles behind my range with no structures or roads. Also, 4 of my neighbors have dedicated shooting ranges on their property. |
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[Last Edit: Brandi]
[#2]
Much thanks!
Budget is $200k tentatively, depending on the property maybe a little more. We were hoping for at least 10 acres of wooded land. Personally I'd prefer more acreage but if we can find 10 tucked in between someone else's land that would work. I wasn't familiar with CUVA, thank you ![]() |
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[#3]
A little further than an hour…I would look in Baldwin county, it won’t turn ghetto any time soon
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[#4]
I retired and left Canton. Bought acreage in Baldwin county GA. Look in middle GA south of I20.
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[#5]
Much thanks. Is there an average cost per acre these days or does price vary wildly property to property?
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[#6]
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Stuff I learned from A-Team: 1)Always pity da fool 2)Carry wire cutters (you may need to defuse a bomb or start a car) 3)Never trust a crazy fool 4)Carry grenade launcher/machine guns in the van 5)Know how to weld 6)Love It When A Plan Comes Together
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[#7]
Look at the “q public” maps for the counties you’re looking at. You’ll have to drill down through county Gov, tax assessor, qpublic and so forth.
Walton County. Look at the east side of the county. https://qpublic.schneidercorp.com/Application.aspx?App=WaltonCountyGA&Layer=Parcels&PageType=Search |
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[#8]
Originally Posted By Jason280: Looks like there are a few of us in the area... View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Jason280: Originally Posted By Lightning8: I retired and left Canton. Bought acreage in Baldwin county GA. Look in middle GA south of I20. Looks like there are a few of us in the area... Hello neighbors. On the 212 side of the lake. |
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peach fuzz
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[#9]
You can likely contact the county you're looking at to find the "legal" required acerage to shoot. For example 15 years ago in Fayette it was 15 acres for shotgun under 00buck, 25 for rifle/pistol IIRC.
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[Last Edit: Brandi]
[#10]
The land we're looking at is advertised as good deer/hunting and the real estate says shooting is legal but we'll definitely check it out before making a decision. The county were looking at currently is Barrow. All the land I've seen so far in Walton/Baldwin is way over our budget. We're still looking at places though.
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[#11]
Jasper county also meets your criteria.
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[#12]
We found a place in Barrow county, it's 38 acres with a creek. We walked it today and it's definitely full of deer. Has 4 potential home sites if we decided to do that later. It's heavily wooded with a power line easement through it that creates a place to build a range. Now comes the hard part, negotiating and buying or walking away.
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[#13]
I bought 62 acres in Alabama in 2019 because Ga counties are so restrictive on shooting ranges. Make sure you research the zoning and any Blue laws about Sunday shooting. I looked at property in Sparta and discovered some weird no shooting on Sunday rule. I know the guys from MPA built a range out there and had issues in Hancock county. Haralson county in West ga has a rule about no dwelling within 2 miles and 20 degrees of the direction of fire. Do you research before signing an agreement
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[#14]
Originally Posted By Scottv: I bought 62 acres in Alabama in 2019 because Ga counties are so restrictive on shooting ranges. Make sure you research the zoning and any Blue laws about Sunday shooting. I looked at property in Sparta and discovered some weird no shooting on Sunday rule. I know the guys from MPA built a range out there and had issues in Hancock county. Haralson county in West ga has a rule about no dwelling within 2 miles and 20 degrees of the direction of fire. Do you research before signing an agreement View Quote Will do, thanks. |
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[#15]
Forsyth county, the good, the bad and the ugly? What's the consensus on this county? From what I read it's pretty conservative. I like that Lake Lanier is close and the scenery is nice. Of course the scenery in GA is nice everywhere. I've been here almost four years and I'm still amazed by all the trees.
What I'm not loving is all the land being cleared for development around Snellville. Seems like a new business, housing development or apartment complex pops up every month or so. Coming from a relatively tree poor area of OK, I hate seeing all this land clearing. The traffic gets worse every day. Ten years from now it'll be unrecognizable. |
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[#16]
Originally Posted By kristen: You are going to have to go east or south. Everything else is already “Atlanta.” Walton county is the next domino to fall. Morgan and Newton counties have some open land but get ready to pay up. 10 acres across the street from me went for 24k/acre. If you can get land next to tracts that are under Conservation Use Assessment Valuation (CUVA) there are time constraints that may hold off development. You will need more than “a few” acres to shoot safely. Have to determine where an errant bullet will land. Fortunately for me, I have 1.3 miles behind my range with no structures or roads. Also, 4 of my neighbors have dedicated shooting ranges on their property. View Quote We looked at one or two in Morgan county, I think there's two that we'll be going to look at. I'm less sure about the one we found in Barrow county just because so much of the acreage is flood plane. We're going tomorrow to tour it with the sellers agent. Our minimum acreage is 20 so everything we've looked at so far was 21 acres to 37 acres. Enough to allow a safe range for shooting. The plan is to buy the land we eventually want to put our final "retirement" house on. As close to a dream home as we can afford and eventually pass on the next generation. |
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[#17]
In GA, I think I20 east-west is the dividing line. Everything north of I20 is or will be "Atlanta". Atlanta will sprawl from Macon to TN line north and AL in west to SC in East. Happy we retired in middle GA.
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[Last Edit: Extorris]
[#18]
Originally Posted By Brandi: Forsyth county, the good, the bad and the ugly? What's the consensus on this county? From what I read it's pretty conservative. I like that Lake Lanier is close and the scenery is nice. Of course the scenery in GA is nice everywhere. I've been here almost four years and I'm still amazed by all the trees. What I'm not loving is all the land being cleared for development around Snellville. Seems like a new business, housing development or apartment complex pops up every month or so. Coming from a relatively tree poor area of OK, I hate seeing all this land clearing. The traffic gets worse every day. Ten years from now it'll be unrecognizable. View Quote They're doing the same thing in Forsyth. (and in Dawson County next door to the north) |
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Extorris, because he's a heartless cunt. The purity of his apathy is laboratory grade, and I sleep well knowing that he's out there somewhere,
not giving a shit about anyone or anything. |
[#19]
I’ve lived in Morgan Co for the past 29 years. Feel free to PM me with any specific questions. I’m on 65 acres in the northern part of the county.
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[#20]
Originally Posted By kristen: I’ve lived in Morgan Co for the past 29 years. Feel free to PM me with any specific questions. I’m on 65 acres in the northern part of the county. View Quote Thanks I'll probably hit you up. The Forsyth county property is a no go. Our next possibility was Shady Dale in Jasper county but it appears they want the potential buyer to pay for perc test and all the other due diligence stuff. Their seller says Jasper county is extremely difficult to build in because of reasons I guess. All we want is 20-30 acres of wooded property that's fit to build a single house on. It's frustrating for sure. |
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[#21]
This is probably one of those "it depends" or unanswerable questions but how long does it take to have a house built? 6 months? A year? More? Think fairly run of the mill 3 or 4 bedroom house.
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[#22]
Recently listed. 25.5 acres on Nolan Store Road in Morgan Co. $599,900. Front is hay field, back is woods. Sadly, that’s the going rate for land. Near Bostwick
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[#23]
Originally Posted By Brandi: This is probably one of those "it depends" or unanswerable questions but how long does it take to have a house built? 6 months? A year? More? Think fairly run of the mill 3 or 4 bedroom house. View Quote It depends. Custom floor plan or cookie cutter pre-designed? Custom builder or spec builder? A spec house can be 3-4 months or longer depending on material availability at start date, expect anywhere from 4-12 months for a custom home. |
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[#24]
Originally Posted By kristen: Recently listed. 25.5 acres on Nolan Store Road in Morgan Co. $599,900. Front is hay field, back is woods. Sadly, that’s the going rate for land. Near Bostwick View Quote Yeah, that's way out of our budget. We are in the $300k arena lol. So far it's all properties with creeks so there's a significant amount of the land in a flood zone. That's not really an issue as long as there's enough land to build a house on. We like the creeks and all the critters that come with them. Seems like a lot of counties (such as Jasper) are making rules to keep out developments but in the process they are making it almost impossible to buy a property and build a house. A 25 or 30 acre property is plenty to shoot safely on, hunt and live but they all seem to be surrounded by housing developments or are landlocked and require dealing with easements with people who don't want another house near them, even if it's on the far side of 30 acres. It's been a frustrating month. |
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[#25]
Originally Posted By southerncross: It depends. Custom floor plan or cookie cutter pre-designed? Custom builder or spec builder? A spec house can be 3-4 months or longer depending on material availability at start date, expect anywhere from 4-12 months for a custom home. View Quote Perfect, that's an answer that works for me. Thanks. |
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[#26]
Jasper has Pickens County Sportsman's Club.
You can probably ask the club president questions; he would know about issues with ranges in the county. |
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[#27]
Originally Posted By last_crusader: Jasper has Pickens County Sportsman's Club. You can probably ask the club president questions; he would know about issues with ranges in the county. View Quote Unfortunately the Jasper county property we were looking at got KO'd because they changed the laws to say you have to have a much bigger frontage area than the property had in order to build on it. |
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[#28]
Originally Posted By Brandi: Unfortunately the Jasper county property we were looking at got KO'd because they changed the laws to say you have to have a much bigger frontage area than the property had in order to build on it. View Quote The Picken County Sportsman club is not in Jasper County. It is near the city of Jasper. they are about 100 miles apart. Now you see why I went to Alabama. NO rules Just right. The little old lady at the court house told me the only permit required in Randolph county was a septic permit. I have built a nice place to shoot long range. 900 yards at Rifle Ranch (google or Face book it) |
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[#29]
Originally Posted By Scottv: The Picken County Sportsman club is not in Jasper County. It is near the city of Jasper. they are about 100 miles apart. Now you see why I went to Alabama. NO rules Just right. The little old lady at the court house told me the only permit required in Randolph county was a septic permit. I have built a nice place to shoot long range. 900 yards at Rifle Ranch (google or Face book it) View Quote Ah, I should have paid more attention, sorry. So far that's a bit out of our current consideration circle but that's a nice range. If we end up expanding the circle I'll definitely talk to them. Thanks for the tip! The Rifle Ranch Range is sweet! |
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[#30]
Jasper county is not difficult to build in. We just built our house and an in-law house for my parents on the same property and the county was the least difficult to deal with in the whole process. We did 2 custom built homes on raw land and were moved in 8 months from start of site work. Perc test is a smart move before closing if you have any intention of building. Feel free to message me of you have any questions
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[#31]
Originally Posted By Frankie2shots: Jasper county is not difficult to build in. We just built our house and an in-law house for my parents on the same property and the county was the least difficult to deal with in the whole process. We did 2 custom built homes on raw land and were moved in 8 months from start of site work. Perc test is a smart move before closing if you have any intention of building. Feel free to message me of you have any questions View Quote The Jasper County property we were looking at 200 something feet of frontage which normally was ok but our agent was told that the county had just changed the minimum to 300 something as the minimum which eliminated the property as buildable for a home. That property wasn't going to make the cut anyway so it wasn't a big deal. I do like everything I've seen in Jasper county though. We are currently working on closing on a 38 acre property in Barrow county. The perc test was done on Monday I think. It passed with no problem although they said we will able to use a conventional septic system but it might require a shallow install. Not sure what that means yet. Build site they said was good for probably two homes depending on placement. Title is clear and we are still waiting for the full title search report. Should know if it's a done deal by Thursday or Friday. |
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