# Buying cheap land in Ontario



## Darisha

We've found some inexpensive land not far away from "cottage country". It's such a good deal, and not far from relatives who know the area and specific plot of land well, so we are considering purchasing it. The taxes are so cheap it's almost a moot point.

The only problem is it's boat access only. It's a bit of a gamble but a main road is less than 5 km's away, and we plan to buy and hold this property for at least 20 years then either build or sell.

We also plan to plant hardwood trees on it that should be harvestable in 20 years or a bit more. This will help with our investment I'm sure.

Has anyone else here done anything similar? Buy cheap (ie 10,000$ or less) property and hold onto it?


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## Cal

You get what you pay for. Taxes are higher if the property has road access, same for price.

If you don't mind the boat access, and enjoy camping, then enjoy. It could be a great escape.

By harvestable hardwood trees, I assume you mean that they would be logged for hardwood....how would you get the wood out in a boat?


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## peterk

Hardwood lumber in 20 years? I'm no lumberjack... but I got a 30 year old maple in my front yard that is only about 10" diameter. I would think it would need 40+ years for lumber size...

What do you mean by it's a bit of a gamble? A gamble that they may/may not put a new road in?


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## Four Pillars

My mother-in-law had a property that wasn't quite that cheap. She paid property taxes on it for 10-15 years and then sold it at a loss.

There's no such thing as a good deal.


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## Sherlock

Guys do you think wood lots are a good investment?

For example I see 160 acres with road access 40 km north of Timmins for $29,000.

I have no idea what hardwood is worth but a quick google search suggested it might be $2000/acre (seems kinda low?). So that 160 acres could yield $320,000 worth of wood in 30 years?

Anyone knowledgeable about this topic?


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## ddkay

Are you guys starting the next Sino-Forest, but this one actually sells lumber?


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## OhGreatGuru

Darisha said:


> ...
> 
> We also plan to plant hardwood trees on it that should be harvestable in 20 years or a bit more. ...


What have you been smoking?


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## marina628

Image the raw sewage around making these trees grow super fast lol.My parents have 33 acres(part of 330 acre family owned land) and I am 45 years old.My Dad planted some trees about 26 years ago and definitely nowhere near cutting size .My grandfather also operated a saw mill that closed in 1960 ,these trees that have been left to grow the last 50 or so years are making great firewood but my Dad , Uncles and Cousins only harvest the sick and dying trees and do not allow any commercial cutting there.There is a big river going through the property so years ago they used booms like you may recall seeing on the old beachcomber series 
With no Road access not sure what the cost would be to even harvest the trees even if they grew at super rates .


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## humble_pie

marina there is a fabulous book/article/story to be created about this.

does your family still have any photographs that date back to your grandfather's era ?

and what do they do, what did they do, with the logs whether whole as today or cut to lengths in the ancient sawmill. Do they float them downriver in booms ? where to, the ocean ? and once in the sea, do tugboats chug in once a year to tow the booms to some larger commercial port down the coast ?

and what about the work camps your grandfather must have maintained out there in the bush. Like, who did the cooking. And if there was no road in, how did they get the food in.

sigh. These are always fabulous canadian frontier stories.


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## andrewf

There is still demand for waterfront even if it is only accessible by boat. After all, there are many cottages on islands that are of course only accessible by boat. You should look into the planning permissions and see whether the property would be developable at some point down the road.


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## donald

Something to keep in mind if you plan to build.It will cost a extra arm and a leg if you can only get to it by water,couple majors are-transportation of lumber,extra cost for all trades man,your going to have to hook up power(how remote are we talking?)are'nt you going to have to "clear" the site first of underbrush and rubble?spectic?I'm guessing if your planning this your in the 7 figure plus camp already because it takes deep pockets to even start scratching the surface of a plan like this imo....You have to be joking about the "tree fram" lol.....Trees aside,you know how much capital you need for the proper equipment...your out of your mind.lol


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## marina628

Humble_Pie I am sure there are many photos with my parents or other relatives.They did maintain camps and my grandfather use to say they played many games of cards during the winter months.The logs would come down the river and the saw mill was set up at the mouth of the river .I know they had many trucks and would move it by road but not sure if they also used the ocean(which is also in our backyard back home lol) .They would use horses to take supplies into the camp , my grandfather had a few of them as well.My father and Uncle preserved one of the camps and it is still used from time to time.When you see the size of it you cannot imagine 20-30 men sleeping around in man made bunks but they did .I guess it would have been built about 1920 by my great grandfather as my grandfather was born in 1911.You asked some great questions and made me realise I should ask my father about these times while he is still around to share. 
The reason the sawmill closed was because of a very huge fire back then ,that was when my grandfather and many other men like him found a new career fishing .


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## humble_pie

marina thanks so much, the story is fabulous just as i thought. I see now how the setup worked. Sawmill at the mouth of the river. Logging carried out at camps in the interior & logs floated downstream like a giant sluiceway.

supplies hauled in to the camps by horse. I guess the tiny size of the bunkhouses meant easier to heat in the cold winters. Not to speak of faster & easier to build.

the fact that the operation has survived in any form at all is priceless. A summer project for one of your children: get a grant for historical preservation, work with your dad & uncles, & begin preparing the book or the website or both. Even a startup project will earn top marks for a student at school.


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## Darisha

I'm glad I asked here. Hardwood is not harvestable in 20 (or near that) years, so good tips thank you. We are looking at odd lots as we only have a small amount to spend but do want to buy something. There is a small water front lot that is only $15K but is zoned too small to put in a septic, so I'm not sure if it's worth a gamble or not. Waterfront sure would be nice, no matter it being a small lot. We had the chance to buy a 48 acre lot surrounded by crown land for $55K, with a rustic (and by rustic I mean rough) hunting cabin but it sold before we could even consider if it was what we wanted. There are numerous lots for around $30K that have streams or ponds within their boundaries, or border on a small lake.


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## Berubeland

You won't be growing hardwood north of Timmins. Spruce, pine, jack pine. Poplar.

FYI...did you know that along the old logging waterways some of the logs sank and if you owned scuba gear you could go find some very nice logs, very well preserved. The water is deep and cold and so the lumber doesn't really rot like it does on land. Apparently those logs make the very best musical instruments. They also make very nice cottages, once you saw the logs up. 

For whatever reason those sunk logs belong to the company that logged them, so you really wouldn't want to drag them up from the deeps and saw them up to build your cottage because that would be illegal. You would feel bad about getting free wood that had been hanging out at the bottom of a lake to never be used by anyone.


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## Darisha

There are some interesting water-only access waterfront lots. And not that expensive either, and not that far from major cities (all relative). Bracebridge is an area I grew up 'cottaging' to every summer and there's land for sale about 20 mins outside Bracebridge accessible only via river which I am tempted to go see but I imagine we would have to hire a boat to get out to see it. 

The challenge with this property would be that if access was not near by when it came time for us to retire, we would have to have supplies brought in via boat which can get expensive. Hubby said he wouldn't mind buying a large boat though if it helps


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## scarletgirl

*To my mind, if you can afford enough land to support a family in southern Ontario, yo*

If you want something VERY isolated, like mountains and don't mind a sturdy winter I would recommend this area. It's the closest Ontario comes to mountains and the climate is among the mildest on Lake Superior—which is not saying much! The rivers here are mostly so short they don't reach the roads and railroads (over 50 miles away) and so, should be about as pollution free as possible today.

each:


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## OptsyEagle

Most of the issues with water access cottages have been listed. A few others to think about. Obviously a water access means you need a boat. The best for this setup is a pontoon, since it is really a barge with cup holders. All good so far. Now you need to not only park your car while you are at the cottage, but you also need to park your boat while you are not at your cottage. If you can't find someone to let you use their land (good luck with that) then you need to buy waterfront land to enable this. You will have no security on the island property. It shouts seclusion to everyone including every vandal and theif around. That also goes for the car you leave behind on the mainland while you are at the cottage.

When I go to my cottage, I have a regular ritual of loading up the SUV with all the stuff (and it will always be a lot of stuff) for each weekend and then I get to unload it at my cottage. If water access was involved, this annoying chore would be doubled to include loading it on the boat and then off the boat, on top of loading it in your car and out of your car.

No electricity, probably no septic and probably no potable water so plan on adding a few 20 litre jugs to that load of stuff you get to load and unload 4 times. Don't worry. A forty litre jug of water only weighs 44 lbs.

The next issue is water safety. Before I take my boat out on the water I like to be pretty sure that there are no catagory 5 hurricanes hitting shore at the time. If there is, I simply do not go out. If it is Sunday night or Monday morning and the weather is bad (wow, it was so beautiful on Friday when we got here) what are you going to do. Risk life and limb on the water or call in sick to work, again (or call in the work stranded if you prefer the honest route). Here the pontoon will come in handy, because they are almost unsinkable, but trust me, there are some bad weather days that you just do not want to be out in the open water, on.

Anyway, I could go on, but needless to say, an island cottage is usually just the mistake one makes before they buy the one they grow to really like. Of course there are exceptions to this, but there wouldn't be for me.


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## Four Pillars

Some great points Optsy. 

The fact is that most people who buy a water access property can't afford the other kind. I wouldn't call that a "mistake".

Also - nobody buys waterfront land in order to park their boat. This defeats the savings on their cheaper water-access cottage. You should be able to park at a nearby marina.


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## MoneyGal

My water-access cottage has a dock built and maintained by the cottagers' association. We don't have a barge, but you can rent a barge (for an absurdly low price) as required. We have electricity but no septic (although septic could be put in) and we have a landline phone. Cell reception is also very good at the lake - I just spent a week there and used my phone as a hotspot to work. 

The pluses? Only five cottages on the whole lake - so very very secluded, but less than five minutes' boat ride (at a very moderate speed) from the dock. 

In this park - http://www.ontarioparks.com/english/kawa.html - and no new cottages will be allowed, so there is a virtual guarantee on the peace and quiet available in this setting. 

Not unsurprisingly, I am now going to mention that this cottage is for sale. :02.47-tranquillity:


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## OptsyEagle

MoneyGal said:


> Not unsurprisingly, I am now going to mention that this cottage is for sale.


Must be quite the paradise. Would you buy another on an island ... if you found a similar priced one on the mainland?


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## MoneyGal

It depends. The reality is that I am not buying *this* cottage, because I don't want to own a cottage, so it is hard for me to make the comparison in my mind. 

The water access part adds a layer of solitude and seclusion which is the most appealing part of this cottage to me. And, because it is about 5 min from the mainland, it doesn't seem that inconvenient. 

One thing, though, is that I have never felt very comfortable going up there late on Friday night (for example). My next-door neighbour has a cottage near Buckhorn that he can drive into - so he can load up the car with his kid and drive until midnight, then transfer a sleeping kid into the cottage by hand. I can / could never do that - I would have to wake kids up to get them into lifejackets etc. and then drive the boat in the dark, which I don't love doing. 

It is a tradeoff. There are positive things about water-access cottages, but there are also drawbacks. The reality is though that for the price, I could rent different cottages whenever I wanted to with no ongoing ownership obligation. That is more appealing to me than maintaining this one property. I'm too interested in being mortgage-free!


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## OptsyEagle

I agree about the solitude. An islands solitude would be very nice at times. It's nice having neighbours nearby for security and other things. I find that a large group of people like cottaging for the solitude (which I am one of) and others think that cottaging is where you go so that you can party until the cows come home (sometimes I get into that as well).

Those darn tradeoffs.


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## kcowan

I remember being invited to my BFF's cottage on Tobins Island across from Windermere. It was raining late Friday night when we arrived. He had come to the mainland to pick us up. The four of us lugged in the backpacks and supplies for the weekend. When we got to the island, everything was soaked and it took until mid-afternoon to get things dried out. Saturday night was fun but they were always worried about the kids going off island in the dark in their boats every night.

Although they loved the island lifestyle. I think it only applies to a small segment of the population. It was always cheaper than mainland living. But when they retired, they bought a house in Bracebridge to make their island paradise practical (after selling their home in Unionville). That experience convinced me that it was not worth it. (Although many other instances were very enjoyable.)


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## Addy

We're considering a similar land purchase, not waterfront though. Something up to a max of $40K, min 5 acres and within a 2 hour drive of our house. We would place our trailer (travel trailer) on it over the summer, build a compostable toilet and a solar shower of some sort. It would involve bringing in our drinking water, propane for heat, cooking and running the fridge but I think it would be lovely to have a nice get a away when we want. Currently we pay $1000 a year for a seasonal trailer pad so putting down a max of $40K, possibly as low as $15K for something we can put our trailer on and have some fun with the land (ie building a bunkie, playing with solar power since hubby is an electrician, etc) while we're using it.

The area we're looking at I"ve been watching for a while and over the years the prices have increased and there's a lack of large acreages that there once was. There are still deals to be had but you have to be actively looking all the time to find them when they come available. It may some day become a retirement property for us, we will have a house built, at least until we're ready for a retirement home.


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## sags

I was thinking of buying some cheap land to plunk down a travel trailer..........but then thought I should just use Crown land for free. It is abundant, free to use, and is located on both waterfront and in the forest.

The land directly ajoining the marina trailer park...........that we paid 1500 a year to park our trailer, was Crown land and people sometimes camped there...........enjoying the same lake and woods as we did for free.

Sometimes they had a simple tent............and other times they had a full size RV with a generator and all the amenities. Occasionally they even spent a couple of days entirely on their boat.

Often they had a boat to launch free at the government dock, and sometimes some ATVs to ride the trails.

If a person has the right set up............I imagine they could travel non stop staying free on government lands.


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