Beginning to look for land in OK

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Just got back from yet another land/house hunting adventure.  Today, everything I looked at was interesting.  The best was the 40 acres mentioned above.  Very nice land, $2K/acre, fenced.  On a hill with a good view.  Most of the land was open, with some trees.  Two small creeks and a good pond site in the SW corner of the land.  All but about the front acre or so was in native tall grass prairie and looked like it'd never really been touched by humans.  There was another 26 acres for sale adjoining it in an L-shape, and it had some pretty ponds on it...  Good gravel roads to the main road, which wasn't too far away, 4 miles and all paved from there to a nice 4-lane to the city.  The additional 26 acres was listed at $59K, I think.  It would be nice to have both, but probably not necessary.  I would go for the 40 that had road access rather than the 26 with the ponds. 

Anyway, the next one was 20 acres and had a house and a big metal shop building.  The shop was really nice and had power, heat and ac, and water... there was a bathroom with a shower, and an office.  It also had an extra-tall garage door type opening.  The house was simple but fairly nice.  It had a crawl space foundation, a two-car carport and a big patio.  I walked around the house and didn't see any foundational problems, no cracks or gaps, but inside the house, there were a few cracks in the sheet rock around some of the windows.  I couldn't tell what they were from??  It looked like it could have been a water problem, but the roof looked brand new.  I didn't see water  damage anywhere else, either.  They are asking $250,000 for the house and land.  It is a pretty place, but I don't think it's THAT pretty.  The house looked and felt cozy and homey, and it was kind of tucked just under the top of the hill, so the wind wasn't quite as ferocious as some places today.   There was also a huge stocked pond on the place.  Good fences and gates.  Closest to DH's work of the places we looked at today.  Took me less than 30 minutes from there to the house.  The shop was really really nice... it was probably 40' by 35' (a guess) and quite an expensive building.  I think it added more value than the house.  The house had 4 beds and two baths, but it was not a particularly large house, by any means.  The bathrooms were both tiled in really nice tile on the floors and 3/4 up the walls and in the shower enclosures.  Kitchen was gorgeous and well-arranged.  The stove was electric (a minus, IMO) but the hot water and heat were propane (a good thing.)  What do you think a metal building like the shop I described would cost?  Just by itself?  I'm thinking that's where the majority of the money they're asking for is coming from... just looking, I bet it wasn't cheap to build.    Anyway, the spillway from the pond emptied into a small clear creek that ran along parallel to the side of the property line and under the road about 20 yards from the driveway.  The drive was a mix of cement and gravel, so it didn't appear to be in danger of washing away anytime soon (and believe me, it would've last week if it was going to at all!)

The last one we looked at was a double wide manufactured home on 8.5 acres.  It was well-laid-out and secluded in the woods, and the location wasn't bad.  It was honestly a really good floorplan and a really pretty home.  My only qualm with it was that it was almost entirely wooded, and wouldn't be much for farming, or even much for gardening.  The soil looked sandier than the other places we looked, and very little of the acreage was open land.  No fence.  Very quiet and peaceful, though.  Pretty place, but wouldn't meet all of our requirements.

[glenn kangiser]

The building could vary quite a bit but that size -- I would guess a steel frame pre-engineered building shell and slab around $30 to $40 or more per square foot plus electrical - office- plumbing,  etc.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I was wrong on the price of the one with the shop... it is $230K, not $250 as I said before.... I am thinking that the shop would be the thing DH would love about it.  Did I mention that the shop had several windows and a covered porch with deck seating in front of it, too? 

[glenn kangiser]

I don't remember you mentioning that, but just allow me to add that the shop would be my number one concern also.

[MountainDon]

You can always build or modify homes and shop buildings, etc. But it's harder to modify the land if you're not completely happy with it.   

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Good point, Don.  That first 40 acres I looked at was really pretty... not sure about the neighbors though.  They're the ones selling the land, and when we showed up to look at it, the lady's realtor hadn't warned her we were coming (and apparently it's not the first time that's happened) and so her man-eating dogs were loose and running around.  She has several horses, mostly young ones, and it doesn't seem like the dogs were bothering them, but I wonder how they would be about staying home if we bought the property.  She has a deed restriction that says you can't put in a salvage yard or a subdivision, which is of no concern to me, but they have a lot of junk piled around their place, and can't help but think it's a little hypocritical.  Anyway, she was ticked at her realtor because he hadn't warned her we were coming (and to be fair, it was still fairly early in the morning for some folks.) She was a little grouchy about it.  But the land itself was gorgeous and healthy.  There was a stand of trees in the middle of the east part and another one at the south west side, and some of them were cedars, which we'd have to control to keep them from taking over the area.  Most of it was tall grass prairie.  The bluestem and Indian grass was as tall as me...looked like the majority of it had never been grazed or plowed (the front few acres has been planted with something else at some point, but still looks good and doesn't have a lot of weedy species in it.)  Anyway, I want to go back when it is not so incredibly windy and walk the entire perimeter of the land (we didn't go the whole way because we were literally blowing away and all the horses saw us and swarmed us like a pack of puppies, thinking we had treats for them, and my realtor was a little scared of them (city girl.)  They kept coming up and nuzzling her and she would get kind of panicky, which was hilarious.  They were just young and curious. 

The 20 acre property with the shop was proportionally about the amount of woods and open prairie I would like, but the view wasn't quite as good, and the roads weren't quite as good (although they certainly weren't bad, either... only a few miles off paved roads.)  Some of the land had more invasive weeds than others.  However, the pond and the creek were gorgeous.  The entire perimeter had good fences and boundary lines, and there was a good sturdy gate at the drive.  It was a lot closer to where DH is working, too.  The house was really plain jane looking, to be honest... the outside of it showed little if any imagination.  However, the huge concrete slab patio on the front could probably be made into a really cool (and large) sunroom with a little work, and you can always dress a house up with porches, etc.  It had a relatively flat roof, which looked brand new, incidentally, so probably little if any attic space.  There was something really comfortable about the house, though.  The master bedroom was so large, though, that we'd probably end up using it as a second living area... I just don't see needing that much room to sleep and to house clothing.  In fact, when I first went into that room, I assumed that it WAS a living area.  The neighboring property to the east was a horse farm where two or three wobbly legged colts peered through the fence at us, and behind the house to the west was another open pasture... I didn't see any house to the west at all (but didn't drive all the way over the hill to find out, either.)  Across the road to the north was all heavily wooded land. 

Sigh.  Wish our realtor in WI would be a little more communicative about what's going on up there.... time to find a new realtor because she never returns my calls or emails. Since we moved, she has not called me back once.

[Sassy]

Both those places sound nice, HG - I'd like the creek & pond, if I was choosing - the house on the 20 acres sounds like something you could fix up nicely - since you guys are the king & queen of remodeling!    With that great big cement slab out front, new roof, etc.  There's lots of possibilities...  and if you have questions about what type of neighbor the other lady would be, especially with her dogs...  closer to DH's work... 

When I look at land back East & in the south - it is so much cheaper than here in California!  It makes me want to move out of here just because of all the taxes etc...  but, my family is here & part of Glenn's...  and we like our underground cabin...  it would be exciting to look at land & see all the possibilities.    I'll just look at it on the web as the realities of actually moving don't really excite me much 

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Lo and Behold!  Just when I was badmouthing my realtor in WI, she finally emailed me and somewhat made sense this time.  Said that everything is too wet and muddy to have anyone do anything with the yard just yet, but that she'd had three couples come through on the open house last week.  Two had no interest in it whatsoever, and the other one thought the rooms were too small (the number one complaint thus far.)  It irks me that people don't care about owning land up there... seems like no one appreciates the fact that that yard is nearly three times the size of anything else in the area.  She recommended lowering the price at the beginning of May, and said that no one has even been looking in that price range since we left (could it be that they can get a foreclosure so much cheaper?)

Sigh.  I wish it was sold already... I wish someone would make an offer, even a really low one because at least then we could negotiate.  Tired of living in the city already... mainly of having a place that is not really ours.  I had forgotten how much I hated renting.  It's been a long time.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Both those places sound nice, HG - I'd like the creek & pond, if I was choosing - the house on the 20 acres sounds like something you could fix up nicely - since you guys are the king & queen of remodeling!    With that great big cement slab out front, new roof, etc.  There's lots of possibilities...  and if you have questions about what type of neighbor the other lady would be, especially with her dogs...  closer to DH's work... 

When I look at land back East & in the south - it is so much cheaper than here in California!  It makes me want to move out of here just because of all the taxes etc...  but, my family is here & part of Glenn's...  and we like our underground cabin...  it would be exciting to look at land & see all the possibilities.    I'll just look at it on the web as the realities of actually moving don't really excite me much 

Sassy, you're not kidding about land prices.  After having come back from the Chicago area, everything seems cheap, but I have to keep reminding myself where I am.  However, the housing slump that seems to have hit everywhere else has not really reached here yet, at all, and house and land prices continue to go up.  DH and I kind of daydream about the day that he can work independently as a contractor from home so that we can live anywhere... getting just 15 or so miles more out of the city than the areas we've been looking would cut the cost tremendously.  No one wants to commute that far every day, BUT if you only have to go when you want, then it's not so bad to drive an hour one way every now and then.  One of our old friends does that... he still works as a consultant for a few big companies, and he works at the university.  So, two days a week, he goes to work.  The rest of the time he's on his ranch building fence or messing with his cows.  On the days he works, one day he drives about an hour and a half, and the other day he drives about 45 minutes.  Makes for a short commute if you average it out over a week's time. 

There is still great land available in this state, and for good prices, but it is just a little more than most folks want to drive every day. 

Dad called yesterday evening to tell me about one of my little step-cousin's weddings coming up, and I asked his opinion about the shop building at the place I mentioned earlier in this thread... just trying to figure out where they came up with the asking price and trying to figure out what a good offer on it would be.  The place has been on the market nearly 250 days, so I don't think it's going anywhere fast.  Dad offered to go look at it with me and tell me what the building is worth (or what it would cost to build an identical one.)  I told him that in  a week or two, we'd do that, and that way I can take DH to see it too.  I think he'd appreciate it if I could schedule the showing the same day as the cousin's wedding, to be honest, as he told me he was trying ot figure out how to get out of going!

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Not too sure how many more places I'm going to get to look at before the baby gets here... not planning another trip until the week after next because gas is so darn expensive (and I've been doing all the driving to avoid having to move the car seats.)  Besides, the realtor doesn't usually schedule the showings in any particular order, so sometimes we backtrack a lot.   Want to do as much looking as I can before MIL gets here in June, though.  Not because I don't want to take her along, but just because I don't want to wear her out. 

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

After last weekend getting stuck for two hours in traffic headed south out of the city on Friday, we have decided that we definitely do not want to look south of the city anymore.  Waste of time!  One of the other reasons that we also wanted to look north from the city is that some of the engineering department folks are still trying to get DH to teach some at O State at some point in the future, and if he ever decided to do that, even if part time, he wouldn't have to relocate again if we were already north of here.  At this point, I don't think he really has any desire to do that as he is really enjoying his new job immensely.  However, we just like that area and want to find something up there.  All the places I looked at last time are in that general direction-- Guthrie, Coyle, Edmond.  I'm thinking of making a trip over in the next week or two and putting up notices on the post office bulletin boards asking if anyone has land for sale to contact us... I like our realtor, but she's a city girl and really doesn't know what to look for in a rural property.  (That and she thinks I'm a little crazy.)

[glenn kangiser]

Nothing I hate more than stalled city freeway traffic, except being in it when they all slam on their brakes when doing 70 MPH.  I have a 12000 lb truck with 11000 lb brakes. 

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Ain't that the truth!  I-35 south of OKC is only two lanes, but it is always, always heavy on traffic between OKC and Dallas.  There's not another quicker way down there, usually, and so it gets really congested.  The traffic north, west and east of the city usually isn't too bad unless there's a wreck and everyone slows down to look and say, "Bless their hearts!"

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Well, found out the pretty 40 acres I looked at this weekend (mentioned in the counting chickens thread) is already under contract.  It was really reasonable, too, darn it.  Beautiful place.  I told the realtor that if the deal fell through for some reason to please call me. 

The more I look at the 20 acres with mineral rights, though, the more I think it might be a serious possibility.  DH and I drove out there again yesterday and crept by at 5mph two or three times.  There isn't a front fence on the place, but as far as I can tell, the north and south boundary fences go all the way back to the back of the 20, and I think there was another boundary fence at the rear of the property.  Since it is a long, narrow lot, it wouldn't take a lot to fence the front of the property.  At the back, I could see it was more open grassland, and up on a hill... probably a nicer place to build, even though the septic, well, and electric are toward the front of the property.  No one would build directly to the south as it is a low-lying area and might be prone to floods (though the whole of the 20 acres I'm considering is up on the hill) and on the north, it looks like an old vacant farmhouse that's about to fall in.  DH keeps asking if I seriously think the house couldn't be used for SOMETHING rather than having to tear it down right away.  I think if you tore a couple of the worst lean-to's off of it, you might could use it for a chicken house.  It might be nice to have running water in the chicken house, I guess. (and flush toilet???)  Maybe we could toilet train the chickens....

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

    I found the place I want today.  It has a contingency on it that is going to expire soon.  It is 40 acres with one of the best views, close enough for DH to commute to and from the city.  Beautiful.  It has an old kind of plain farmhouse on it and a little garage converted to a MIL cottage.  Nothing fancy, but certainly adequate....The barns are kind of run down except for the pole barn.... but everything else is fairly well maintained.  It was cool enough up there on the hill that you really wouldn't need to use the AC very often.  I'm in love.      Now if we can just get our other house sold... I am really hoping this place is still available when it comes time to buy! 

Looked at 3 other properties, too.  They were all nice, but the first was my favorite.  One was a cute, immaculate little house on good roads, but it was just a little too far to drive every day.  It was just listed last night, and it doesn't even have a MLS# yet.  The last one we looked at was huge and on 20 acres.  I am still trying to figure out how the house could look so tiny on the outside and feel so big on the inside... some weird optical illusion, I guess.  The pasture there looked overgrazed, though, and they hadn't maintained the outbuildings to the point that it would probably be better to tear two of them down rather than try to repair them. 

[glenn kangiser]

Any bites in Wis. yet?

[considerations]

" We got 210,000 lbs of horse manure from the Yosemite stables about 3 yrs ago    What bothered me was the flies    Glenn would take his Bobcat & turn the stuff, bring me out there & stick his had down into it & try to get me to stick my hand in it to feel how warm it got...   "

An old meat thermometer works just fine.   

[glenn kangiser]

It's not the same as feeling your way through the white smoke and just sticking your hand in it.  The smell goes through everything.

[Redoverfarm]

I really can't think of anything worse than liquid manure.  Farmer in the panhandle would store it in ponds or lagoons and then pump it onto the fields with large liquid cannons.  If you were driving by it would enter the vents on the cars and be there for weeks at a time.  Then everone complained and they started to use chissel plows to plow it into the ground.  Beat any hog pen I have been around.  But for making things grow it was hard to beat.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Any bites in Wis. yet?

Unfortunately, no.   Living in town really gets to me...
I emailed the realtor up there last night and asked if she's had anyone interested yet, but she hasn't replied yet.

[glenn kangiser]

Considering the rental thing anymore yet?

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Maybe I should check into what it'd cost to hire a property manager... we could probably get $1400/1500 a month for it.  Still, I really don't want to go that route unless absolutely a necessary.  I'd just like to have it off my plate entirely.

[brianand]

Homegrown...

Dont get too disheartend..If you end up renting it out for $1400-$1500 if that covers your outgoings, you at least are not operating at a loss. The situation is similar in the UK, people that could afford to buy drove prices up and now there is the wicked backlash as per the U.S market. My parents want to sell up in the U.K and move to the South of France, but with the way the market is they would be lucky to break even... maybe it is best to rent it out whilst you can. Maybe in 3-4 years when the economy gets off its harris you will get what you want, in the meantime you have an income.

Just my 2p's worth of course

Brian

[glenn kangiser]

Maybe I should check into what it'd cost to hire a property manager... we could probably get $1400/1500 a month for it.  Still, I really don't want to go that route unless absolutely a necessary.  I'd just like to have it off my plate entirely.

The longer you wait the more you lose is my only thought about that.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

good points.  We would not be taking a loss if we were to rent it out.  The house payment is less than it would rent for...