Alt Ordo App: The Zillow for Living Free
The Alt Ordo app + community is almost here. Here’s what we’ve been up to, and what’s coming Tuesday, June 23rd.
Picture opening one app and seeing it all on a map:
The off-grid cabin for sale two counties over. The tiny-home community selling plots an hour from there. The micro community renting affordable lots for teardrop campers. The homesteader with the yurt, the A-frame, the converted school bus parked on five acres looking to connect. And under each pin, the key stuff nobody really tells you up front: what the zoning actually allows, any restrictions, utility availability, what the land costs, what the local politics are like, what’s in the soil and the water, and so much more.
That’s the app. Think Zillow, but for people who want to live a little differently. Freedom loving people. Alternative places. Putting it all together.
We spent the last couple years gathering the data on all 3,143 counties in this country. Which ones are chill about zoning. Which areas let you build what you actually want to build. Where the communities are. Who’s already out there doing it. All of that slowly turned into an app, and that app is now 90% done.
Why we made it
The hard part of this lifestyle was never the solar wiring or the rainwater catchment. We figured that stuff out, you can too. The hard part is the two questions that come way before any of it: where do I do this, and who do I do it with?
Most people never get past those two. The research eats up months. The zoning is a headache. The good communities are word-of-mouth. The land listings that fit this kind of life are scattered across a hundred sites that were never built for it. So the dream just stays a dream, and folks stay stuck paying for a pre-canned life they didn’t really pick.
We wanted to make all of that way smoother.
What it does
Search listings of off-grid homes, cabins, tiny homes, yurts and more. Pull up any county and see its zoning, weather, population, politics, and natural resources side by side. Browse communities where you can rent or buy land and plug right into an alternative-dwelling life, whether that’s nomadic, intentional community, agrihood, or whatever fits you. Connect with other people doing the same thing. Build a simulation of your key systems for your setup before you spend a dollar. See how the shelter, energy systems, water systems, and sanitation systems all work together. And when you’re ready, list your own property so someone else can find it.
It’s not just about finding a place that’s already built, either. We’re building tools to research raw land, so you can size up a bare parcel before you buy: what you could legally put on it, what it would take to get water, power, and a road in, and whether the dirt is actually worth it. Find the empty acre, then figure out what it could become.
And for the folks who don’t want to be tied to any one spot, we’re digging into nomadic living too. Where you can legally post up on BLM land and other public land, how the dispersed-camping and stay-limit rules work, and how to string together a route that keeps you moving without constantly bumping into “no.” Living free can mean putting down roots, or it can mean never really stopping. The app is built for both.
Basically, it’s everything we wished existed back when we were starting out, all in one place.
Free for the folks who need it
Here’s the part we care about most. The core app is free.
Searching land, reading the county data, finding communities, connecting with people, running simulations. All free. We’re not about to put a paywall around the freedom to live affordably. That would kind of miss the whole point. A few premium land-research features cost a little to help keep the lights on, and the rest of the app gets funded the way it should: through partnerships with the vendors, tiny-house builders, and real estate agents who already serve this community.
We want this thing to stick around and actually be useful. Free, sustainable, and built to last.
And look, there’s no perfect answer here. There never is. One of our favorite lines: “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” The app just lays the trade-offs out in front of you, so you can pick your own with your eyes open. What it costs, what it takes, and what it frees you up to do.
What’s coming next
We’ve spent years working with these systems between Atlanta and Chattanooga, building it cabin by cabin, garden by garden. The app is the part that lets you skip a bunch of the guesswork we didn’t get to skip.
It’s 90% finished. To get it across the finish line, and to actually get it in front of the people who’ve been waiting for something like this, we’re running a Kickstarter.
It goes live Tuesday, June 23rd.
And as a thank-you, backers get lifetime free access to the premium land-research tools, the most powerful stuff in the app, the premium features others would pay for to keep it running.
So here’s my honest ask: don’t wait for “someday.” The first couple days are what make or break a Kickstarter. Early backers are what get a project off the ground, and a slow start can sink something good before anyone even sees it. So if any piece of this sounds like something you want out in the world, be one of the first in the door next Tuesday. Back it on day one. Send it to that one friend who’s always talking about living this way. That early push from this community is honestly the whole difference between us finishing this and being able to release these tools for this community.
Mark the 23rd. We’ll see you out there.
— Kemble
P.S. If you backed the Acorn Off-Grid Sim Kickstarter, please know, that original work folds right into this app and your access carries over. You’re already grandfathered in.