There is a niche market in real estate investment: people who dislike to live in the city or small builders who build homes or vacation homes for the upper class.
These people are fatigued of the metropolitan lifestyle—traffic, pollution, crimes, expensive food, noise, etc. They are often the rich and upper middle class households who could afford to buy more than 1 property. Though they often work in the city, they are the households who could afford to travel 1-2 hours to the city. These households buy rural lands to build ranches and townhouses for a more relax lifestyle.
They sometimes are avant-garde artists or writers who seek solace to pursue for creative rediscovery. They too are singles who seek for reflective retreats. The niche market also includes retirees, overworked, home-based and global (or internet-based) workers and entrepreneurs because rural communities provide a healthier work environment and lifestyle like farming. In fact, some fresh graduates are going back to farming. Farming currently offers better earning as more health-conscious eaters grew.
This niche market is huge and expanding because of the sudden near recession of the U.S. economy. More low and middle-class households simply lost their mortgaged houses and rural communities are drawing them in because of cheaper rural properties, especially the tax delinquent ones. These households could not possibly afford another metropolitan property and urban counties could not possibly equal minimum bid prices of rural lands to draw these households back. Renting in the urban area is partially an option to these households because rents are also becoming more costly.
These households, thus, are left with no choices but to relocate to cheaper rural communities for shelter because inflation and weak dollar currency trimmed their purchasing power—a reason that disabled these households to pay their mortgages, foreclosed and lost their houses.