I plan on buying between 5-12 acres and building a house on it in about 5 years. I want to be somewhat close to work, at the most a 25 minute drive. Land isn't cheap close to the city, and there are some really nice suburb bucks out there, but then you have to deal with all the close neighbors. I would like a small pond that I could fish out of and about 3 - 1/2 acre food plots that I could manage. I figure if you buy some land with the back portion in a flood plain, you are guaranteed one thing. No one will ever build there, so there should always be wildlife around. Any other tips or ideas that you guys would consider before buying land.

You never mentioned any type of woodlands, I would personally want something a little out of the way the less traffic the more I would like it. Our farm is slightly under 400 acres with fields,pastures,a creek,a pond, and some woods but it can be driven by on all 4 sides but we have a low traffic volume and we are 12 miles out of town.

i would consider buying your hunting/fishing property seperate from your homeland, this way you could get further from the city while still being close enough to your home for convenient get aways, plus further away from highly populated areas means cheaper land, cheaper taxes, more for your money.