WEBVTT - Is it possible to get free land and free houses in the U.S.?

0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.840
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff from how Stuff Works dot com where

0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:15.800
<v Speaker 1>smart Happens. Hi, I'm Marshall Brain with today's question, how

0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:20.599
<v Speaker 1>can you get free or nearly free land and houses

0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.680
<v Speaker 1>in the United States? Today? You may recall from your

0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.720
<v Speaker 1>history class that it was once possible to get free

0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:31.040
<v Speaker 1>land in the United States pretty easily. It was called

0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:35.560
<v Speaker 1>the Homestead Act, and it was enacted in eighteen sixty two.

0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.640
<v Speaker 1>The state of Alaska has an article on the Homestead

0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:43.800
<v Speaker 1>Act and it describes it this way. In eighteen sixty two,

0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:49.239
<v Speaker 1>Congress past the revolutionary Homestead Act that sent thousands of

0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:53.400
<v Speaker 1>Americans West in pursuit of free land. Any man twenty

0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.280
<v Speaker 1>one years of age or over was eligible to stake

0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.000
<v Speaker 1>out a hundred and sixty acres of land for less

0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:03.680
<v Speaker 1>than twenty dollars after filing their intentions. Homesteaders were required

0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.240
<v Speaker 1>to live on the land, build a residence, and farm

0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:08.920
<v Speaker 1>at least ten percent of it within five years before

0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:12.440
<v Speaker 1>a legal patent for the land was issued. After Alaska

0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.919
<v Speaker 1>was purchased by the US, homesteaders began claiming land in Alaska.

0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:21.520
<v Speaker 1>Homesteaders ranged from dairy and agricultural farmers to miners and

0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:27.080
<v Speaker 1>wilderness pioneers living a subsistence lifestyle. Though homesteading in most

0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:29.720
<v Speaker 1>of the US began to rapidly diminish in the early

0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.960
<v Speaker 1>twentieth century, it remained a viable method of settling Alaska.

0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:38.160
<v Speaker 1>The Homestead Act was finally repealed in nineteen seventy six,

0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:42.279
<v Speaker 1>though Alaska was granted an extension until nineteen eighty six.

0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.160
<v Speaker 1>In its hundred fourteen active years, ten per cent of

0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.040
<v Speaker 1>US land was settled under the Act, including significant portions

0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.440
<v Speaker 1>of Alaska. If you think about it, this is a

0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:56.600
<v Speaker 1>pretty powerful idea. The thought that you could drop everything,

0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:59.480
<v Speaker 1>head west and get a free piece of land to

0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.559
<v Speaker 1>start your life over. That's pretty significant, and it brings

0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.920
<v Speaker 1>up the obvious question is there anything like that today?

0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:08.480
<v Speaker 1>Is there any way to get free land or free

0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:13.160
<v Speaker 1>housing in the United States in two thousand tennish The

0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:16.400
<v Speaker 1>answer is yes, although it's not a hundred and sixty acres,

0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:18.880
<v Speaker 1>it's a little bit smaller than that. But there are

0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.080
<v Speaker 1>a number of municipalities in the United States today that

0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.680
<v Speaker 1>are giving away free land in order to try to

0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.679
<v Speaker 1>encourage people to move into the area. For example, there's

0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.040
<v Speaker 1>a city called Beatrice that has the Homestead Act of

0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:34.040
<v Speaker 1>two thousand, ten and on their website they say the

0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.880
<v Speaker 1>city of Beatrice currently has three residential lots available. The

0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:40.720
<v Speaker 1>lots are approximately eighty three ft wide and a hundred

0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.640
<v Speaker 1>forty ft deep. The lots are located on the west

0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.239
<v Speaker 1>side of Beatrice, there within the city limits. The lots

0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.560
<v Speaker 1>all have access to a street, water, sewer, and electricity.

0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.280
<v Speaker 1>There are no buildings on the lots. If you fulfill

0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:55.600
<v Speaker 1>all the terms and conditions of the contract, you will

0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.320
<v Speaker 1>receive the land at no cost from the city. So

0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:01.320
<v Speaker 1>there you have it. Free land is available today in

0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.800
<v Speaker 1>the United States. But what if you're looking for something

0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.560
<v Speaker 1>a little more spacious, if you're willing to relax the

0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:11.240
<v Speaker 1>formal definition of the word free and go to something

0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:15.160
<v Speaker 1>like ten thousand or twenty thousand dollars. There's a remarkable

0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.080
<v Speaker 1>amount of stuff available in the United States today, and

0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.680
<v Speaker 1>most people, even if you're working minimum wage, you could live,

0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.720
<v Speaker 1>you know, with their parents, or sleep on their friends

0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.240
<v Speaker 1>couch for a year or two and scrape together ten

0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.760
<v Speaker 1>or twenty thousand dollars. So where can you find a

0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:34.880
<v Speaker 1>ten thousand or twenty thousand dollar house? The key is

0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:38.280
<v Speaker 1>to look in America's most distressed cities. Right now, one

0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:40.360
<v Speaker 1>of which would be Detroit. If you go to a

0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:44.080
<v Speaker 1>website like realtor dot com and plug in a few

0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.760
<v Speaker 1>input parameters for your search, you can actually find lots

0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:50.800
<v Speaker 1>of houses, like a thousand of them that are less

0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:53.840
<v Speaker 1>than twenty thousand dollars in Detroit today, and some of

0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:58.360
<v Speaker 1>them are pretty nice, surprisingly nice, and they're available because

0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:02.800
<v Speaker 1>Detroit's going through some really really hard times. The thing is,

0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:07.440
<v Speaker 1>Detroit isn't alone. Almost any city because there's so much

0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.760
<v Speaker 1>distress right now, has some real deals in real estate,

0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.080
<v Speaker 1>and if you get on a website and look at

0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.880
<v Speaker 1>real estate, you might be surprised at what kind of

0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.360
<v Speaker 1>houses you can find at really really low prices in

0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.120
<v Speaker 1>this market. And the exact same thing is true for land.

0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.599
<v Speaker 1>You can find land if you are willing to look

0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.000
<v Speaker 1>for it in the two hundred to five d and

0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.200
<v Speaker 1>acre range. Now it's not gonna be urban land, it's

0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.000
<v Speaker 1>going to be out in the middle of absolute nowhere.

0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.400
<v Speaker 1>But still, you know these think about the people who

0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:39.400
<v Speaker 1>homesteaded in eighteen sixty two. They were going out into

0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.600
<v Speaker 1>the middle of the middle of nowhere and settling their land.

0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.520
<v Speaker 1>So if you're willing to take that kind of adventure

0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.760
<v Speaker 1>and willing to spend just a little bit of money,

0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:53.400
<v Speaker 1>you can find lots of land today that's very, very

0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:57.880
<v Speaker 1>reasonably priced. So if you're looking for an adventure, or

0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.479
<v Speaker 1>if you're looking to relive the day days of the

0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.520
<v Speaker 1>Homestead Act in eighteen sixty two, or if you just

0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.520
<v Speaker 1>want to start over in life, get on the web

0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.280
<v Speaker 1>and look at some of the amazing deals that are

0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.320
<v Speaker 1>available today, either in the free realm or in the

0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.600
<v Speaker 1>very very low price realm. You might be surprised by

0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:20.279
<v Speaker 1>what you find. For more on this and thousands of

0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:22.880
<v Speaker 1>other topics, does that how stuff works dot com and

0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:24.880
<v Speaker 1>don't forget to check out the brain stuff blog on

0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.080
<v Speaker 1>the how stuff works dot com home page. You can

0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.160
<v Speaker 1>also follow brain Stuff on Facebook or Twitter at brain

0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:34.600
<v Speaker 1>stuff hs W. The house Stuff works dot Com iPhone

0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.359
<v Speaker 1>app is coming soon. Get access to our content in

0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.760
<v Speaker 1>a new way, articles, videos, and more all on the go.

0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.400
<v Speaker 1>Check out the latest podcast and blog post and see

0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.200
<v Speaker 1>what we're saying on Facebook and Twitter. Coming soon to

0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:47.920
<v Speaker 1>iTunes