Real estate General topic

[kenmbz]

In my town, they got smart and changed to 5 acre min lot for new builds.
Next town over in either direction, apartments and condos bloom like flowers.

Latest "luxury" condos at 1million plus, just wow.....

 

[paulsharvey]

In my town, they got smart and changed to 5 acre min lot for new builds.
Next town over in either direction, apartments and condos bloom like flowers.

Latest "luxury" condos at 1million plus, just wow.....

Just to play devils advocate; making everything in a town 5 acre min is a terrible move from a city/town infrastructure. It decreases the ability to hook up multiple homes on utilities, increases the lane miles of roads to provide service, ect. You can also make an argument that it decreases the overall available land for property owners. Say a small rural ag parcel sells, that's 50 acres; with that kinda rule, you pretty garantee it will be 10 5 acres pieces, each too small foe productive use; instead of maybe 2 20 acre pieces, and 10 1 acre pieces.

 

[paulsharvey]

What I was trying to say, Many times, what sounds like a good rule has unintended negative consequences that noone really thought about.

 

[Sigarms]

What I was trying to say, Many times, what sounds like a good rule has unintended negative consequences that noone really thought about.

No different than many other laws

 

[paulsharvey]

Several years ago, the medium sized college city 30 minutes west of me tried to pass a rule banning new construction of single family homes within the city limits. With out bringing left vs right knoda talk into it, the side pushing this idea really thought that it would make apartments/town homes/duplexes pop up, and drop housing costs. I also have no doubt it was driven in part by green issue, as well as reducing the costs to bring city services to customers. Now, if we assume a city did do that, can you imagine the effect it would have on existing single family homes.

Historic protection/zoning also; I get the intent, keep all the historic (not just Old, but having historic relevance) buildings from being destroyed. The flip side, often this prevents people from buying/remodeling and Using the historic buildings, leading to them just sitting there to decay and become drug houses.

 

[LouNY]

Just to play devils advocate; making everything in a town 5 acre min is a terrible move from a city/town infrastructure. It decreases the ability to hook up multiple homes on utilities, increases the lane miles of roads to provide service, ect. You can also make an argument that it decreases the overall available land for property owners. Say a small rural ag parcel sells, that's 50 acres; with that kinda rule, you pretty garantee it will be 10 5 acres pieces, each too small foe productive use; instead of maybe 2 20 acre pieces, and 10 1 acre pieces.

That's what private wells and septic systems are for, and good gravel roads.

 

[kenmbz]

Just to play devils advocate; making everything in a town 5 acre min is a terrible move from a city/town infrastructure. It decreases the ability to hook up multiple homes on utilities, increases the lane miles of roads to provide service, ect. You can also make an argument that it decreases the overall available land for property owners. Say a small rural ag parcel sells, that's 50 acres; with that kinda rule, you pretty garantee it will be 10 5 acres pieces, each too small foe productive use; instead of maybe 2 20 acre pieces, and 10 1 acre pieces.

yep, its awful. All the larger farms are preserved now.
Taxes are stable.
Roads are pretty good.
No new condos, no new apartments. Only houses.

Well/sceptic for all.
No gas lines though.

 

[paulsharvey]

yep, its awful. All the larger farms are preserved now.
Taxes are stable.
Roads are pretty good.
No new condos, no new apartments. Only houses.

Well/sceptic for all.
No gas lines though.

Hmm, how does 5 acre min preserve farms? If anything, I would expect it to create a short supply of build able lots, and encourage more farms to be divided.

Or, are we implying that blocking development completely preserved the Town for a period of time.

I'm not saying it's good or bad, or that it did or didn't work. I'm just saying that the end result of splitting 400 acres into 80 home sites or 80 acres into 80 home sites and the remaining 320 acres remaining in Ag are different, but both results.

 

[paulsharvey]

Also, speaking on unintended consequences; many times rules/zoning/laws, intended to preserve Ag (often by well intended but uninformed folks), end up killing it. Basically, when you remove the ability to get loans against the 'highest and best' value of a property, you remove the ability foe an existing ag operation to modernize/expand/invest/continue.

Let's say you inherited your folks old, small,
200 acre potatoes field, and some tired old equipment. You need a $250,000 loan to get it back in production; if you can't borrow against the only asset the ag operation has, you simply won't be able to put it back into production.

Also, as much as people hate to hear this; in that same case above, maybe instead of risking the whole 200 acres with a loan against it, maybe you section off 2 5-10 acre pieces to sell; and you have the operating money, and still have 180-190 acres that went from unused to a business.

 

[paulsharvey]

Rules about having a second residence on a property are meant to prevent everything from turning into a trailer park; but it also prevents you from adding a cheap single wide to your property for your aging parents to live in, close to assistance/family.

It's all Issac Newton's fault; every action had an equal and opposite reaction.