Hi Everybody, wonder if you could give me some advice. I am a 50 yr old single parent of a 10 yr old boy. I am looking to buy a house with some land to grow heaps of fruit and vegies and become more self sufficient. It doesn't have to be big, just affordable and have sun, so I can put solar in at some stage. I am a member of a local permaculture group in Sydney, but rent in a small sun starved villa with some pots of enough stuff to pick myself a salad. I will have $100,000 but need to get a small mortgage as work will be harder to get further from Sydney. I could move anywhere really that has a primary school, but I would like to be around like minded people and have a feel of community, swap seeds info and share a meal. This bit is really important to me. So just looking at realestate.com doesn't give me that information. I hope to move north of Sydney as I am not a fan of the cold weather (arthritis).Given a choice I like to be near some water. I am a qualified counsellor and later this year I finish my Masters in social work so I might be able to pick up some work to help pay off a small mortgage. Do you have any suggestions of affordable areas to live. I can't really build a house by myself as I have no one to help me. I don't know other people who want to do the same either or we could work together. Thanks Atlanta
if you dont like the cold, i would head north! and then west for cheaper land! in some places 100k could get you a decent plot to work and never have to visit the supermarket again, don't give up searching is my advice, go beyond realestate dot com and search out other websites catering to 'treechange' types
G'day Atlanta Welcome to the PRI Forum. Intentional community (IC) living - in particular, cohousing - could be just the thing you are looking for. Check out Cohousing Australia's interactive map. An informative paper on the subject: Bamford, G. (2001) Bringing Us Home: Cohousing and the Environmental Possibilities of Reuniting People with Neighbourhoods Cheerio, Markos