I'm following this thread with interest as my employer is planning on moving our office from Bethlehem to halfway to Philadelphia, more than doubling my commute from Joisey.

In about a year I'm gonna need a new home, a new job, or both.

I think that you need to have a look at www.dslreports.com and you'll see the 1:1 Correlation between "Cheap Land" and "No Broadband"

For example, this map: http://www.dslreports.com/coinfo shows you a nice national map of telephone companies with DSL capable central offices. The red dots are places where DSL isn't offered at the Central Office. Just because DSL is at a central office, it does not mean there's DSL at a particular home served by the Central Office.

Now look at this map of home prices in the USA:

http://www.trulia.com/home_prices/ Select "Median Sale Price"

Interesting, right?

Yeah, those counties are very expensive... I know Luzurne has DSL as that is where my family lives... Lots of land up there near game land. No FIOS yet from what I'm aware of... They probably have cable tho...

I'm a programmer myself and I currently have 15/2 FIOS. I couldn't live without high speed broadband.

The more you get rural tho, the less likely you'll get good broadband.

My suggestion, call Verizon to find out coverage areas and planned installs for PA.

Thanks, time to check out the maps and info

Your running into the same basic problem as everyone else, the furthur out you get the cheaper the land but get less services. It costs lots of $ to run that wire so when your the only one for miles its not cost effective. My parents paid as much to run power to their house as they did to build theit house in the mid 70's and they get a nice 32k dial up connection if its sunny out, if its rained and water has gotten in their phone lines they get a 24k dial up or no phone at all.

I was going to suggest Tioga or Potter Counties. I have relatives there, I live close (1.5 hours away)to there and it is a great area.

Do they have dial-up? How much snow do they get, is it plowed or more DIY up there?
Nearest supermarket >1hr ?

Any info would be appreciated.
-Todd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potter_County,_Pennsylvania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tioga_County%2C_Pennsylvania

Todd, I'm going to put this as gently as possible...you don't sound at all like you really "get" what low-cost living is all about. Don't get me wrong, that's not a critical statement, it just is obvious from your posts that you have a vision of a type of arrangement which is, quite frankly, not realistic in the USA.

There's something I call the "1 Acre Rule" when it comes to buying realestate. For each acre of land you have, you have to be 20 miles further from a major urban center for it to be affordable (as in under 250K). I have 4 acres and I'm about 80 miles from New York and Philadelphia. If you want to be in closer with a lot of land, you start multiplying by a factor of 5, for every acre, with every 20 miles.

For example, here's a property in the suburbs of New York City - it's vacant land only, 3.66 acres, land only, no house.

$3,699,000 (that's Three Million Six Hundred Ninety Nine Thousand Dollars).

http://www.prudentialelliman.com/Listing...i&Region=LI

Head out a little ways into NJ, about 1.5 hours from NYC, you get a rancher at 799,000 but it's only 2.61 acres.

Come over to my neck of the woods, and prices drop a bit. Now you're 2 to 3 hours from a city, 40 minutes to a grocery store. They plow, but there's no water, sewer or gas, and broadband access is limited - I can get it, just down the road they can't.
You could look at this place which is right down the road from me, but on only 2.26 acres, and $595,000.

It's not until you start going out deep - way deep - that you start seeing stuff under $250K.

Country living also means that you might not get plowed out. We have decent road services, and we've still been snowed in for a few days. It means that you might not have power for a few days. It means that animals will rummage through your trash, eat your garden and knock your fences down. It means you'll need to learn how to use a gun safely, since there's usually no police around. It means volunteer fire and ambulance services, which are slower than paid responders and sometimes they can't come at all (I know this, because I'm a volunteer firefigher).

Just think it though, that's all.

Martin,

You are making me miss home in Bear Creek, just outside of W-B.

I was a volunteer firefighter up there. Mind you, we weren't way out in nowhere, being pretty much right off of Rt 115. My mom is still living there on 4 acres of land. Pretty reasonable price that it was evaluated at. DSL only. Maybe cable broadband would be available...

Mike