OP
Retiredguy2
Gold Member
I do not understand your point...please clarify.
How do YOU feel about downsizing and moving away from your country estate?
- Thread starter Retiredguy2
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I do not understand your point...please clarify.
GPintheMitten
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I wondered the same thing. Maybe meaning leave it as in your last will and testament if there are no heirs interested. Shrug.
OP
Retiredguy2
Gold Member
I have three nephews and a niece in addition to my spouse's 3 kids who are now direct relatives. To have someone infer I would be foolish enough and financially stupid enough to give my estate to a complete stranger rather than kin is insulting beyond logic.
GPintheMitten
Elite Member
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Maybe he meant something else. It was just a guess on my part.
Ken
Veteran Member
Has anyone taken a reverse mortgage on farm home and land?
My thoughts were it is the home only and monthly income until you pass or out live the value of mortgage. then start packing.
So good idea or government pit fall of idea. never met anyone that used this method.
ken
My thoughts were it is the home only and monthly income until you pass or out live the value of mortgage. then start packing.
So good idea or government pit fall of idea. never met anyone that used this method.
ken
flusher
Super Member
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- Getting old. Sold the ranch. Sold the tractors. Moved back to the city.
Sold my 10 acre ranch located in Tehama County (about 120 miles North of Sacramento) in Jan 2015. Bought the land in Dec 2004 at age 63. City boy realizing his boyhood dream of living on acreage in the country.
Flat field of weeds with two dozen large almond trees--the remnants of a 65 year old orchard. The 1100 sq ft shop was built in June 2005. I did a lot of the prep work myself (trenches for water, power, gas, concrete pads for water well, propane tank, air conditioner, clear the junk out of the weeds, mow). House was ready for occupancy in Jan 2006.
Spent 10 enjoyable years building five sheds, 20x40 ft carport, a patio with pergola and BBQ pit, Japanese garden with gazebo and koy tank, a small vineyard (CA concord grapes), and dozens and dozens of landscape shrubs and trees. Installed the landscape irrigation system myself.
Spent a lot of time restoring old farm equipment (tandem and offset discs, grain drills, moldboard plows, sicklebar mowers, drop seeders) and rebuilding vintage tractors (1945 Oliver 60, 1948 Farmall Cub, 1949 JD B, 1951 Farmall Super A, 1951 Minneapolis Moline BF, 1964 Massey Ferguson 135 diesel).
Then the bad years came--I refer to the continuing CA drought now entering year five. In April 2014 the orchard growers in my area were cut off from surface water (Sacramento River) by the irrigation district. They started pumping groundwater big time.
In July 2014 my neighbor's well pump started sucking air. Pump is 90 ft below ground level. My well (about 500 feet away from her's) is 154 feet deep (a shallow well according to the Water Resources people since it's less than 200 ft deep) with the pump at 120 ft below ground level. When my well was drilled in May 2005, the water level measured 54 feet below the surface.
The Water Resources people have monitoring wells scattered around the county and check them several times per year. The latest data show that in the period from 2004-2014 the water level has dropped about 35 feet in my area. What's more alarming is that in the 2013-2014 period the water level dropped 11 feet out of the total of 35 feet. Not surprising since the local orchard growers are pumping a lot of ground water to keep their trees alive.
In July 2014 one of the local orchard growers near me (about 3/8 mile distant) had the driller guy out at his place to put in a new well to 400+ foot depth. Cost was about $35K. That was enough for me to think hard about my future.
I turned 73 in Nov 2014. Put the property on the market then. Had a contract from a pre-qualified buyer in 48 hours and the title company opened escrow the next day. Listed all the tractors, farm equipment and shop tools on Craigslist. Had that stuff sold by Christmas. Escrow closed 15 Jan 2015 and I moved to Sacramento into a rental about a city block from my son and daughter-in-law.
So to answer the original question: I feel real good about getting rid of the ranch and moving back to the city. No more sleepless nights wondering when my well was going dry.
Spend part of the day on continuing education. Take graduate level Internet courses from Stanford U (my degrees are in physics). Helps keep me mentally fit and fights off the Alzheimers, I hope.
Flat field of weeds with two dozen large almond trees--the remnants of a 65 year old orchard. The 1100 sq ft shop was built in June 2005. I did a lot of the prep work myself (trenches for water, power, gas, concrete pads for water well, propane tank, air conditioner, clear the junk out of the weeds, mow). House was ready for occupancy in Jan 2006.
Spent 10 enjoyable years building five sheds, 20x40 ft carport, a patio with pergola and BBQ pit, Japanese garden with gazebo and koy tank, a small vineyard (CA concord grapes), and dozens and dozens of landscape shrubs and trees. Installed the landscape irrigation system myself.
Spent a lot of time restoring old farm equipment (tandem and offset discs, grain drills, moldboard plows, sicklebar mowers, drop seeders) and rebuilding vintage tractors (1945 Oliver 60, 1948 Farmall Cub, 1949 JD B, 1951 Farmall Super A, 1951 Minneapolis Moline BF, 1964 Massey Ferguson 135 diesel).
Then the bad years came--I refer to the continuing CA drought now entering year five. In April 2014 the orchard growers in my area were cut off from surface water (Sacramento River) by the irrigation district. They started pumping groundwater big time.
In July 2014 my neighbor's well pump started sucking air. Pump is 90 ft below ground level. My well (about 500 feet away from her's) is 154 feet deep (a shallow well according to the Water Resources people since it's less than 200 ft deep) with the pump at 120 ft below ground level. When my well was drilled in May 2005, the water level measured 54 feet below the surface.
The Water Resources people have monitoring wells scattered around the county and check them several times per year. The latest data show that in the period from 2004-2014 the water level has dropped about 35 feet in my area. What's more alarming is that in the 2013-2014 period the water level dropped 11 feet out of the total of 35 feet. Not surprising since the local orchard growers are pumping a lot of ground water to keep their trees alive.
In July 2014 one of the local orchard growers near me (about 3/8 mile distant) had the driller guy out at his place to put in a new well to 400+ foot depth. Cost was about $35K. That was enough for me to think hard about my future.
I turned 73 in Nov 2014. Put the property on the market then. Had a contract from a pre-qualified buyer in 48 hours and the title company opened escrow the next day. Listed all the tractors, farm equipment and shop tools on Craigslist. Had that stuff sold by Christmas. Escrow closed 15 Jan 2015 and I moved to Sacramento into a rental about a city block from my son and daughter-in-law.
So to answer the original question: I feel real good about getting rid of the ranch and moving back to the city. No more sleepless nights wondering when my well was going dry.
Spend part of the day on continuing education. Take graduate level Internet courses from Stanford U (my degrees are in physics). Helps keep me mentally fit and fights off the Alzheimers, I hope.
dmccarty
Super Star Member
The money you have put into the place does not matter. When you sell, you will get the market value, so forget about your sweat equity, etc. If you have time, wait for the market to return and then sell for a better price, but in the end, you are going to get what the place is worth. We certainly want to make money off our home and land but how much we get will depend on when we sell, hopefully on our terms, and the market. The market is beyond our control.
We bought and built our house planning on living here until we were carried out. Now we are not so sure. The Carpet Baggers from up Nawth are ruining our county, development is getting here faster than we would have thought, development will be much denser than we expected, and worst of all, we now have a house so danged close we can their light through the forest at night during the winter! :shocked::laughing::laughing::laughing:
We designed the house so we could live in it with infirmities so it would be a perfect old person house to live in. Having said that, we are thinking of buying a boat and traveling while we have the health. One of the first things we have had to grapple with is the idea of getting rid of stuff. The reality is that we have danged little stuff that is of value to our family and those to anyone. There are a few things but that is it. When you think about what you have and realize it is only important to you, it helps with the idea of getting rid of the stuff. Stuff anchors you in place...
There is much we have to do to travel by boat, it will take years of work, and the odds of it happening are 50/50. IF it does happen, at some point we will have to return to land due to health, though there are plenty of much older people out there on boats. We figure if we are so old that we can't take care of our selves we will have to move where the kids are living and that is not likely to be where we live now.
There are a few very nice retirement homes near us. I would guess they are expensive but they sure are nice. We are no where near retirement age, much less retirement home age, but I could see living in one of these homes if we had too because of health reasons. Prefer no but you just never know....
Later,
Dan
Budweiser John
Platinum Member
A very interesting thread and many of the comments expressed here could apply to any estate sisutation regardless of whether rural or urban living.
By and large I feel the majority of rural dwellers have a deeper attachment to their living environments than do their city dewelling brethren. Moving from a fairly large metropolitan area to a rural neighborhood 44 years ago and now 72 I know I've lived here longer than I will live here looking forward.
I cannot fathom the idea leaving 44 years of blood, sweat, and tears with out the assistance of the local undertaker.
During our working years my wife and I invested conservatively and pleaded our cards close to the vest so short of a total acopolipce, can maintain our current lifestyle. When recently questing a investment guy about the best places to deeply asset's he replied: Given the state of the country, canned goods, liquor, and ammunition. To which I would add a slice of decent land, a few tools, a loving wife, and God's grace.
Bottom line, we're staying put.
B. John
By and large I feel the majority of rural dwellers have a deeper attachment to their living environments than do their city dewelling brethren. Moving from a fairly large metropolitan area to a rural neighborhood 44 years ago and now 72 I know I've lived here longer than I will live here looking forward.
I cannot fathom the idea leaving 44 years of blood, sweat, and tears with out the assistance of the local undertaker.
During our working years my wife and I invested conservatively and pleaded our cards close to the vest so short of a total acopolipce, can maintain our current lifestyle. When recently questing a investment guy about the best places to deeply asset's he replied: Given the state of the country, canned goods, liquor, and ammunition. To which I would add a slice of decent land, a few tools, a loving wife, and God's grace.
Bottom line, we're staying put.
B. John
TnAndy
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I understand the 200,000 hours of sweat equity. The number are off, but it sure feels that way ! 
We bought a RAW 75ac of mostly vertical mountain land here in East TN in 1982, and worked for a couple years just hacking out some pasture, a road in, a spring water system, and getting power to the place before we built the house. From a place that was nothing but woods at the end of a little county road, we've managed to build a fairly sustainable (feeds/waters/heats/powers us) homestead over 33 years. I'd guess we'd never get out of it what we've put into it, but I really don't care, and wouldn't change a thing. I've often said two things about the place:
1. I'm "X" number of years (currently 33) into a 50 year plan
2. My goal is for the NEXT guy not to have to do anything near what I had to do.
No kids to leave it too, no other relatives that would be interested. My plan is live here until we die. My next project is a caretaker cabin that hopefully we can get someone in that would help out with the mowing, firewood cutting, and general stuff like that in exchange for rent. Only reason I've put it off is trying to figure out HOW to find such a person.....and realizing the ideal one simply may not exist.
Like B.John above, wife and I also worked/invested, but I also planned on the possibility of a large scale collapse, and we've set ourselves up to ride things out no matter how they play out....if social security/pensions keep paying out, fine...we'll take them. If they don't, fine, the place is sustainable enough that we could live a reduced, but decent life without a dime of income for the rest of our lives.......I bought into John's financial guy advice a LONG time before he was probably giving it.
Looking down from the house to one of our gardens and chicken house.
From the top of one pasture....which was all timber when we started:
1982...Halfway up the driveway looking up to the house site with the initial 'hacking' out done:
Same view, about 4 years later:
We bought a RAW 75ac of mostly vertical mountain land here in East TN in 1982, and worked for a couple years just hacking out some pasture, a road in, a spring water system, and getting power to the place before we built the house. From a place that was nothing but woods at the end of a little county road, we've managed to build a fairly sustainable (feeds/waters/heats/powers us) homestead over 33 years. I'd guess we'd never get out of it what we've put into it, but I really don't care, and wouldn't change a thing. I've often said two things about the place:
1. I'm "X" number of years (currently 33) into a 50 year plan
2. My goal is for the NEXT guy not to have to do anything near what I had to do.
No kids to leave it too, no other relatives that would be interested. My plan is live here until we die. My next project is a caretaker cabin that hopefully we can get someone in that would help out with the mowing, firewood cutting, and general stuff like that in exchange for rent. Only reason I've put it off is trying to figure out HOW to find such a person.....and realizing the ideal one simply may not exist.
Like B.John above, wife and I also worked/invested, but I also planned on the possibility of a large scale collapse, and we've set ourselves up to ride things out no matter how they play out....if social security/pensions keep paying out, fine...we'll take them. If they don't, fine, the place is sustainable enough that we could live a reduced, but decent life without a dime of income for the rest of our lives.......I bought into John's financial guy advice a LONG time before he was probably giving it.
Looking down from the house to one of our gardens and chicken house.
From the top of one pasture....which was all timber when we started:
1982...Halfway up the driveway looking up to the house site with the initial 'hacking' out done:
Same view, about 4 years later:
oldpilgrim
Elite Member
Just to add to my previous posting above.........
How could I leave this? Can't see the road...or be seen from the road. In the middle of acres and acres of woods. If I want to shoot in the back yard I can. If I want to walk a couple hundred yards thru the woods, there's a private family owned pond for fishing. Deer, turkey, pheasants, rabbits, all think they live with me. They don't seem to mind if I'm on my porch with my dog watching them. Porch is not really in view in picture. My tractor and other toys are in a barn a couple hundred feet to the right.
As long as I'm able to get to my tractor, I'll be here....hopefully even longer than that.
How could I leave this? Can't see the road...or be seen from the road. In the middle of acres and acres of woods. If I want to shoot in the back yard I can. If I want to walk a couple hundred yards thru the woods, there's a private family owned pond for fishing. Deer, turkey, pheasants, rabbits, all think they live with me. They don't seem to mind if I'm on my porch with my dog watching them. Porch is not really in view in picture. My tractor and other toys are in a barn a couple hundred feet to the right.
As long as I'm able to get to my tractor, I'll be here....hopefully even longer than that.