Visualizing An Acre

[chrislrob]

My experience is that a seriously distressed property won't necessarily be listed as a house with land.
Wonder if there is a way of doing online small-town newspaper classified searches...?Get a local paper and see how they break down the listings.  Here in S. Ohio the listings have subtitles of "Homes", "Homes with acreage", "Farms", "Vacant land", plus "Building lots" and "Commercial"

[Wonder if there is a way of doing online small-town newspaper classified searches...? Some company that owns a bunch or an organization or something?]

Thanks for this, Poppy.

I'll keep that in mind.

Keep the search broad.

It reminds me of one of my own real estate buying tips--what your buyer may look for as a feature, a seller may hide or discount as a flaw. An example: years ago i heard of a guy that was buying up old 1 bedroom houses to sell to retired-types.  Such a house is usually worth very little since most people at least want the option of having a spare room for kids or a guest or a den.  So most owners were either selling very cheap or hiding the number of rooms or insisting that the walk-thru dining room was a bedroom.  This fools no one. But what if kids and guests are what you are trying to avoid?  The kids can't "boomerang" home if there's no place to "boomerang" to. And as rentals, you can always expect a lot less wear-and-tear when you've got less occupants.

I heard he was doing quite well.

I have personally had buyers tell me they don't want a basement because they fear flooding (happens occasionally) in a city where EVERYONE has a basement and doesn't want a house without one.

I would love to find a bad house on good land because it probably has utilites, is on dry land, percs, etc. But I can see how sellers would not bother to mention the structure do to turning people of re habitability, demolition, it's an eyesore, etc.

[MountainDon]

One thing to remember about buying an old run down place, but with working utilities; electric, well, septic is that the old stuff may not be up to modern day code. In some places that may even put the kibosh on renovation work, let alone tear it down and build new. That varies with locale and is something to check before signing the final papers.

As many others have said where the acre is located makes a big difference. Our 3 acres in the heavily forested mountains feels a lot bigger than an acre back home in the glacial lake bottom flat prairies of Canada.

[Don_P]

Along those lines it might be worth checking out the existing well if you are counting on it. We built for one couple on an old homestead that had an open well, I tried to pump it clear multiple times when we had the genny going and never got decent water out of it. I also suspected it had been used as a dump. That has the potential of polluting the surrounding water table. We were often the first ones using a new well, several times before any tests had come back. On one old farm the nitrates in the water were tremendous. A little thinking would have made that one obvious it had been in corn/beans for years. I also have issues with building on tillable land but that's probably more than anyone wants to hear.

This is some info on land measurement from Eric Sloane, any of his books are a joy to read.
A gunter's chain is 66' long, invented in 1620 by the English mathematician Edmund Gunter. It contains 100 links.
Ten square chains is an acre-66 x 66 x 10= 43560
Eighty chains is a mile- 80 x 66=5280'
A rod, pole or perch is also known as a quarter chain- 16-1/2' so 4 rods per chain
The old standard length for a fence rail was 11', a field could be quickly estimated by counting rails, 6 rails per chain.

A 6 rail fence consumed one acre of virgin timber per 10 acres surrounded. Second growth and later wood was not nearly as durable, often needing replacement in just a few years. Prior to wire fencing one thing that caused part of the westward migration was a lack of timber for fences. By 1883 it was estimated that we had 6 million miles of wood fence in this country.

[chrislrob]

Moderators, I apologize that this seems to be drifting into a "land buying" thread.

But. In the last few days I've discovered two websites that seem pretty good. Both are real estate ad aggregators.  One is www.landwatch.com.  1000's of rural properties and while I don't have a good feel for prices, they seem better than what I see on Craigslist.

Even better is www.oodle.com, which seems to catch everything listed on Land Watch. It also grabs a lot of country real estate agents. And those agents *are* listing properties for $30,000 or less. Plus it lets me set up a search and emails me updates. Or I can set up an RSS feed for the search in my Google Reader.

Don P., what's wrong with building on "tillable land"? (That's farmland, right?)

[Mike 870]

There is nothing wrong with it per say, except that if you only have a small amount of what one would call "tillable", you may not want to ruin it by putting a house over it.  Keep in mind tillable can mean different things, but in general I would say it means relatively flat, well drained soil that is good for agriculture.  If you drive around in the county and look at older farms you will see most of the barns are built into hillsides or small berms, because farmers didn't want to take up any prime farming space with an outbuilding.

[Squirl]

One of the best I used was realtor.com.  I would use the advanced search and type in the name of a town.  I would type in a minimum of five acres and 20 miles around.  I would tell it just land and hit search.  It automatically sorted by lowest price first.  This will give you a good start to seeing what the average price is in an area.

[waggin]

Great idea to start with something with improvements/utilities on site already.  They add up quickly, and have far more onerous permit requirements than they used to.

If you want some kind of water feature (creek, pond, etc) on site, be sure the site is large enough to allow for setbacks from that water feature to property improvements you might want in the future.  An older house may have a deck you can fish from, but in my county, to do something like that now, you'd better be able to cast about 165', because that's how far away you would need to be in most cases from waterfront to build.  If it's already there, you're likely grandfathered in, but be careful.  Even being grandfathered in on setbacks, ABC permitting, etc, you may not be able to expand unless you meet current code/zoning.  Before buying, check the FEMA maps for flooding issues too.
[/quote]

One thing to remember about buying an old run down place, but with working utilities; electric, well, septic is that the old stuff may not be up to modern day code. In some places that may even put the kibosh on renovation work, let alone tear it down and build new. That varies with locale and is something to check before signing the final papers.

Around here, an existing structure doesn't have to meet current code, unless you're remodeling.  Then, the new work will have to.  However, you might have an issue with something like existing knob & tube wiring with your insurance company if you're planning on isuring it.  If you're close to water, an older septic system may have to be updated or relocated, but in most cases unless you're an imminent hazard to water quality, you're probably grandfathered in.  Reference my previous quote above: as soon as you start changing the footprint or expanding, you then can run into issues with setbacks, septic, well, etc.  If you keep your existing footprint, you'll likely be ok as ABC, even without an as-built or permit.  Another thing to research is whether  your property can fall under "recreational use" and have less stringent regulations.  IE, if you're using it less than say, 180 days per year, is there a different standard for site requirements.  Do your due diligence in advance; surprises can be expensive & unwelcome.

[MushCreek]

I recently found out that in my mother's town in CT, if you tear down, or otherwise lose your certificate of occupancy on a place with an old house, you have to start all over, and must meet current code. For example, my mother's septic system is too close both to her well, and to her pond by current code. As long as the house remains 'habitable', you're OK. Tear it down to build another house- big expense to get legal again.

[MountainDon]

That is very typical I believe. Even renovations done under a permit get caught up in things like the septic no longer has the capacity for the larger space  extra new toilet or whatever.

[John Raabe]

Yes, especially if adding a bedroom. Septic systems are designed to a bedroom count.

Also, you have to resent code compliance in some localities if the cost of a new remodel is over 1/2 the current value of the house.

[Onkeludo2]

First time posting here...and on an ancient thread no less...but I figured I could add some information if the OP is still looking.  When I am home, which is rare, home is Hammond, Indiana.

Farming in the area just over the Indiana border is not as profitable as it once was and many of the small family farms (under 100 acres) are struggling to get by or failing completely.  In places like Lowel, IN you can find 10 acre tracts with original barns and outbuildings plus and older farmhouse for under $250K.  For a Chicago dweller, that would seem quite the deal.  Often the farmhouse is salvageable but just as often not.  Indiana has very reasonable code requirements and enforcement for the most part.