apocalypse « Robin Writes

Good grief. Realtors are nuts—apologies to those I know. I’ve seen so many listings with either no pictures, pictures of neighboring property, or artistic pictures which look pretty but tell you nothing. Also, if a realtor doesn’t give an address, it’s really flippin’ hard to find on Google or wherever.

And clients. Sheesh. We made an offer on that property I talked about last week, a verbal one; no sense in doing reams of paperwork if the seller isn’t interested. Sheesh. Yes, I said it again.

So here’s what happened:

We told our agent to make the offer at $1,000 per acre. I’m not stupid, I researched first, and what I came up with was that land in that area averaged $975 an acre. By the way, the asking price was $65,000, or $1,548.

It took 10 days for the seller to respond. Hello? Email? Whatever. She said it was too low to counter, that other properties were around $1,700 per acre, it was “cleared,” and besides, it was “beautiful.”

Yeah, so?

Realtors, you know the drill—people have attachments to their homes and land, they think it’s awesome, etc., etc. I clearly remember a house we looked at a few years ago that boasted “new carpet!” It was bright blue. Bright. Blue. Hideous, to probably everyone but the seller.

Well, this chick is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. “Beauty” has little to do with the value; the picturesque barn is a white elephant; “cleared” is not the same thing as two small tracts of pasture. And yes, the price is too high—it’s been on the market for six months. The property she thinks is comparable has usable outbuildings, or wells, or septic, etc.

Well, in the interests of buying a piece of property now, because we’re running behind schedule, we upped it to $50K with a formal offer. Guess what? We can’t do that until the listing agent re-ups it on the MLS. The listing expired. Go figure. The agent is a 20-something who appears to be working for Daddy. Fine, just do the damn job. And quit taking those artsy-fartsy pictures!

This weekend, we went back to look at the “barn property.” You have to understand something: where we’re looking for land is covered with county roads, CRs, and they all have numbers. And you know how well I work with numbers! So we could call them CR-124 or CR-131 or whatever, and we’d be, literally, all over the map. Of course, I still haven’t figured out counties number these things; as soon as it starts to make some kind of sense, they change the rules . . .

Anyway, the property is 42 acres, roughly one-third pasture. Not exactly what I was envisioning, but it has a lot of good qualities. I think this could work. Most of the woods are on a hill, and surround the property. County road frontage—gravel—and a back way in too. Electric on site, no well, but there is a live creek bordering the entire west side.

The front pasture is fenced, about seven acres, with an adjoining barn. A really big one, too, but unfortunately it’s in really, really bad shape. I think there’s more roof missing than still attached, and the inside is rotting quite a lot. But there’s the electric—ha!

Straight back through the front “gate,” which is just a cable now, there is an opening to the back pasture; that’s about seven acres as well, rough estimate.

First things first: we need better measurements and an official plat, of course, to know the particulars, but the plan is to purchase over the winter, in the next month or so, this section or maybe another—hard to say, and still keeping our options open, but we’re getting close.

However, IF we were to buy this piece, here are our starter ideas (keeping in mind, of course, that the actual move date is June 1, 2016—not THIS June!):

First, we need a driveway; gravel, of course. This requires removal of topsoil, grass, etc., before the first layer of gravel is put down. I’m certainly not opposed to driving through the meadow, but mud could be a factor at some point—not sure AAA comes out there! So, remove topsoil, pack it, three layers of gravel. The entire process is not a rush job, as the more we drive it, the more each layer gets packed down.

Second, build a latrine and put in a solar shower. We’ll be camping out and working down there for a year or so before we actually finish the cabin, so, yeah . . .

Third, a kitchen shelter—my camp peeps will know exactly what it’s going to look like! Counters, a couple picnic tables, a stone barbeque pit, and cabinets for cookware storage.

Fourth, we’re putting in a pond, in the front pasture. Dennis likes to fish, we have a feeder creek, and the livestock will need it too. So, Number Four, dig a really big hole. And build a dock. And maybe get a canoe . . . Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself . . .

Next, plow up the garden. We’ll plant some things this spring, like asparagus and strawberries. And gourds; I have a market for those. We’ll put in the fruit trees then, too.

After that, we just need to decide where the outbuildings will go: general storage, woodshed/fuel, toolshed/shop, pump house and food storage. And the cabin, of course.

Once those are staked out, we can decide where to drill the well and get that taken care of—yes, we’ll be hauling water for a bit, but that’s doable.

Now, my original plan was to have, like Mike said, the cleared acreage in the middle of the property. Well, that seems to be quite difficult to find, at least in our price range. So, we may have to make do.

There are always compromises, and I can tell you about a big one—cell service. Yes, I’m planning on self-sufficiency, but I also have a company to run. So, yeah, that whole “out in the middle of nowhere, but with WiFi?” Yep, that’s me.