Based on the diary, it seems you are starting two contradictory entities:

1.  A Land Investment Company
   
2.  A Intentional Community

or you're pitching the project that way.

Assuming your goal is 2:

a.)  What is the economic basis?  The area is 60-100 miles from Portland which is too far for a daily commute without some car pooling or 'mass' transit system.  Is it to be (primarily) a retirement home?  If so, what is the medical/hospital infrastructure of the area?  

b.)  What is the projected land-use policy?  Are you planning on high or low density housing/residence?  A high density area lows the cost of creating the physical infrastructure: homes, lighting, water, sewerage, & etc at the risk of increase social tension(s).  

c.)  I observe a half an acre in the Willamette valley is more productive than 5 in the rain-shadow of the Cascades.   Have you sat down and done a cost/benefit analysis?  Sometimes the higher land cost is cheaper in the long run when everything is included: fencing, irrigation costs, taxes, power lines, water lines, & so forth and so on.  

d.)  Do not depend on agriculture as a income-producer.  

e.)  Where's the water coming from?  Did you check for pollution, contaminates, & all that?  Wells in New Mexico are being affected by (naturally occurring) radioactive particles, sulphates, salts, and a general lowering of the water table.  Who is upstream, what are their plans, and what happens if IBP, Tyson, or ADM tries to put one of their 50,000 unit Confinement Operations there?  

f.)  Who runs the county?  How many evangelical/conservative/assholes per acre are we talking?  Is 'Jesus Lord over Goldendale?'  Who owns the neighboring properties and are they evangelical/conservative/assholes?  

g.)  Why is the current owner selling?

h.)  Remember: a Real Estate agent gets paid by the property owners when the property sells.  They neither work for the buyer nor have any incentive to work for the buyer.  

i.)  "Over time, and since the inception of capitalism, land is the one inflation, deflation, stagnation, bust, you-name-it hedge."  Not true.  Land prices follow demographic trends.  There are towns scattered through-out the short grass prairie that could be purchased for $1 million, or so.  Of course there is bugger-all to do there -- which is why they can be had so cheap.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre