Dirt cheap housing, literally

DIY homes in Cochise County ... Temu is in troubleeee ... And we need to trademark our headlines.

An artful, affordable, energy-efficient home in one of the most beautiful parts of Arizona, for less than $50,000? Must be in Cochise County, where half of all rural home owner-builders take advantage of the county’s “opt out permit” that most Arizonans have never heard of.

The interior of a straw bale home in Cochise County, listed on Airbnb.

These opt-out permits allow home owner-builders to eschew typical code inspections and use alternative methods and materials to construct their desert dwellings. This laissez-faire allowance has attracted all kinds of new residents to the area over the last decade, from libertarian off-grid individualists to community-seeking sustainability nerds. Before we take a closer look at how “opt-out culture” is blossoming in the area, some historic context.

Rural Characters

Flash back to 2006: Cochise County was preparing to update its building codes to align with the International Building Code, as many counties already had. But not everyone was keen on that tidy, one-size-fits-all framework.

At a public hearing on June 6 of that year, locals rallied in support of an amendment tailored for rural owner-builders.

The locals argued that the amendment would preserve the “rural character” of the county by keeping parcel sizes large, preventing high-density developments, air pollution and rising property taxes.

The Supervisors were convinced — mostly. The amendment passed 2–1. But did anyone anticipate that this provision would become a bat signal for young families over the coming decades?

Generation Drift

Millennials, Gen Z, Gen X, and Boomers are increasingly finding their way to rural Cochise County. That’s partly to do with the lure of the opt-out permit, made famous by local YouTube channels, but also because rents and home prices elsewhere became a forcing function.

As city dwellers start having families and looking for affordable housing, they have historically migrated to nearby suburbs. But no longer.

Home prices have more than doubled over the last decade, and remote office jobs have stabilized around 10% since the pandemic, incentivizing urban families to settle down outside of metropolitan areas.

And these migrants to rural America expect to own 1-5 acres, much more than you get in the ‘burbs.

Alternative Building

The opt-out permits can be used to build classic stick-frame houses, but many of the owner-builders in Cochise County want something more natural, affordable, energy efficient, and fire-resistant. Popular construction paradigms include geodesic domes, strawbale, and adobe.

Superadobe “earth bag” construction at CalEarth.

One the most popular styles is the superadobe/hyperadobe method developed by the late Nader Khalili and popularized by his CalEarth institute. Often, but not always, constructed in the shape of domes or vaults, these homes are built with an adobe mixture of dirt inside long plastic or mesh tubes, tamped down one layer at a time. The earthen material provides a “thermal mass” which helps to stabilize indoor temperatures. And the fire-resistant property of earthen construction created an uptick in interest in superadobe construction after the L.A. wildfires earlier this year.

“I’ve never seen a house like this, but I like the shape of it,” one CalEarth visitor told the Los Angeles Times.

The Price is Right

The cost of alternative building is far more affordable than traditional construction, but varies depending on size, style, thriftiness and do-it-yourself willingness.

One local couple built their 1,200-square-foot strawbale home for $120,000, and another built their 750-square-foot strawbale home for $30,000. The former includes a private well, the latter has a rain catchment system, and both are powered by solar.

Most of the young families in the area are spending $20,000-$80,000 with utilities. A private well will cost an additional $30,000-$80,000, but many choose to haul water and/or install rain catchment systems. The DIY approach means lots of work hours invested, but the payoff is home ownership and very low monthly upkeep costs.

After talking to some locals, I got these rough estimates for price and labor considerations for various alternative home construction methods (without utilities):

Superadobe/Hyperadobe

Materials: $20 / square foot

Labor: Intensive

Classic Adobe

Materials:: $15-$25 / square foot

Labor: Intense

Straw Bale

Materials: $15-$40 / square foot

Labor: Moderately intensive

Geodesic Dome (foam-insulated)

Materials: $100 / square foot

Labor: Included in cost

Classic Woodframe

Materials: $50-$100 / square foot

Labor: Moderately intensive (skills needed)

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Raw rural land in Cochise County goes for $1,500 — $10,000 per acre, depending on the location, your patience in waiting for a good deal, and who you know.

Rich Samartino, a web developer from Phoenix, was looking for a place to build his own home and discovered that Cochise County was, as he put it, a “homesteader mecca.” He moved into the area twelve months ago. He spent $45,000 for ten acres and $80,000 for materials and a hired crew to build his superadobe dome complex.

Rich Samartino’s nearly-finished superadobe dome complex.

Other locals save costs, while also making friends, with old-fashioned “barn raising” or, in modern parlance, “work parties.” There are at least two larger organized cooperatives of neighbors in Cochise who regularly go to each other’s properties to help with construction projects.

And while earthen construction is already “dirt cheap,” nearly everyone manages to incorporate recycled materials into their builds.

Opt-Out For Everyone?

While Cochise County has an increasingly recognized reputation for homesteading and alternative building, it’s not the only place in the U.S. with relaxed construction requirements.

Neighboring Greenlee County doesn’t have any code requirements at all, and in 2019, Coconino County created the Innovative Materials and Systems Pilot Program for owner-builders who want to build outside of International Building Codes.

Last year, HB2096 would have allowed small home construction in all of rural Arizona without building code requirements. The bill failed along partisan lines, but when I collected signatures in support of the proposal at the Cochise County Annual Opt-Out Expo, I gave the option for signees to declare their political affiliations, and the response was ostensibly bipartisan:

Independents: 27

Undeclared: 25

Democrats: 17

Republicans: 12

While the rest of Arizona sleeps on the alternative homebuilding game, Cochise County is leaning into it.

In October, all three county supervisors unanimously approved a citizen-requested proclamation for October to become Cochise County Opt-Out month.

One of the supporters at the proclamation’s hearing was Joy Banks, last year’s Democratic challenger to newly elected Supervisor Frank Antenori.

Learn More

The most common way people learn about alternative building in Cochise is from the bevy of popular local YouTube creators. Tiny Shiny Home has over 200k subscribers, Our Self-Reliant Life has over 100k, and new ones pop up all the time.

If you want to check out the local scene or meet some of the local rural land realtors, the Annual Cochise County Opt Out Expo is happening on Feb. 7 in Elfrida.

She doesn’t just sue Trump: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sued Chinese online retailer Temu over allegations that the company is stealing customer data, per the Associated Press. Mayes says Temu gathers sensitive data about customers, including GPS locations and which other apps are on a customer’s phone. All that data could be handed over to the Chinese government at any time.

“It can detect everywhere you go, to a doctor’s office, to a public library, to a political event, to your friends’ houses,” Mayes said during a news conference. “So the scope of this invasion of privacy is enormous, and that’s why I consider it possibly the gravest violation of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act that we have ever seen in Arizona.”

Voucher lawsuit incoming?: Mayes is also investigating Arizona’s school voucher system, particularly a policy of automatically approving reimbursements under $2,000, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports. That policy led to parents using voucher funds to buy items like jewelry and lingerie. Mayes said on Tuesday that “litigation is not off the table,” while her office pushes Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne to reform the voucher program.

Clock is ticking…again: Gov. Katie Hobbs suggested upper basin states are wasting time instead of putting up a Colorado River agreement, Heidi Hommel reports for KTAR. The governor suggested Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming ran out the clock for the Nov. 11 deadline for an agreement to the U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau of Reclamation. The states that utilize the Colorado River will now have until Feb. 14 to submit a final agreement.

“Our users will not accept a deal where we are waiving our rights to the water that the upper basin owes us,” Hobbs said.

Tax cut or bust: Hobbs is standing by her proposal to cut personal income taxes by more than $200 million, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. The cut would make life more affordable for Arizonans, even though the state is facing economic uncertainty and cuts to federal funding, Hobbs said on Monday. She didn’t say which services would be eliminated if the tax cut were to take effect, but “this is something that we have calculated into the budget that we will present” in January. While some state Republicans support Hobbs’ plan, other members of the GOP want the governor to incorporate parts of the “Big Beautiful Bill” into the state tax code — like allowing businesses to quickly write off the cost of new equipment to reduce taxable income and a big tax break for the wealthiest Arizonans who itemize their taxes.

In our humble opinion, the best way to use an unexpected windfall is to support independent local journalism.

Sign of the times: Since Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly made a video urging soldiers not to follow illegal orders, which President Donald Trump said was “punishable by DEATH,” Kelly said he and his wife — assassination attempt survivor and former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords — have been getting “graphic” and “violent” threats, per The Hill.

“We get more threats now in a single day than we would get in months,” Kelly said.

In other, other news

The proposal for a Charlie Kirk memorial in Scottsdale might be no more after an indecisive city council meeting (J. Graber / Daily Independent) … The Paradise Valley Unified School District unanimously decided to start dismissal proceedings against the superintendent (Kyra O’Connor / 12News) … Republican Rep. Rachel Keshel said it was “complete BS” that Arizona’s Department of Child Safety spent $3 million on legal fees and a verdict in a case that dragged on for six years (Dave Biscobing / ABC15) … And the Scottsdale City Council rejected a proposal to limit the number of public speakers and the time for speaking — they instead increased the number of speakers allowed on non-agenda items to 12 from 10 (Irene Snyder, Kenneth Wong and Taylor Wirtz / Fox10).

Back in April, we ran a story headlined “Mayes against the machine.”

It was such a clever headline that Attorney General Kris Mayes’ campaign stole it from us and put it on reelection shirts that she’s selling for $36 each.

Thanks to savvy reader Camryn Sanchez, who never forgets a headline, for flagging and for suggesting a legal strategy.

We informed the campaign that we expect 10% of all revenue from shirt sales.

Mayes’ campaign spokesman, DJ Quinlan, replied, “Lol… Will have to check the campaign finance handbook.”

We’re also considering investing in a bot that will slap all of our headlines on t-shirts before the politicians can profit off them.