Also, many companies don’t allow the use of satellite internet for WFH, citing security concerns.
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Just my .02 -
At one time, our retirement plan was to move to a very rural part of Appalachia to my husband’s family farm, which he co-inherited with a brother.
The area is heartbreakingly beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. The AT runs through it, and more 2/3rds of land in the county is National Forest.
It ended up not happening, first of all, because the brothers couldn’t come to an agreement about splitting up and using the land. The farm ended up being sold, and DH and I ended up being okay with how it all worked out. First of all, poor or no internet or cable. Any kind of even basic shopping was 30 minutes away, thru a tunnel. Incredibly isolated. In our current life, we have a busy social life with terrific neighbors that is very important to us.
Horses there are Tennessee Walkers and ASBs, ridden in Western tack. No show hunters, no fox hunters, no dressage, no eventing, no show jumping. And the standard of care for horses (actually, all animals) was very different than mine.
Incredibly conservative and deeply religious. Lots of Pentecostal and Evangelical churches, and church is the foundation of most people’s social lives. I grew up as an Irish Catholic Yankee, and am a casual agnostic and liberal. I would not blend in. My education and intellectual bent would have made me an outlier too. A book group there is a Bible study.
No restaurants to speak of in the county, save a Subway and a Dairy Queen on the highway. Alcohol was limited to beer at gas stations and convenience stores. Many teetotalers for religious reasons. No running out to the store for a bottle of wine.
We came to realize that decent medical care was a long way away; and that any accident more than a simple laceration or broken bone involved a helicopter flight to another state.
The only pros were that heartbreakingly beautiful countryside, low cost of living and some of my husband’s family in the area.
BTW, we were in our 50s when we came to this realization, not our 20s.
I am very happy with our decision not to move there, and my DH has to come to believe it was for the best.
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^^^ what she said. 10,000 X over. There’s a lot of isolation if you don’t belong to a church. And if you don’t fit in with the whole other ‘belief’ system.
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Pass. It does not belong to you and putting time, sweat and tons of money into it with no guarantee of it ever being yours ( wills and family promises can change overnight) is not wise.
Take the job if it is what you want to do and get your own place , board, save money and see what the future brings when this family member passes and then proceed.
If you really want the land, talk to the current family owner and ask about buying it outright now. You might involve sister or just ask to buy a portion (not necessarily half, you may decide that five acres is plenty for your purposes) and let future inheritances (if any) fall where they may. Put your small, perhaps portable/removable housing unit and some basic horse facilities on it, and check it out, spending enough time on it to really know whether it’s something you want now, maybe later, as a retirement property, or whatever.
I don’t know whether inheritance taxes make a whole lot of difference here, but please check it out.
If there is an elderly relative living on/near the property, will you end up being their caregiver?
Would be nice to hear again from the OP.
I got the impression there was nothing at all on the property.
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Make sure you can get decent internet. I’m astonished at how many places in the US do not have at least cable internet. Broadband and satellite are unreliable, unfortunately if someone is trying to work from home. I’ve been WFH for about 6 years, and because of some weird labor laws, there are 7 states my company will not allow WFH from, and we have a connectivity compliance rule. I have to have at least 95% uptime, or receive warnings for that month. The 3rd warning is a dismissal… warnings fall off over 6 months. So, I would urge that you look into that prior to considering a move.
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This is a very important thing. This will sound like the most obvious thing to say, but the farm will always be in Appalachia. Remember that you will be going to the grocery store, to restaurants, trying to make friends, working, etc no matter where you live. If you think that Appalachia is not a good fit for you except for the farm, then it isn’t a good fit for you period, because the farm doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are farms elsewhere!
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You said what I was trying to say much more eloquently. Even the most independent farmer still needs help from the community. If you’re not a good fit for the community, it can be very difficult to have a farm and to get the resources to help you if they don’t like and trust you.
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We (bank employees) worked from home during Covid with confidential financial information. I had satellite and we all had VPN connections whether it was cable, phone hotspot or satellite. I don’t know why satellite would be less secure than the other two options with a VPN connection. It was hideously slow however and some large files I couldn’t pull up or save on satellite. So I would have to go in the office with my laptop to download some files. But no security concerns were mentioned and they were all about cyber security.
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And I will say that every time we had a thunderstorm or it rained my internet connection went down and stayed down for a while. And it always seemed to happen when I had a deadline and a short window to get the work done.
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I’m not an IT tech, I just know what my employers have told me.
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My husband is a government contractor and works from home. He absolutely can not use satellite internet for his job because of security concerns.
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