Real estate General topic

[kenmbz]

The 5 acre rule stops mass building. 5 acres vs. apartments/condos.
No way to stop farms from splitting except preservation or deed rules.

Preservation for tax breaks keeps many of the farms whole.

Most of the big farms one town over are gone, the largest one just split and sold off a big chunk.

The small dairy, beef and produce are still kicking in my town.
Most of the acreage has been non-farm private residence for a while.

No reason you can't build on your own property here with proper permits.
We have a separate garage/apartment on our property.
Can't split it and sell it though.

 

[WinterDeere]

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.....

My aunt had something to do with that. Not the one across the street from you, but the one that backs up to that, about 1 mile to your northwest.

When she wanted to sell the farm, every potential buyer was a developer. Wanting to avoid that, she negotiated with the township for the largest lot size that could never be subdivided. At the time (1993?), the township made some adjustments to their zoning, and settled on 6 acres.

So, she divided about 199 of her 276 acres up into 6-acre parcels, sold under contract to individual buyers, with a condition that they had to build within 24 months or sell it back to her. The goal was keeping that stretch of the township as rural as possible, and blocking potential developers out.

One field of 40 acres, which had apparently been purchased from a neighboring family in the 1960's, was offered back to that family. Of course, they turned around and resold that to a developer. Now you know why there's one big development on that road.

After that, and the sale of one or two other farms in that neighborhood, the township started giving more serious thought to preservation, and modifying zoning to discourage development. Hence my uncle's farm, just across the street from your place, if I recall. Under preservation since 2002, I think?

 

[WinterDeere]

yep, its awful. All the larger farms are preserved now.

Yeah... just try buying one of them!

Filtering Zillow for 5+ acres in your corner of the state puts sold property prices at $1.2M - $4M, with only a few exceptions lower.

 

[4570Man]

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.....

Your town cost themselves millions in tax revenue and pushed housing even more expensive. I wouldn’t call that smart at all. The population is increasing while the land area isn’t. It’s not hard math to see that everyone can’t build on a large piece of land.

 

[WinterDeere]

Your town cost themselves millions in tax revenue and pushed housing even more expensive. I wouldn’t call that smart at all.

It is. With the higher prices comes other benefits to those living there. It is a small high-wealth bubble area.

 

[kenmbz]

Your town cost themselves millions in tax revenue and pushed housing even more expensive. I wouldn’t call that smart at all.

It has kept us from huge tax raises and the mess of traffic, like the towns who did not do the limits.
My last town, had more apartments popping up and the taxes went up about $1000/year.

So more growth does not reduce taxes, it makes the need for huge infrastructure changes and upgrades.
They told everyone how rateables would go up and stop tax increases.

They lied. new lights, school builds, roads amazing how much these all cost.

Same thing is happening in the two towns near me, 20 to 25% tax increase.

Traffic jams, where farms used to be.

 

[plowhog]

They lied. new lights, school builds, roads amazing how much these all cost.

Then add police, fire, hospitals, etc. Then figure a lot of infrastructure has limited life, and 20 years later its being dug up and replaced. While taxes keep going up up up to fund it.

I'll stick with the rural lifestyle ...

 

[4570Man]

Your house is worth 2-3 times what it was worth 5 years ago. How would you expect your taxes to not increase regardless of what anyone else builds? I’m not following the idea that more building equals higher taxes either.

 

[plowhog]

Your house is worth 2-3 times what it was worth 5 years ago. How would you expect your taxes to not increase regardless of what anyone else builds?

Even if house prices stay the same, inflation is going to push up salaries for road workers, police officers, teachers, etc. And push up retirement benefit. And the cost of building materials.

Once infrastructure is in place, the cost to keep it going, and maintained, is going to increase. It's only very loosely connected to real estate value.

Look at the opposite-- when house values go down, do the local teachers get paid less?

 

[ericm979]

Oregon seems to have a pretty good system for keeping farmland in farms. Each town or city has to declare an urban growth boundary following state guidelines. Outside that, it's usually tough to change the zoning or subdivide though that depends some on the county. It seems to have greatly reduced the kind of suburban sprawl on what was formerly good farmland that has happened a lot in California.

Oregonians complain that the regulations are why housing is expensive, but I don't think it's a major factor. In most places I have seen there are still a lot of parcels to build on within the growth boundary, and the availability of land is just one factor of many that determines how expensive it is to build a house.