You don’t have to live in the middle of an undesirable, unattractive nowhere to keep horses at home with good turnout.
I live 20 miles from popular, vacation destination, sugar white sand beaches. 5 miles from decent services including an equine hospital with surgical suite. Average commute distance to two larger cities with decent work opportunities. There are 5 other equestrian homesteads on my little section of road.
I’ve been reading these posts saying that you have to live in some some awful place no one else wants to live in in order to afford land to keep horses, while I’m looking at the lovely mountain view from my front deck, a few miles from a beautiful lake where people love to come on vacation, thinking “what the heck are these people talking about?”
And I could have posted the same thing @lenapesadie did when I lived in Florida, just a few years ago.
Right?!
Like I agree a farm in the middle of a major metro area or even deep in the suburbs of a major metro area is a long shot. But there are plenty of places where people can work, play and live well with horses that aren’t in some kind of desolate wasteland.
I’ll reiterate that you don’t have to be in a wasteland, just not near a city that is growing outward. But – those are generally places where there is high-paying work.
Pick your rural paradise and figure out how to support it.
Eh. I live in an area of rapid development. Between a growing city and a growing tourist destination and a traditional upscale suburban town that’s exploding. It’s all about what an individual wants and what can be afforded.
It’s also important to consider perspective. Someone coming from NYC might describe my area as very rural. Locals say I live in town. My idea of too expensive is someone else’s chump change
my son moved from NYC to a farm he bought in Penn. He paid less for the 65 acre farm then what he was paying in rent for his apartment and office in Manhattan in one year
then built a 10,000 office building still spent less than the rent he was paying for one year for his business
and was able to expand his business
Situations vary but certainly there can be financial advantages of moving to the country like what you describe for your son
If you aren’t tied to a physical workplace in a metro area, there are lots of advantages to being in a more rural area, which is why so many work from home techies have been migrating (including the barn friends I mentioned).
For the price of a one bedroom condo in the actual city, you can get a two bedroom condo in the suburbs or a nice house in a smaller more remote town or a 20 acre ranch well outside of a small town.
In my region the rural areas and small towns are stunningly beautiful and many have access to summer lakes and winter skiing or snowmobiling as well as great horse trails in forest service lands. They are also all great horse climates .
The draw back is just that the geography is major mountains intersected with river and lake valleys where the range lands are. So in winter the snow can shut off access. We regularly have days or even weeks when you can’t get out of the city into the interior because the freeways are snowed under, or less often closed for forest fires, or washed out by floods, or landslides. This means you couldn’t live outside the metro area if you needed to be in town regularly. I’ve thought all this through.
If you didn’t need to get into the city, you could hunker down in your rural home during a weather event (though for flood and fire you’d need to evacuate). I have a general idea where @NancyM must be located, and it really does sound like she’s got horse paradise on earth after slogging through the terrible wet on the coast for decades :).
I am one of those techies considering moving - I live in the SF Bay Area now and am about 80% decided that I’m going to buy rural-ish horse property in Northern Nevada in the next year. As long as I have internet I can work from anywhere, and I’ve always wanted to live in a more rural area. With just what I would save in income taxes every month, I could pay the mortgage on a $400-500k property in Nevada, not even counting what I would save in rent, horse boarding, hay (currently $38/bale here) etc. There is a HUGE financial benefit to moving, which is why almost everyone I know who works in tech here is at least seriously considering it, if they haven’t already left.
You’ve got that right @Scribbler. We don’t need to go on holiday. People from the city come here on holiday, then have to go home to the rat warren/swamp that we evacuated 15 years ago, only it’s worse than it was when we left! When highways are closed, or when there are forest fires, we just hang out here, like we always do. We don’t evacuate, none of the farmers on our road do. We all have irrigation systems, the epitome of fire suppression equipment. As long as we have power, we can irrigate. We rarely lose power here, one of the big power stations in the Province is just down the road, and it gets good fire protection - the government doesn’t want it to burn like they want the rest of the province to because they get paid for the electricity it sends to the USA. We have provisions. People who live here all feel the same when driving south to Vancouver. We get to Hope, and the tension ramps up. And stays until we are heading home north again. Just out of Hope, heading north, you know that big hill on highway 1 heading up the Fraser canyon? We get onto that hill, and heave a sigh of relief, and relax again. Home sweet home! No hay shortage on our farm, for our horses. We only sell our excess. Not much excess this year. The milky way shines bright at night. The snow in winter is squeaky and dry. The neighbours farm is still for sale!
please really check into just what you need to do to disengage from the California income taxes
I suspect since you would still be working for California company the state will want its pounds of flesh
For employees who move from California to a lower tax state like Nevada, Texas, or Florida, it’s important they follow residency rules and meet the legal standard for changing California residency status. If they don’t make the necessary changes to disentangle themselves from California contacts and manage those they keep (such as working for a California company remotely), they may find themselves in an unpleasant residency tax audit with a large tax liability at stake.
for decades I worked for California companies but never lived there, it was found I could commute to Chatsworth cheaper than the company moving my family there. I had to follow some pretty stringent rules to keep from being taxed by the state.
Yes, I am definitely doing my due diligence as you suggested on my other thread - thank you 
Always better to be safe than sorry, especially if I’m about to lock myself into the huge financial commitment of home ownership - I am looking into it on my own first and will confirm with our HR and my own accountant (and maybe even a lawyer, just to be super safe) before I make any moves. However, I do know at least 10 people who have relocated to other states and who work for tech companies that previously had or still have offices in CA. None of them are still paying CA taxes, though I’m not sure if their companies have virtual “offices” set up in those states.
Anyway, in the article you link, it appears to be mostly tied to where the work is actually performed:
But what if the employee is a nonresident who never sets foot in California to perform his services? Then the source rule works in the nonresident’s favor, even if the employer is California based. Remember, for employees, the income sourcing of wages is determined by where the employee’s work is actually performed, not the location of the employer. A nonresident programmer who monitors and upgrades satellite dish software for a Los Angeles-based media company, all while sitting comfortably in front of his computer in his Austin, Texas condo, doesn’t earn California-source income and doesn’t have to pay California income taxes, as long as the work is performed outside of California.
I do all of my work 100% on my computer, so as I understand it, my work wouldn’t be considered California-source income - I think (this is why I want to confirm with a lawyer, just in case). Of course also - tax laws change, and CA is getting more aggressive on collecting taxes as people leave, so I would make sure that whatever I buy, I could afford even if (ugh) I ended up having to pay CA taxes again, though at that point I would probably just change jobs if at all possible.
You are correct, remote workers working for a CA based company do not need to pay CA income tax as long as they are not working in CA. Make sure your employer is registered to remit payroll taxes in that state (SUI if state income tax is not applicable) before you move. IME most companies (especially in tech) who have remote workers have no qualms registering in other states, but I have seen some companies refuse to register in specific states and therefore allow remote work except in X, Y, Z states. While I am not an accountant I have extensive experience with payroll tax and business registration processes.
Thank you! Yeah, that’s what I figured and what my company has said too - for example, they would definitely not entertain registering in New York, where one of my coworkers was thinking of moving. Nevada shouldn’t be a problem, but I’m waiting to make my official ask until I get a new project I’m just starting off the ground - want to be in the strongest position possible when I make the ask!
The US is a big place and the required taxes to be paid covers a huge range( low to outrageous) depending on where in the US you live.
We have 200 acres on the farm here and our taxes are less than we paid in another state for a 16 acre farm. It depends on what state you live in and what county of that state as well. Definitely cheaper than boarding.
What everyone here said, plus: if you live somewhere that land is expensive, it’s likely that you’re getting paid more for work. I’m in CA where DH and I get paid more so we can afford a larger piece of land that is more expensive than, say, Oklahoma.
I work remotely and left the city to try and get into some acreage. Even though I work remotely, I still need to be able to fly out to meet my team several times a year. Having to fly out of a small regional airport is a bigger pita. Especially being west coast and often having to travel to the east coast, by the time you account for time zones and extra connections and layovers, it becomes onerous in a way it wasn’t when I had direct access to an international airport. Access to high speed internet and a regional airport actually does limit options for rural properties quite a bit. I don’t want to have to drive hours to get to the regional airport either.
Even in the rural area to which I’ve relocated, it’s not a given that a local property will have good internet.
Depending on your riding interests and goals, moving rural can really limit access to quality training. As well as other professionals like farriers and performance vets. Not to mention shows and clinics.
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