Jordan Land & Rights Playbook

The four paths — two real, two dead ends

What that show blended together, sorted out straight.

Buy raw land with cash REAL — this is the one

Pay cash and the day it closes you hold it in fee simple absolute — no bank, no lien, no landlord. This is literally your $1.2M land plan. A mortgage is just a lien; paying it off (or paying cash) is "owning the land instead of renting it from the bank."

The one thing no structure on Earth removes: property tax. It survives even fully-paid land, everywhere. Anyone selling you an escape from it is selling a myth (see below).

Mining claims on federal land REAL, BUT NOT WHAT YOU THINK

You can still stake claims on BLM / Forest Service land across AZ, NM, CO, WY, NV, MT, UT and parts of the Midwest & TX. But a claim gives you the right to extract minerals only — not the land, not a title, not the right to build a house or live there.

You must prove a physical "discovery" of a valuable mineral deposit — you can't stake a claim just to get a homesite.
Annual maintenance fees keep it alive; stop paying and it reverts to the government.
The old path to convert a claim into owned land (patenting) has been under moratorium since the mid-1990s. Closed.

So "go up and get land on mineral rights" doesn't exist. To own the rights underneath, you buy fee-simple land where the minerals convey (next tab). A claim is a mining lease from Uncle Sam, not a deed.

"Allodial title" / re-record a land patent MYTH — stay out

The kits and videos claiming you can file a declaration and own land free of all tax and government claim are selling a fantasy. The only formal allodial program the US ever had was Nevada's — and it stopped taking applications in 2005 (and even that just prepaid a lifetime of taxes in a lump sum).

Courts treat land-patent / allodial tax-avoidance theories as frivolous. Acting on them can bring fines, court sanctions, even fraud charges. This is sovereign-citizen territory. Don't touch it.

Free land from towns REAL — but modest

The federal Homestead Act was repealed in 1976. What's left are town programs (Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Colorado, Texas and a few others) that give you a free residential lot if you build within 6–24 months, hit a size minimum (~1,000–1,400 sq ft), and live there a few years.

One lot per family, primary-residence, build-required — not a way to amass acreage.
You still owe property tax the year the deed records.
The lot is free; the build + utilities + permits are not (often $140K–$380K all-in).

Good for a cheap building lot in a small town. Wrong tool for "own as much as possible."

Cheap land — own as much as possible, legitimately

2026 benchmarks (USDA + listing data). State averages find the market; you buy a parcel, not an average.

Cheapest states, average $/acre

State	~$/acre	Where the deals hide
New Mexico	$725	Harding, Union, Luna, Hidalgo, Catron
Wyoming	$1,000	remote ranch counties
Nevada	$1,230	Esmeralda, Elko, Lincoln
Montana	$1,230	eastern plains
Colorado	$2,290	Costilla (San Luis Valley), Las Animas
North Dakota	$2,360	rural west
Oklahoma	$2,880	panhandle
South Dakota	$2,970	prairie counties
Arizona	$4,000	Mohave, Apache, Greenlee (rural)
US average ~$4,350–$4,500/acre for comparison.

Go remote and raw and it drops hard: NM $100–300/acre, WY $150–400, NV $150–500 for parcels with no road, water, or utilities. Bulk 200+ acre tracts run ~$625–$800/acre (NM Harding, NV Esmeralda, AZ Greenlee).

The acquisition playbook (most land, least money, legit)

Cash on remote raw land in the cheap counties (NM/WY/NV). Own it outright, taxes often $30–$100/yr. Best "as much as possible" lever.
Owner financing, no credit check (Costilla CO ~$127–$249/mo; widely available NM, AZ Mohave/Apache, NV Elko). Spreads capital across more parcels — but it's a lien until paid, so not "owned" yet.
Tax-deed auctions. Counties sell tax-delinquent land cheap and hand you the deed. Occasionally $10–$50/acre. Real research risk — access, liens, condition. Know if your target state is tax-deed (you get the property) or tax-lien (you get a lien that may just redeem for interest).
County surplus & occasional BLM land sales. Governments offload parcels at or below market; slow but legit.
Bulk tracts (200+ acres) for the lowest per-acre price when you want scale in the family name.
Verify before every buy: legal access (not landlocked), water, mineral conveyance, zoning, clean title. A $5K parcel needing $60K of utilities isn't a $5K deal.

Money angle: cheap raw land in appreciating rural markets (NM, WY, NV) held 5–10 yrs has produced real gains at $30–100/yr carrying cost. Layer income on top: graze, hunt, solar, or mineral leases. Buy where minerals convey and the rights themselves become a sellable/leasable asset.

Cheap like treasure vs. cheap like broken furniture. Some acres are cheap because they're remote-but-fine; some because they're landlocked, waterless, or un-buildable. The whole craft is telling which is which — that's what the parcel checklist is for.

The rights underneath — mineral estates

The US is one of the few countries where a private person can own the minerals under the ground — separately from the surface. That cuts both ways.

Split estate: buying land ≠ owning what's under it

Mineral rights can be severed from surface rights — sold, leased, and inherited on their own. Someone could own the oil, gas, or minerals under your land even after you buy it. And here's the sting: a mineral owner has the legal right to use as much of your surface as reasonably necessary to reach their minerals — even over your objection, sometimes without notice until development starts.

That's the real reason "minerals convey" matters: it protects you from someone drilling on the land you built your home on.

How to verify who owns the minerals (before you buy)

Read the deed for reservation language. Phrases like excepting and reserving the oil, gas, and other minerals, less and except all oil, gas, and minerals, or subject to prior mineral reservations mean the minerals were split off before you.
Order the title report / commitment. Most reliable source — it flags historical severances, reservations, and active leases.
Search the county Clerk/Recorder grantor–grantee index for mineral deeds. If a 100-yr-old severance happened, your current deed may not even mention it.
Check the tax roll. If mineral taxes are billed to another party, your surface is almost certainly severed.
Get it in writing. Have the seller confirm in writing whether minerals convey.
In resource-rich areas, hire a landman or mineral-title attorney for a formal Title Opinion tracing the chain back to the original patent. Worth it before a big buy.

To actually own the rights below

Buy fee-simple land where minerals convey — deed says so, title confirms it, seller confirms in writing.
Or buy the severed mineral estate separately — you can own minerals under land whose surface belongs to someone else.

Money angle: mineral rights are their own asset class. Own them and you can lease for royalties, sell, or hold as they appreciate. Buying severed minerals under other people's land is a legitimate income play — the real version of "claim the rights underneath." And land where minerals convey simply resells for more.

Protections — hold it, shield it, pass it down

Once you own it, these are the layers that keep it yours and keep it in the Jordan name.

🏛️ Homestead exemption / declaration use it

The legitimate "homestead." Protects primary-residence equity from most creditors and can trim property tax. Arizona auto-protects a chunk of home equity; Texas has famously strong homestead protection (generous acreage + hard to force-sell). File the declaration where your state requires it.

🏢 LLC or family trust the generational play

Hold land in an LLC or a family/living trust for two wins: a liability shield, and generational transfer that keeps parcels in the Jordan name across generations and skips probate. This is the 8-generations-of-Jordans tool — title it once, pass it down clean.

📄 Clean title + legal access + title insurance non-negotiable

Confirm clear title, buy title insurance, and never buy landlocked land without a recorded access easement. Legal access is what separates usable land from a pretty trap.

💧 Water rights & ⛅ the rest

In CO/WY especially, confirm water rights convey (already flagged in your relocation hub). Add an umbrella insurance policy over vacant land you hold. Keep zoning/use confirmed before you build.

The tax reality, one more time: fee simple + homestead + LLC + trust is the full legitimate stack. None of it escapes property tax — that's the honest ceiling. Anyone promising otherwise is the myth from tab one.

15-Year Build Plan

Dollar-cost-average into land. Set the monthly budget, pick a strategy, watch the acreage stack up.

Monthly land budget

Strategy

Land type (avg $/acre)

Parcel size (acres each)

Horizon (years)

Property tax ($/acre/yr)

Cumulative acres by year

💡 Read the plan straight

Money angle: land bought this way is a dollar-cost-average into an appreciating rural market. Layer income to cover the carry — grazing/hunting leases, solar options, mineral leases on parcels where the rights convey. A few leased parcels can pay the property tax on all of them.

The honest drag: every parcel is its own tax bill, its own due-diligence check (run each through the My Parcels and Scout Map tabs), and remote-raw acres may lack water or legal access — the cheap-per-acre number assumes you've vetted that. Owner-finance stacks parcels faster but adds interest and keeps a lien on them until paid.

Scout Map & Trail Guide

Drop coordinates for any off-grid site. It pulls live elevation and geology, flags former seabed, and links you to water & flood data. Water is the gate.

🌡️ Your rules, encoded

💧 Water at your disposal — the key. Power you can make from sun/wind/air; water you can't manufacture. Every site logs a water source and links to USGS well & stream data.
⛰️ 5,000 ft or higher. Auto-checked live per pin.
🌊 No flood zone. FEMA flood-map link per pin (high ground already helps).
🪨 Not a former seabed. Live geology flags marine rock (limestone/marine shale = old ocean floor).
🛣️ No road is fine. You just need legal access + a route. Trail tools below.

Why "no old ocean" is really a water play: marine sedimentary basins often carry brackish, gypsum, or selenium groundwater. Avoiding former seabed steers you toward cleaner water — and toward volcanic or crystalline mountain country (springs, granite, basalt) instead of the limestone plateau.

Tap a pin after you add sites.

🛣️ Trail guide — reaching a roadless site

Legal access first. "No road" is fine; landlocked is not. Confirm a recorded access easement or a public road/trail touching the parcel — physically reachable isn't the same as legally reachable.
Map the route from the nearest maintained BLM/Forest road to the parcel on a topo tool (links below). Note grade, wash crossings, and gates.
Seasonal reality. At 5,000+ ft, snow and mud close routes. Check for winter closures and spring runoff on the access road.
Water on-site AND on-route. Mark springs, creeks, and stock tanks on the topo. Confirm year-round vs. seasonal — a dry-season visit tells the truth.
Vehicle + recovery. High-clearance/4x4, recovery gear, and a second way out. This is the same blocked-route redundancy from your relocation plan.

CalTopo (topo + water layers) USGS TopoView Macrostrat geology map

Per-site buttons below deep-link these tools straight to the coordinates.

My Parcels — due-diligence checklist

Add any parcel you're eyeing. Toggle each check Yes / No / ?. It scores readiness and flags what'll bite you. Saves on this device; export anytime.

Not legal advice. This checklist organizes your own due diligence — the deed, title company, county records, and a land attorney are the authorities. "?" means go find out before you wire money.