Stories of how you came about your property

[BigBlue1]

A little over 6 years ago my wife and I decided to start looking for rural property. Our goal was small acreage with a nice house and hopefully a decent shed for storage and workshop. We made arrangements with a local realtor and spent a whole Saturday checking out about 5 potential properties that she suggested for us. Each was somewhat applicable but none were much to our liking. For instance, one was a beautiful log house but it sat on under 2 acres situated in such a way that it really wouldn't even have been possible to build a detached garage, and it was listed as being in a floodplain. Another had a decent small pole barn but the house was just not something we liked the layout of. Another was a superb 10 acre property with multiple outbuildings but with a 100+ year old farmhouse that was small and awkward. Another was a semi-decent house and land but it sat 200 yards from a large dairy farm, downwind. So it went. It was seeming like with our budget we were going to have to make some major sacrifices, either in property size, house style/age or no outbuilding.

We had just gotten home from that day of searching and disappointment when my wife's brother called. He knew we were looking and asked her "Are you still searching for a place? Well, I know of one you really should check out." Now her brother, who is a wonderful person and fantastic friend to me, has a different take on things. He's purchased a few old, decrepit homes and renovated them into something decent, but his tolerance for things is a bit different from ours. So we were a bit like "OK, wonder what he's actually talking about?". He does remodelling work and happened to be working for a guy doing some small home improvements because the guy was planning on selling the place. He owned it for about 8 years and it was just not what he and his wife really wanted. The brother assured us it was a pretty nice place.

It was about 35 minutes away from where we lived at the time but we jumped in the car and made the trip. Bear in mind, we were mentally exhausted at this point and were pretty pessimistic. As we rounded the curve in the road approaching the address we saw the place. First thing that hit me was the 50x105 new pole barn sitting there (yeah, as a guy I have priorities!). The house looked kind of bland and small though. We got out, knocked and went in. Boom, the world changed. The place was actually huge and was finished very nicely. Very modern and classy. Lots of room, lots of features, met everything we could have been hoping for. Then got a tour of the property and the shed. 10 acre lot, dozens of established old maple and oak trees, lots of lawn space, located off a tar county road, paved driveway, surrounded by fields with no neighbors within hundreds of yards, and those were other farmsites. It was perfect.

I feared that when we got to the "well, how much" part it was going to be a few hundred grand beyond our budget. So we started talking details. The owner was interested in selling without a realtor and was pretty motivated to sell. He didn't want to deal with cleaning the place up spotlessly and having weeks/months of showings. He had plenty of $$ and didn't need to make a huge profit on it (turns out he bought it from the original owner who ran short of money trying to finish the place himself and got it all quite cheaply). The price he came up with was right where we wanted to be. We left that evening with a statement of "we're pretty interested... we'll talk and get back to you." As we were pulling out of the driveway my wife said "you should have just written him a down payment check right there!!" Yes, it was the place.

Making it happen turned out to be a challenge in itself though. I had a house to sell in order to be able to buy this one and this was in 2015 when the economy was harsh and real estate was in the crapper. I had to sell my house for probably 40-50K less than it would have gone for 2 years prior (and what it went back up to within a year of my sale). It was on the market for months and we had a purchase agreement with the seller to hold it during that time. He was good about extending it and being understanding. He didn't have to sell it and he knew real estate was tough so he waited for us. It was very stressful trying to make all the pieces fall into place. It all turned out well though and after the first of the year we found a buyer and in Feb 2016 we moved into the new place. It's pretty much all we could hope for.

Here are a few pics:

 

[HawkinsHollow]

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....

Deezler, I am in the same situation as you are.
Our land is RIGHT on the outskirts of Chattanooga in Georgia. Actually our northern property line in the TN/GA border. But literally the second you leave Chattanooga into GA you are in the country. But still just minutes from the conveniences of the city. We are lucky that our 15 acres is surrounded by 200+ acres of totally undeveloped unbuildable land (lots of it floodplain), that will more than likely stay that way at least for a decade longer (I HOPE). But yes the light pollution and a bit of city noise being the main downfalls. But it is mine, and I am not complaining!

 

[buckeyefarmer]

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.

What happened with the tow happy neighbor?

 

[bcjmmac]

The maybe not as “exciting” as recent posts. Were looking for 3-5 acres but couldn’t find anything we liked. Last day in area, real estate agent suggested we check out a property that had been on market for a while.
No road appeal - overgrown with alders. Took walk down “lane” - more alders, some larch & lots of white birch. 80+ acres at bargain basement pricing. Decided to go for it.
Been here 11 years & love it. Built our retirement house & have been continually “improving” the property.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

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.

I was replying to the OP, who asked if he should buy improved pasture or rough woodland and clear it.

 

[Frankenkubota]

Franken, you mean the realtor didn't want the property to sell? Kind of hard to follow.

sorry.....

The listing for the land i bought i found on the internet. The listing was well over 2 years old. The listing contract had been canceled by the landowner 1 year earlier. I'm not even sure if that's legal?

The real estate agent simply never took the listing down
.
Im gonna guess the realtor quickly called the land owner for the first time in 2 years, said he had a buyer and tried to resurrect the listing. Hee heee...i wish i could have heard the land owners reply, he's old school!

What's sad is ...this kid....young realtor... comes from a prominent family in the area. His granddad is semi famous and i'm very familiar with granddads work so initially i thought it was kinda neat to meet his kin.

 

[Frankenkubota]

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!!

weekend rentals used to be a good deal around here...no more.

i had a trencher scheduled for a friday delivery and luckily i made the comment....i'm gonna run this thing 16 hours a day for 2 days.

that's when he told me i would be charged by the hour.

i hired a guy.

 

[PILOON]

weekend rentals used to be a good deal around here...no more.

i had a trencher scheduled for a friday delivery and luckily i made the comment....i'm gonna run this thing 16 hours a day for 2 days.

that's when he told me i would be charged by the hour.

i hired a guy.

LOL, also once rented an excavator over a W/E but as I checked the oil level I discovered that the hour meter was actually connected to the oil pressure switch.

Needless to say that machine was returned with the exact allotted hours on the meter.

In my area W/E rate is usually day and half, i.e. 12 hours.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Yeah, I have done 2 weekend rentals from the Bobcat dealership, 1 skid steer with EXTREME bush hog and a mini ex. I am not sure how many hours I put on it but probably in the 15+ hour range. There was no discussion of allotted hours for the weekend rental and they never came back to charge me more. I called a few weeks ago because I was thinking about renting one over my Thanksgiving break (I am a teacher). They said they would drop it off on Wednesday and pick it up Monday but I was only allowed 10 hours over that time. I was a little disappointed but still might do it because it will allow me to take my time. We'll see.

 

[California]

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.

When the the coyotes howled in the night, a feral peacock would sing in chorus with them.

Ever heard a peacock scream? Think of a woman being dismembered. Loudly.

Here's a photo when the turkeys came by. Then a jackrabbit ran through. I love this apple orchard.