What is your "end goal" with the land?
Will it always be a "place away from home" or do you see yourself moving there permanently down the road time wise?
I'm only assuming you're approaching retirement in the near future?
How long of a drive from your current residence to this place?
Personally, we're about 10 or so years away from retirement, but how my wife's 76 year old mother plays out will determine how quick or slow we sell our "too large house" with "too much property" to look to buy something smaller in the future. Thinking of subdividing our property and kind of do the same thing you're at now, except we'd be moving across the creek LOL This is why I ask the above questions.
I've followed your threads. You know how to build a house and on the homebuilding contracting side, you know what you're doing. The question is does the funds you put in this place take away from any other future plans if you don't plan on living there permanently?
On a plus note, since you bought the land outright with cash and got a decent deal on it and owe nothing, absolute worse case scenario is you sit on it and should only make more money down the road if you decide to sell it. ANYTHING you decide to build on this property should also increase your return on investment at least twofold with the way things are going cost wise.
Good question. Right now a place to get away to, but eventually maybe moving there if we like the immediate area and neighbors.
Or maybe flip the property if we think it won't work for us. Money in the bank is losing value, but real estate seems to be gaining.
this lot is convenient to I81, and less that 20 minutes to multiple groceries, Lowes, etc.
Originally I was looking for a lot with a better view. Before deciding on this lot, we had an offer on a property in WV that had magnificent view. We bailed on that when we found out wells in the area were over 700ft deep and would cost about $20-25K to drill. It was also almost entirely flat, on top of a mountain, and no trees. But the view. WV land was also an hour from most big stores like Lowes or HD. It did have TSC and food lion within a couple miles, and was only 2 miles out of town. It was an old orchard years ago.
I just retired the end of last year, so that dampens my spending cash, but I have more time now to work there.
it is 4 hours away, but 1 1/2 hrs from Mother in Law. Part of the reason for the location was to be a little closer to her if we retire there, but not too close. Plus we like the general area.
My current house is too big, and not handicap accessible. of course our friends here want us to stay and not move away. If we stay here too much longer, I need to make this house more handicap accessible, like maybe converting the garage to a master bed and bath on first floor, and then build a detached pole barn garage.
building permits seems reasonable in this area, but did find out they kind of control things with zoning permits. They won't issue permit to build a barn or any accessory structure without you first applying for house building permit. Even though zoned agricultural, they won't allow barn to be place forward of the front of the house (even though it's done all up and down the road, probably before this became a rule). Everything requires zoning permit also, even to set a shed that doesn't need building permit (under 250 sf I think). So putting the house on the hill in the woods could impact future barn location.
