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bunker costs

Worried About Doomsday? What a $1,000-a-Year Bunker Lease Really Means Today

The $1,000-a-year doomsday bunker lease was a 2017 offer that excluded fit-out. Here is how it compares with the current listed price and what to check before signing.

By Bettesworth Construction Team 4 min read
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The $1,000-a-year figure comes from a December 13, 2017 Futurism report on Vivos Shelters leasing bunkers at a former military site in southwest South Dakota. It describes a historical offer, not a price you can get now. The company’s current pricing page lists a 99-year lease on a bunker at $55,000, and that lease price is the figure to compare against. The 2017 offer also left out the work that makes a bunker usable, so the annual rent was never the full cost.

What the 2017 offer covered

Futurism’s Patrick Caughill reported the following terms in 2017. Treat each one as a historical detail:

  • Lease length: 99 years.
  • Rent: $1,000 per year.
  • Deposit: $25,000.
  • Condition: the bunker itself was not outfitted.
  • Extra costs: electricity, septic, air filtration, and amenities were all additional.
  • Shared-bunker alternative: $5,000 plus a $50 monthly expense fee.

The arithmetic on the headline terms is simple. Ninety-nine years at $1,000 is $99,000 in rent, and adding the $25,000 deposit gives $124,000 before any outfitting, utilities, or fees. The article gave no itemized estimate for the fit-out, so that total is a floor, not a budget.

Current listed pricing

Terra Vivos now lists xPoint in a different structure. Listing prices change, so check the company’s pricing page before you rely on any number here. The table sets the two offers side by side.

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Item 2017 offer (Futurism, December 13, 2017) Current listing (Terra Vivos pricing page)
Lease term 99 years 99 years
Price $1,000 per year $55,000 for a 99-year leased bunker
Deposit $25,000 Not stated in the listing
Outfitting Not included; electricity, septic, air filtration, and amenities extra Not stated in the listing
Purchase option Not stated $75,000 for a bunker with 20,000 square feet of surrounding land
Shared-bunker option $5,000 plus $50 monthly expense fee Not stated in the listing

Spread over 99 years, the $55,000 lease works out to about $556 a year before any deposit or recurring fees. That is a division of the listed price, not a rate the company quotes. The $75,000 option is a different product: the listing describes it as a purchase that includes the land, which the 2017 lease did not.

The site: xPoint near Edgemont

Terra Vivos describes xPoint as a 575-bunker complex near Edgemont, in southwest South Dakota, with each bunker accommodating up to 24 people. Those are company figures. No independent count of the bunkers or verification of their capacity appears in the reporting or company material available on the project.

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What the $1,000 figure leaves out

From a construction standpoint, a leased bunker is a shell that still needs systems. Futurism named four of them as extra costs in 2017. Any written offer should price each system as its own line item, with a named party responsible for building and paying for it:

  • Electrical supply and any backup power
  • Septic or other waste handling
  • Air filtration and ventilation
  • Water storage and supply
  • Interior fit-out, including sleeping, cooking, and sanitation fixtures
  • Access road, parking, and site upkeep
  • Insurance, property charges, and any association or expense fees the contract imposes

The first four items are the ones the 2017 article identified as extras. The rest are the categories a buyer should ask about; the reporting does not give costs for them at this site.

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Protection claims: what is and is not established

Terra Vivos markets xPoint as a survival community. Its statements about survivability, capacity, and safety are company claims. The 2017 Futurism report and the company’s current pages do not include independent engineering testing of the facility against the hazards it promotes, so a reader should treat protection as unverified.

The 2017 article also quoted Becky Alexis-Martin, identified as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southampton: “It seems that as ever, only the moneyed, connected and powerful are entitled to outlive a nuclear catastrophe.” That is a critical opinion about access, not a measurement of how well a bunker performs. No independent study of bunker effectiveness or of demand for these bunkers was established in the material reviewed.

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Questions to answer before signing

  1. Get the lease terms in writing. Confirm the term, rent, deposit, which fees are refundable, and what happens if you stop paying.
  2. Establish what you hold. Determine whether you receive a leasehold, a deed, or a membership, and whether you can transfer or pass it on.
  3. Itemize the fit-out. Ask for a written schedule that names the contractor and cost for each system in the list above.
  4. Confirm occupancy. The company’s 24-person figure is a capacity claim. Check how many named people your contract covers and whether family or guests are included.
  5. Check access. Map the route from your home, the road conditions, and whether access is guaranteed during an emergency.
  6. Ask for test documentation. Request engineering or test reports for the structure, ventilation, and filtration. If the seller cannot provide them, record that gap in your comparison.
  7. Price the full term. Add recurring fees over the life of the lease, not just the first year.

The $1,000-a-year headline describes a 2017 offer with the fit-out excluded. The current listing is a $55,000 lease, and every term that determines what you actually receive is still open until it appears in a signed contract.

Structures and prices can change, and no offer should be treated as final until its terms are confirmed in writing.

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