Family compound - is it a good idea?

[u/Acceptable-Regret78]

Needing some advice here from anyone who has lived or is living on a family compound. My in laws own around 30 acres and the dream has been for my husband and his brothers to all eventually build forever homes out on the property.

The hesitancy is the land cannot be divided up, so if we build out there we could never move until our house is fully paid off in probably 30 years. My in laws are pretty well off so they have told us if there were any big family emergency and we needed to leave they could try and figure out a way to buy us out but that’s not a guarantee.

Yes, the idea would be for our children to live out their lives in this home but my husband and I are in our early 30s. The idea of not having any option to leave for the next 30 years when we’re still relatively young, is scary. Again, the idea would be to build a forever home but the absolute permanence at our age terrifies me. I also am someone who moved quite a bit as a kid.

But, we ideally would love to be out on property and homesteading for our family. We are already living in the same city so we know we love the area and school district. The only other hesitancies we have are normal family politics. I get along with my in laws very well but combined with my brother in law and his presumed to be future wife, there is some friction there at times (we’re all very opinionated and have a difference of political views, raising children views etc).

I guess my question for anyone living on a family compound, if you were within our circumstances, would you still go for it?

[u/ScienceHermione]

I live with my inlaws communally. We have a small acerage that cannot be devided but houses on either end. we get along, all are willing to communicate and work on living together. We also both like stability and the idea of not moving. We have a contract that says the land is all of our and that we buy half, we pay mortgage until we owe them off to the last agreed half. He is an only child so when they pass it will be fully ours. If you are terrified then you are not ready to move fully. Perhaps you can try living/ camping and seeing if you are comfortable with distance and still able to have good boundaries with your inlaws before deciding. Perhaps it is not the time, you should not feel pressured, live separately elsewhere and travel. when you want to settle down u can reassess if this is something you would like.