Stories of how you came about your property

[deezler]

Luck and persistence is how I snagged my chunk of land. I had always wanted to secure a parcel in the Ann Arbor area (near all our friends and family, and my work) but prices were crazy, and availability was slim. Plus I am kinda picky - wanted lots of trees, needed some elevation change (I hate flat land) and a water feature would be icing on the cake. I also can't stand dirt roads, where most rural properties obviously reside.

On some random dinners to a friends house, I noticed a for sale sign on a piece of wooded frontage, in an otherwise pretty developed area. But on the internet, I couldn't find any listing for it. odd. Turns out it was only listed commercially; "development opportunity: great opportunity to build a senior center or townhouses, etc". 19 acres for $750,000. Uh, ok, never mind.
Well a year goes by, and the for-sale sign comes down. I didn't think much of it. But then a new realty for-sale sign goes up, and now it's got an MLS number. Same parcel, 19 acres now listed for $250,000. I become tempted, but frankly I can't afford anything near that price. My wife and I park in the crude driveway and trudge through the brush to check it out. Hills, nice trees, and a creek running through the back! Lovely. Back at the car a neighbor has left a nice note on the windshield "THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY, YOUR CAR WILL BE TOWED". I contemplate a lowball offer, but then eventually the sale sign says "pending". Darn, guess I missed it.

A few more months go by, and the property is re-listed again, for $160,000 - the prior sale fell apart. Now we're talking. I still can't afford that much, I don't need 19 acres of space, and my wife is nervous about taking a financial risk. But we consult with friends and family, get a little safety net in place, and decide to offer... $90,000. The property is bank owned, after foreclosing on a bankrupt developer. They don't want to own it another day. They counter offer my 90k with 100k, which is quite reasonable around here for 19 acres. But we get good advice and just re-offer 90k. Accepted!

Started by buying a tractor, and hacking in some trails. It was rough going at first; all invasive bushes and vines choking the trees out. And I had no idea what I was doing, haha. Once some trails were in, I hired a surveyor to plot out splitting the property up. We sold 2.9 acres to friends who might build some day, and 6 acres to other friends who did build a few years ago, right after we did on our final 10 acre chunk.

There are subdivisions and apartment complexes all around our area, but somehow my square-mile block of land was mostly left alone from developers (pressure continues to rise). I feel so amazingly fortunate to pull in my driveway every afternoon after work, back to my sanctuary of trees. Another friend bought 10.6 acres directly south of us. I helped convince the county to protect the 50 acres behind us as a nature preserve (had previously been approved as a 100-unit sub... yuck). The land right behind my house to the north is a steep hill down to wetland - probably not easy to develop. Basically sitting in a 100+ acres of nature in a super urban spot. Beautiful woods, but you still hear a lot of sirens, motorcycles and subwoofers LOL.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

You are going to have to roll some big iron to clear wooded property. It won't be cheap. Pick a large Cat with brush ripper teeth on the back to bulldoze the wood into slash piles for burning. You are going to have to flatten the ground back out after ripping up roots and stumps. Follow that with a good sized tractor with a heavy duty landscape rake and more burning. Disc the land, plant a pasture mix, usually a perennial grass and white clover, and keep it mowed to suppress weed and tree seedling growth. If you plant in the fall, you should be able to get a cutting of hay and graze it lightly the next year. Keep the grass mowed or it will shade out the clover. Fencing and cross fencing will be necessary for rotational grazing, which will minimize the amount of mowing you have to do.

 

[kenmbz]

We got tired of being in NJ and watching apartments going up in what had been our small community.
Taxes were going up about $1000/year! and traffic was increasing constantly, from empty lanes to backed up traffic.
Started looking in my wife's old neighborhood, Very expensive area, huge houses.
Found a smaller house on 6 acres, been here 5 years now, constant challenge with dead ash trees, stiltgrass invasives.
But I can do a lot of the work myself and have started trails, cleared out bamboo and brush.

I work in NYC, and coming home from the big city to my calm quiet home relieves the stress.

 

[03 shaker]

Thanks for all the great replies. I enjoy the stories about where people live and how they got there. I'll definitely be around this forum a lot in the years to come

 

[deezler]

You are going to have to roll some big iron to clear wooded property. It won't be cheap. Pick a large Cat with brush ripper teeth on the back to bulldoze the wood into slash piles for burning. You are going to have to flatten the ground back out after ripping up roots and stumps. Follow that with a good sized tractor with a heavy duty landscape rake and more burning. Disc the land, plant a pasture mix, usually a perennial grass and white clover, and keep it mowed to suppress weed and tree seedling growth.

Larry, dunno it you were replying to me, but I mostly beg to differ. I didn't need to "clear" my wooded property, I just needed carve out a nice homesite, and to thread a driveway in to it. So for the most part, I left the big trees alone and just worked around them. That said, even digging up stumps of the smaller 8-12" diameter trees was ROUGH on my poor tractor's front loader. But she's still kicking, just a bent up bucket LOL. I did eventually learn to just spend $700 on a weekend excavator rental when I had more stumps to remove.

So yeah, it actually was pretty cheap. $10k for my lifetime tractor, and some cases of beer for any friends of family who helped put in some days of chainsawing. I didn't need to rush anything, or clearcut. Not making pasture land, just a homesite.

 

[newbury]

I can update this thread now, tomorrow we close on 9.5 acres. No improvements on it, all wooded, just outside of town, and less than an hour commute to work. Excited to be buying it but now all the real work begins of building a house and turning it into what we want for a home.

Good to hear you closed. And thanks for wrapping up the thread.
Whereabouts in N. Alabama? I'm over near Red Bay.
We bought our most recent piece in 2011 near Golden, MS from an ad I saw in the Tupelo newspaper. Just a real short ad, few details. Understated the land area as 2 acres instead of 3.5
I think the real estate agent was doing a favor for a friend. The place was a mess from a sales point of view. Just tons of clothes like a hoarders house on TV.
But the house was sound, had a great view AND
The shops

Attachments

• 
  outside-shops-cropped.jpg

  88.8 KB · Views: 184

were one of the main selling points for me. One needed a new roof but all 5,500 sq feet had a good thick concrete base.

 

[03 shaker]

Good to hear you closed. Whereabouts in N. Alabama? I'm over near Red Bay.

Arab. About 45 minutes south of Huntsville. I don't think i've ever spent much time west of Bankhead in that part of the state.


As for clearing land, our plan right now is to clear about an acre for a house and yard and work on the rest of the property as time and money allows. Not sure what route we're going to take yet as far as hiring it out separately, renting a machine, or having the house builder include it in his work. We're not in a rush and haven't even dug into house plans yet.

In a few weeks I may start a separate thread about to detail and get advice on my land/house build/turning it into a homeplace adventure.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Depending on how much serious grading needs to be done I would rent a mini ex and at least start clearing areas for a road and house site. It is not expensive ($450 and around here you can rent on a Friday and have all weekend), it is HIGHLY satisfying (every 10 sqft. you clear makes your property look 100x better), and it is fun! Just my $0.2

Oh yeah and congrats!! So much to look forward to!!

 

[deserteagle71]

Beautiful woods, but you still hear a lot of sirens, motorcycles and subwoofers LOL.

I hope I never have to live in an area with that kind of noise pollution.

Just the sound of the wind is all I hear most of the time...but some evenings there's a beautiful coyote chorus to listen to.

 

[deezler]

I hope I never have to live in an area with that kind of noise pollution.

Just the sound of the wind is all I hear most of the time...but some evenings there's a beautiful coyote chorus to listen to.

It's not like its continuous, just here and there with whatever obnoxious people want to blast out of their vehicles or motorcycles. The night sky light pollution is worse, though. Takes a rare ultra clear night to get a full sky of stars here. Then again michigan is mostly cloudy anyway lol.

We have 5 amazing restaurant/bars just 1.5 miles away, dozens more under 4 or 5 miles. I can get to three major highways in under 5 minutes each, DTW international airport only 25 minutes away. My parents, our kids schools, any type of shopping you could imagine, concerts, festivals, all right nearby. My commute is a mellow 13 miles of rural farmland/housing, 20 mins or less. We wanted to live near everything. I just didn't expect to have a pristine woodland property that would sit right in the middle of all of it.

All the venison you could possibly want to nab here, too. I also get frequent coyote choruses! The funny thing is, what usually sets off their singing is a train honking as it rolls through town. Sometimes a 3-alarm fire will trigger them too, haha.

Tradeoffs....