Yeah, there seem to be a TON of landlocked lots which are otherwise beautiful, but you can’t do anything without technically trespassing on a 20-foot section of land along the road that someone owns, to get to your 40 acre plot. These tend to go for less than 50% of similar plots in the area.
If you’re a downstate New Yorker looking to buy land, I have good news. Downstate NY elites have been incredibly successful in depressing land prices upstate, especially in the beautiful Southern Tier. Existing landowners upstate, of course, have been devastated. And I’m not without sympathy for their plight, especially the distress of older landowners who pretty much at this point are wiped out and have no hope. I’m writing this assuming you are a younger person because you said your child is very young. For younger people hope remains. Here is the detail.
Certain rural upstate NY lands, rich in Marcellus and Utica shale, are worth a fortune. But the drilling ban in NY has destroyed prospects for older current landowners, and frankly their lives as well. Their land, when offered for sale, is selling for prices FAR below inherent worth. Should the ban ever be lifted, prices on that land will skyrocket and landowners will be in the chips.
Writing from personal experience, I can also tell you modern drilling for natural gas is no worse than temporarily annoying. Advances in drilling science are astonishing, even just in these last ten years. All the real action is happening between one and two miles away, straight down! Once the wells are drilled you don’t even know they are there. Contrary to what city people believe, there is no pollution beyond annoying truck traffic and dust, and that is only during well construction. Afterward: nothing; except royalties, of course. 
So if you want inexpensive NY land, buy now upstate “in the shale”. But do not think small. The land is cheap. Your absolute bottom should be 100 acres. Try to buy high land if you can find it. The views are magnificent, and that’s where they drill first.
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They drill first where the views are magnificent?
What makes high land more valuable for drilling? Whats are holding costs for the area? (I thought New York has high property taxes) How long do you think it will take for drilling to be legalized there?
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I’m not a geologist or a mining engineer. In shale situations all prospective land eventually is drilled. But my personal experience is that land higher up is preferential. It could be the rock, but that is strictly a guess.
Yes, NY has high property taxes. That’s for certain. I do not know the holding costs. The OP was indicating he would enjoy the land during any “hold”. Just buying upstate NY land on spec, with no intent ever to enjoy it, might not be a great idea.
Nobody has any idea when NY State might allow drilling. My own opinion: not soon! But NG drilling is ongoing in other states having the resource with great outcomes. It is possible NY might someday catch up.
Couple of added wrinkles:
Actually it is hydraulic fracking that is banned, not drilling. Other fracking means exist, but there is so much domestic NG today that the industry is simply bypassing NY for now instead of exploring those other fracking methods vigorously.
The other caveat to buying upstate NY land, especially land high up, is wind turbines. Unlike with NG, wind turbines within several miles make life all but impossible. They stand 400 feet tall, they kill raptors and songbirds, and worst of all they emit infrasonic “sound” which can damage one’s health. The wind people are active in upstate NY, and of course downstate elites living far away think wind turbine farms are wonderful. But for prospective land purchasers upstate, who hope to enjoy their land, wind turbines are a distinct danger.
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Cuomo’s answer to the upstate economy: build 4 casinos and the economy will rebound!! So far the open near Albany already required a 2.5 mill loan from the state just to pay employees. I’m waiting for the Monticello casino so I won’t go there. has he ever thought about the folks who could use the fracking? he also stated when he signed the bill for the new casinos… the state will never have to bail them out. LIAR. So getting folks hooked on gambling is his answer.
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Interesting about the wind turbines, we have them in huge clusters all over the midwest. Personally I feel desert land in New Mexico (solar) has a higher chance of appreciation in my lifetime than land in New York (just don’t see the political climate changing)
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I put together numbers on solar and even with tax incentives, the returns looked very weak without a captive consumer agreement. It seems speculative, but I guess wind/shale gas mentioned above are in a similar vein.
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IIRC, New York runs their OTB system, and it actually lost money in the late 80’s or early 90’s. How do you lose money when you’re the House? Oh, and I don’t mean they lost money on a race, or a day / month/ quarter. It was for a fiscal year. 
I suspect that NY will figure out a way to tax most of the profit from any fracking if/when they ever allow it.
Maybe when individual drones become a thing and you can be airlifted to your landlocked parcel things will change?
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Or … Buy a hundred acres at a nice, discounted price. Donate a 5 or 10 acre strategically located block to the Boy/Girl/TO Scouts, and let them get access rights to their new property. Once access is granted, you now have access to your property as well. Hopefully, the donee’s lawyer gets a strip donated to them, or at least a permanent right.
It would be better if you do this where there is a lake on the property. Your kids or grandkids will one day be able to subdivide and sell waterfront lots.
Have to agree. NY is pretty much a lost cause today. However, people living in upstate NY, outside the cities, are completely normal American people, among the best you would ever hope to find anywhere. If some day they are able to regain control of their own home region, things will change quickly for the better, sanity will once again prevail, and there will be a real chance for prosperity.
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Have to wholeheartedly disagree with this, being from Syracuse and frequently traveling to, and in between, Alex Bay, Utica, Albany, Buffalo, etc. But that’s all I’ll say, because I certainly don’t want to offend anyone.
To be clear: I’m not saying southern NY people are better than anyone else. In fact, a lot of people down here are snobbish and quite rude. Everyone has an angle. BUT! The economy, wealth, and opportunity is far greater the closer to NYC you get. I think that’s a given. We went to Syracuse for the jazz fest a few years ago, and to stay a few days to gallivant around my old stomping grounds. We left two days early. There is just NOTHING up there anymore. Without the Destiny USA construction, there’s basically no economy up there. It’s becoming the new Rochester after Kodak.
But of course, I grew up with many people who absolutely despised southern NY folks because they’re “city folks.” Unfortunately, that preconceived notion is prevalent and will never go away. It is what it is, I suppose. You either want to grow, make money, have a more fulfilling life (in my subjective opinion), or you don’t. Plenty of people are happy upstate, and that’s totally cool.
Given my work from home job with my southern NY wage, I would love to move back upstate. But unfortunately, that’s just a no-go for my wife. Ah well…
I think we are at cross purposes. My comment had nothing to do with people living in cities, though I have found those living in smaller cities upstate to be great people. But my comment was aimed primarily at rural upstate NY people.
Also, as was the case with my earlier writing here, my experience is mostly with the Southern Tier of NY State. This means the NY counties, from Chautauqua to Broome, which border PA. Although the counties immediately north of that line of counties are also pretty great. I also have very dated, i.e., old, familiarity with New York’s Adirondack region counties. All my memories of that region are good and I have no reason to assume things there have deteriorated.
So if you find rural upstate NY people not to be among the best ever, I guess you’re just speaking as a city person, I think they are, on the whole, great people. Perhaps you would be happier after all remaining in a region having high population density. Rural people try to be welcoming, but not in the case of refugees who bring with them ways of thinking and behaving which made uninhabitable the region they are fleeing. When in Rome . . . . .
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This statement illustrates my point exactly. Speaking as a city person? I hate NYC. I hate it down here due to the density and my aforementioned distaste with the people, in general, down here. The fact that you just lumped me in as “a city person” perfectly tells the tale.
But I digress. I have no intent on arguing subjectivity with you. I lived in Syracuse and went to the 1000 Islands every weekend for 2/3 of my life (up to this point). And, I have lived downstate for the remaining 1/3 of my life, and I think I’ve got a pretty good grasp on “the people” in both areas. Again, it’s all subjective.
Really not following you old chap. You earlier “wholeheartedly” disagreed with my statement that rural upstate NY people are great people.
Probably also should mention I have, and I claim, no knowledge of people of circumstances in Syracuse, Rochester, or other upstate NY city regions.
You just called me a city person. I am far from it. However, I don’t think that upstate people are as great as you make it seem. That’s all. And, I was qualifying my opinion with my experience living in both areas, instead of sounding like an opinionated jerk who has no experience other than what people around them thought.
IE: upstate people, for most of my upstate life, viewed southern NY people as stuck up NYC people. When, in fact, as you are aware, that is not the case.
Just like NYC-born folks view “upstate” as anything north of the Bronx. And they all think those people are hicks.
I used those areas as points of reference. I have never lived IN one of those cities (except Albany for a very short time). I’ve always been in the 'burbs.
Sorry. No intent to offend. However, I do view folks living in Syracuse as city people. And surely many downstate NY people are city people in my view. Please do not ignore, as you have so far, the regions of NY I am referencing. Those regions are apples and oranges with the regions upon which you are focusing.
Seeing now your edit, please be understanding that rural people view persons living in suburban circumstances as city people. Have you ever lived in a place having a very low population density? Rural and suburban are really not at all similar.
When I wrote up-thread that you should buy land, 100 acres minimum, that was with reference to rural land. Doing that in suburbia would be both foolish and unaffordable.
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ETA: you did not offend me at all. I have no allegiance to upstate nor downstate.
Ok, I’ll be specific.
I lived, played, worked, etc. in these areas (never in a city): Fayetteville/Manlius, Baldwinsville, Clay/North Syracuse, Adirondacks (used to go camping there and we’d go to Old Forge all the time), 1000 Islands (family had a lake house there since I was born), Central Square, Cleveland (!) and used to go on work trips with my father to Utica, Albany, once NYC, and once Rochester.
Not to mention, I had friends in Chittenango, Rome, etc.
I have never once lived in a city other than Albany for a month-ish, until I came down to southern NY.
OK. Thanks. The forum is cutting off my ability to reply. Suffice it to say rural people do not live in cities or even in towns. We live in townships which are very large. There are not enough people to support creation of a town.