Washington - Cheap
housing, deep unease and intense resilience - all forces that
are driving a clutch of Americans to swap city life for a fresh
start off grid and far from civilisation.
Some are survivalists, among them high fliers who fear a
looming, urban catastrophe and the mayhem that might follow.
Others want a greener, gentler life untainted by the malign
forces of capitalism and uncertainty of mainstream politics.
Whichever camp, realtors say the new dropouts are not
"crackpots" and often include affluent professionals whose run
for the hills has boosted rural land values and started to
change their property market.
"I've had hedge-fund managers and billionaires that have made
purchases, and they all have concerns about the direction of the
economy and social stability," said John E. Haynes, president of
Retreat Realty in North Carolina.
"We're on that upward trend," he said. "Inventory of that
land on the market is tighter."
Haynes has worked in real estate for decades.
About four years ago, he rebranded his company to pitch
property to a new and growing breed of buyer - those motivated
by "concerns about social stability".
He had a record year in 2019, and was busy in the run-up to
the 2016 election, when Donald Trump came to power.
"I'm sensing that again," he said. "People get uncertain,
and they start making decisions on the political environment and
what they anticipate.
"So I think 2020 will be a good year for my business."
TIME TO RUN
Bruce — who values his privacy so would not let his full
name be used — is buying 20 acres in remote North Carolina,
where trees will become fuel and water springs from the land.
He has lived most of his life in cities, New York included.
But now the plan is to escape the urban jungle - a place of
traffic, noise, poverty, crime and much else Bruce dislikes.
"It reached the point where we were tired of being on the
defensive," Bruce, in his mid-50s, said of city life and the
hazardous technical setup on which it relies.
"Amazon can deliver groceries in two hours, but will the
grocery store have food three days after a large disaster?" he
told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, noting the cataclysmic
potential of a major disruption in electrical generation.
"Our hope is nothing like this happens," he said.
"But should it, we'll be better prepared to survive in a
rural setting, where more food is grown locally, where we have
land on which to raise food or livestock, or hunt."
ESCAPE TYRANNY
Often called survivalists or "preppers", many escapees twin
an expectation of impending doom - or outright social collapse -
with a deep disbelief in the government's ability to cope.
Buying land — or "bugout" property, derived from military
slang for a retreat — is a priority, with real estate networks
compiling national lists of "prepper lands".
Most survivalist land purchases are in the mountains of the
US northwest, primarily Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
In 2011, a blogger and former U.S. Army intelligence officer
named James Wesley, Rawles - he includes the comma in his name -
wrote a widely circulated post urging "freedom-loving
Christians" to move to the region as a safe haven.
He dubbed the area the American Redoubt and urged followers
to "buy land that will maximise your self-sufficiency."
It is unclear how many heeded his call, but the Economist
magazine estimated they numbered in the "thousands of families".
Idaho in particular recorded a big influx.
The state had one of the top U.S. growth rates in 2015-16,
driven in part by escapees from California and neighbouring
Washington state, according to Boise State assistant professor
Jeffrey Lyons.
Disaffected Californians make up a substantial number of
clients for Black Rifle Real Estate, which says online that it
helps people "Flee the City to the freedom and safety of Rural
America and the famed American Redoubt."
Broker Todd Savage said his business is at an all-time high,
driven by frustration with how many U.S. cities are governed.
"Most of our clients are now looking to sell their
postage-stamp size properties … and make what we call a
'Strategic Relocation' to a free state," Savage said in an
email.
Driven by new demand, the company is expanding outside of
the so-called Redoubt — to Arizona, which Savage said enjoys
lower taxes and far looser gun controls than liberal California.
"Arizona is the new Idaho for many seeking relief from the
tyranny in California," he said.
EMBRACE LAND
Conservatives are not alone in the new land rush.
Haynes said his clients in North Carolina are evenly split
between survivalists and "homesteaders" — young, liberal, less
affluent families seeking peace, quiet and a sustainable life.
"When I started out in 1973, the big thing then was the
'back to the land' movement," said Neil Shelton with the Ozark
Land Company, a developer active in Missouri and Arkansas.
What he is seeing now is a "new iteration" of that
movement," he said, and one driven by innovation: the pre-built
'tiny home', typically 400-600 square feet.
Small structures have made home ownership more affordable,
he said, for some accelerating the new mood of escapism.
"This tiny-house movement is the biggest thing I've seen
since" the 1970s, Shelton said.
Kim Moore, 63, said she and her husband had bought nearly 60
acres in North Carolina after enjoying a holiday there.
"I'm not a survivalist, but as much as possible, I'd like to
live on the land," she said.
Moore and her husband plan to build a series of small homes
and create a "co-housing" community of family, friends and
others with similar values.
"I want it to be sustainable, something that isn't going to
ruin the land, and something that's big enough that all of my
friends can join in," she said.
"It's something that feeds my soul."