The traditional definition of homestead is an isolated farmhouse or ranch house. Typically refers to the residence on remote land for farming or ranching purposes. I'm not sure if it is the same reference in this context.

Optimally, it's obtaining a sufficient plot of bare land and building a roughly self-sufficient complex thereon (home, barn, workshop, garden, orchard, fuel/power, pond, robust kitchen, storage, and/or etc). One may buy a property already with any degree thereof, focus on operational near-self-sufficiency.

This is particularly ingrained in American culture as we're a very few generations away from such lifestyle being normal during expansion across an undeveloped continent.

If you're not American, a homestead is more or less the same thing as a smallholding.

First time I've heard this term as well.