We looked at buying acreage and living in a shed, heaps of people do it who have their heart set on acreage and are happy living there for as long as it takes to be able to afford to built their house on the land, then the bonus is you get a house in the end and a spare livable shed for visitors! BUT we ended up thinking that it could be years before we could afford the loan to build on top of the cost of the acreage so we opted for a town block in a hinterland area which is still very green and beautiful and we got the bonus of a beautiful big new house from the start for the same cost as what acreage and a shed would have been. Another factor for us was that we knew we were going to start a family so we wanted a house now... not in 10 years time iykwim... I know this doesn't answer any of your questions but I guess I'm giving you something to think about