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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff from how Stuff Works dot com where

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Speaker 1: smart Happens. Hi, I'm Marshall Brain with today's question, how

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Speaker 1: can you get free or nearly free land and houses

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Speaker 1: in the United States? Today? You may recall from your

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Speaker 1: history class that it was once possible to get free

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Speaker 1: land in the United States pretty easily. It was called

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Speaker 1: the Homestead Act, and it was enacted in eighteen sixty two.

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Speaker 1: The state of Alaska has an article on the Homestead

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Speaker 1: Act and it describes it this way. In eighteen sixty two,

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Speaker 1: Congress past the revolutionary Homestead Act that sent thousands of

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Speaker 1: Americans West in pursuit of free land. Any man twenty

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Speaker 1: one years of age or over was eligible to stake

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Speaker 1: out a hundred and sixty acres of land for less

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Speaker 1: than twenty dollars after filing their intentions. Homesteaders were required

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Speaker 1: to live on the land, build a residence, and farm

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Speaker 1: at least ten percent of it within five years before

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Speaker 1: a legal patent for the land was issued. After Alaska

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Speaker 1: was purchased by the US, homesteaders began claiming land in Alaska.

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Speaker 1: Homesteaders ranged from dairy and agricultural farmers to miners and

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Speaker 1: wilderness pioneers living a subsistence lifestyle. Though homesteading in most

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Speaker 1: of the US began to rapidly diminish in the early

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Speaker 1: twentieth century, it remained a viable method of settling Alaska.

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Speaker 1: The Homestead Act was finally repealed in nineteen seventy six,

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Speaker 1: though Alaska was granted an extension until nineteen eighty six.

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Speaker 1: In its hundred fourteen active years, ten per cent of

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Speaker 1: US land was settled under the Act, including significant portions

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Speaker 1: of Alaska. If you think about it, this is a

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Speaker 1: pretty powerful idea. The thought that you could drop everything,

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Speaker 1: head west and get a free piece of land to

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Speaker 1: start your life over. That's pretty significant, and it brings

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Speaker 1: up the obvious question is there anything like that today?

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Speaker 1: Is there any way to get free land or free

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Speaker 1: housing in the United States in two thousand tennish The

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Speaker 1: answer is yes, although it's not a hundred and sixty acres,

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Speaker 1: it's a little bit smaller than that. But there are

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Speaker 1: a number of municipalities in the United States today that

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Speaker 1: are giving away free land in order to try to

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Speaker 1: encourage people to move into the area. For example, there's

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Speaker 1: a city called Beatrice that has the Homestead Act of

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Speaker 1: two thousand, ten and on their website they say the

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Speaker 1: city of Beatrice currently has three residential lots available. The

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Speaker 1: lots are approximately eighty three ft wide and a hundred

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Speaker 1: forty ft deep. The lots are located on the west

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Speaker 1: side of Beatrice, there within the city limits. The lots

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Speaker 1: all have access to a street, water, sewer, and electricity.

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Speaker 1: There are no buildings on the lots. If you fulfill

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Speaker 1: all the terms and conditions of the contract, you will

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Speaker 1: receive the land at no cost from the city. So

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Speaker 1: there you have it. Free land is available today in

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Speaker 1: the United States. But what if you're looking for something

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Speaker 1: a little more spacious, if you're willing to relax the

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Speaker 1: formal definition of the word free and go to something

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Speaker 1: like ten thousand or twenty thousand dollars. There's a remarkable

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Speaker 1: amount of stuff available in the United States today, and

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Speaker 1: most people, even if you're working minimum wage, you could live,

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Speaker 1: you know, with their parents, or sleep on their friends

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Speaker 1: couch for a year or two and scrape together ten

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Speaker 1: or twenty thousand dollars. So where can you find a

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Speaker 1: ten thousand or twenty thousand dollar house? The key is

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Speaker 1: to look in America's most distressed cities. Right now, one

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Speaker 1: of which would be Detroit. If you go to a

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Speaker 1: website like realtor dot com and plug in a few

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Speaker 1: input parameters for your search, you can actually find lots

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Speaker 1: of houses, like a thousand of them that are less

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Speaker 1: than twenty thousand dollars in Detroit today, and some of

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Speaker 1: them are pretty nice, surprisingly nice, and they're available because

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Speaker 1: Detroit's going through some really really hard times. The thing is,

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Speaker 1: Detroit isn't alone. Almost any city because there's so much

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Speaker 1: distress right now, has some real deals in real estate,

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Speaker 1: and if you get on a website and look at

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Speaker 1: real estate, you might be surprised at what kind of

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Speaker 1: houses you can find at really really low prices in

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Speaker 1: this market. And the exact same thing is true for land.

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Speaker 1: You can find land if you are willing to look

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Speaker 1: for it in the two hundred to five d and

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Speaker 1: acre range. Now it's not gonna be urban land, it's

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Speaker 1: going to be out in the middle of absolute nowhere.

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Speaker 1: But still, you know these think about the people who

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Speaker 1: homesteaded in eighteen sixty two. They were going out into

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Speaker 1: the middle of the middle of nowhere and settling their land.

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Speaker 1: So if you're willing to take that kind of adventure

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Speaker 1: and willing to spend just a little bit of money,

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Speaker 1: you can find lots of land today that's very, very

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Speaker 1: reasonably priced. So if you're looking for an adventure, or

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Speaker 1: if you're looking to relive the day days of the

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Speaker 1: Homestead Act in eighteen sixty two, or if you just

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Speaker 1: want to start over in life, get on the web

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Speaker 1: and look at some of the amazing deals that are

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Speaker 1: available today, either in the free realm or in the

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Speaker 1: very very low price realm. You might be surprised by

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Speaker 1: what you find. For more on this and thousands of

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Speaker 1: other topics, does that how stuff works dot com and

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Speaker 1: don't forget to check out the brain stuff blog on

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