Our first real video is live on the Catholic Villagers YouTube channel. It's the full walkthrough of our 4-acre Missouri property — the two tiny cabins we're converting ourselves, the goat shed, the chicken coop, the plans for the chapel, the food forest, the clubhouse. Three families on the land right now. My parents, my brother Aaron, me and my fiancée. I tell the story of how we found the property the day after we prayed for land at the dinner table. $53,000 for a place nobody else wanted. It's the honest version of how we actually got here. Two things I want to ask of you: 1. Watch it. You'll here me express our thesis in a way I haven't done before. 2. Leave a comment. Any comment. Even one word. The YouTube algorithm uses comments more than any other signal to decide whether to show a video to people outside our community. Appreciate you :) If anything resonates, let me know. I'd love to know https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hINNJqomMD0 Let's build our ark, together. — Erick

You might have noticed Aaron and I have been MIA the last week or two. We've been building a ton in the background. Quick update from the land: - We're almost done wiring electricity in our tiny cabins - Our 25 Cornish Cross chickens are growing fast - We're about to buy our first cow 🐄 And on top of all that — we just recorded a YouTube video that we're super proud of. Before we drop it to the world, I wanted you to see it first. Watch it here. If you're here, it's because you resonated with our message of buying land and starting a Catholic village. Aaron and I currently have four acres in Missouri where we're building a Catholic village from the ground up. You guys are the OGs of this community, and we want to keep you in the loop as we grow this thing. We're not going anywhere. So here's the invitation: Join us on our next community call on Wednesday at 6 p.m. CST. This is literally just an opportunity to meet everybody. If you haven't joined one of these yet, this will be a good one to attend. Hope to see you there, — Erick P.S. Happy Easter!

Why Catholics Need to Get on Homesteads

Tiny home update! If you joined this community and I haven't met you, I'd love to meet you. Comment below... would you live in a tiny home on your property? P.S. Come to our community call Wednesday at 6pm CST! See you there :)

One of the challenges you will find as you search for land is how expensive parcels can be. In some areas, you might even find prices in the hundreds of thousands per acre. One of the big issues here is the number of buyers you are competing with. If you find a property in your area that's 4 acres, there might be 40 other families competing for that same property. And when there are lots of buyers and a supply of one... what does Econ 101 tell us? The price will always skyrocket. That's why many of the properties you're looking at are so expensive. Large properties don't have this problem. 50-to-100-acre properties only have a couple of buyers (if any) in that market. The result is that you can find pristine land for closer to $5k - $10k per acre. Now, I know what you're thinking: "That's great, but I still can't afford to pay $300k for 50 acres." Here's where the power of numbers comes in: What if you got a group of your friends and family together (or a group of Catholic would-be homesteaders you met online...) , bought a pristine property together, and split it amongst yourselves? Then you could secure prime real estate for way cheaper-- AND do it alongside likeminded neighbors. This is the dream and ultimately where we want to take this community. What are your thoughts? Would you do something like this?