- PJ Yancey went viral with a video showing off a plot of land he bought in Joshua Tree, California.
- It cost him $200, and with materials to build on it, the project totaled under $1,000, he said.
A 21-year-old from Los Angeles went viral on TikTok last week with a video showing how he bought a small patch of land in Joshua Tree for $200. He told Insider he made the purchase because he thought it would feel good to stand on grounds that he owned — especially with homeownership becoming more difficult for his generation.
In the clip, which has been viewed over 1.5 million times, PJ Yancey gives a tour of his small piece of land, which he said was about 1,000 square feet. The space consists mostly of dirt, with a campfire area in the middle and a covered hammock on a wooden structure. He also shows off a wooden sunshaded chair that helps shield him from the heat.
In total, Yancey said the land and all the materials he used to build his structures cost him under $1,000.
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In the clip, he also shows viewers that the nearby area is full of other tiny plots. One of his neighbors had put up a mailbox and tiki torches, while another demarcated their area with lights around the perimeter.
"One time, some dude came out here at the same time that I was out here to go visit his plot, and it was like a guy my age, and it was really cool," Yancey says in the TikTok post. "We just got to hang out."
He told Insider he bought the land from a company called Minute Land, which has numerous microplots available to purchase on its website.
The comments are full of people reacting to his unconventional lifestyle, with some imagining how cold or frightened they'd be if they lived alone in the desert. Some viewers said he should've bought a few more plots so he could combine them. Multiple people said it looked like "Minecraft" in real life.
"I'm gonna buy the lot directly adjacent to yours and build a bigger hammock with a lawn," one person said.
"Home ownership in 2023," another top comment said.
Despite these jokey responses, Yancey said his intentions with the purchase were serious and that he was inspired by seeing a lack of landownership among younger people.
"The thing about being in Gen Z is that, generally, we quite literally own nothing," he said. "We're not homeowners; we don't own a ranch, a vacation home, any kind of property at all. If we're living on our own, it's in someone else's house or apartment."
Yancey said he didn't live there permanently but that he'd spent a few nights in the hammock. Overall, he said he'd found the process of making a shelter with his own hands a "grounding human experience." He praised the bareness of the setup, and because it was a relatively cheap endeavor, he doesn't feel pressured to try to get the most out of the space — he's happy to have it as a quick weekend escape, he said.
"It's far from a luxury vacation spot, but I feel like, in a way, it accomplishes much more for you than one," he said. "My takeaway is that solitary time in a unique environment is a valuable experience, and if people are inspired by my experience and try it, I succeeded."