Location for a weekend house (approx one hour or so out of DFW) (Dallas: rentals, condo)

[Cowboys fan in Houston]

Hello all,

The wife and I are kicking around the idea of a weekend house somewhere in the country. Im getting to the point where I am traveling internationally almost twice a month and I want a place to go with nothing around to relax. I dont know really anything about this so Im reaching to you guys for some help. Im looking for suggestions on areas as well as the potential costs involved. Below is kind of our wish list should we decide to go ahead with this:

-About one hour or so drive outside of DFW
-Complete isolation, no hint of city life anywhere around
-Some hills would be nice in the area, preferably not completely flat
-Thinking about buying a plot of land and then building a small house
-Was thinking about areas to the South and West of DFW because my mother lives in Waco and I would like her to have easy access too. But I have heard good things about some of the areas in Wise county and to the East as well, so Im not shut off to that.
-For the house itself, something small. 2 bed and one to one and a half bath should suffice.
-Five acres of land or so

As for the cost, what should I expect to pay for the above?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

[Pete53FR]

Some pretty good buys, rolling hills and edge of pine forests 100 miles NE of Dallas takes me an hour and a half. Take Highway 30 east and turn east of Hwy 11 between Sulphur Springs and Winnsboro. Lots of lake properties out that way. As far as cost anywhere between 60,000 and 500,000 but a lot of motivated sellers.

[RockyJoe817]

Isolation, Not sure your going to get that unless you move out beyond Midland/Odessa.

I personally would choose Ranger by Lake Leon, but that is to far.
People around here who go west are building around Lake Mineral Wells.
Others tend to want to be close to Lake Whitney.

[TurtleCreek80]

You may like the area around Glen Rose, about 2 hours sw via 67. It's at the top of the hill country. Lots of ranches and some small cottages along the Paluxy River. Once you're off the main roads, it feels like the middle of nowhere, but there is still a grocery store, gas station, small town square, etc (plus Dinosaur Valley State Park & Fossil Rim Wildlife Center) within a reasonable drive.

Not sure about prices.

[ChristieP]

My first thought is Lake Whitney. It's really pretty out there and it's also close to Waco, too.

I would not choose Ranger for several reasons, highest of which is resale value. The area is going down, not up. Secondly, Lake Leon isn't very pretty.

[Squirl]

Rent that place for a year to be sure you like the area and really wind up going frequently enough to actually own a vacation house. We had a place at Lake Palestine. Rarely went.

[loves2read]

we had birthday lunch yesterday with family where dad is builder--their neighbors (30's/chiropractors with their own practice) bought a lake lot and had local builder start buiding them a lake house--
biggest fiasco since Iraq War--
he took lot of their money, started some shambles of a construction site, and now says he is bankrupt
they are screwed...
so trying to buy land and BUILD a house when you live long distance is receipe for disaster in my book--
especially when you are starting from scratch

MY suggestion--
go to lakehouse dot com and search for rentals--not all are waterfront because waterfront might be less private than you want

there are 3 or 4 lakes within an hour of the east/south side of Dallas--Oklahoma is not that far
Lake Kiowa is north of Denton and probably reachable
Lake Whitney has rentals listed
don't bother driving through FTW to get to Granbury--it would just create more aggravation

RENT a house in different area one weekend a month
there are plenty of them out there--and they are listed on other sites besides the one I suggested
but that one has terrific searchable database for lake homes/land

at least you can see what is out there and get local realtors

DON"T buy anything before you actually see if you are going to use it--
Lake land/houses has been fairly constant and increasing in price even with the doughts that the area lakes have experiences--and some are still close to drought stages--
I know you aren't looking for a LAKE house specifically but if you are not used to being alone in the TX country side away from everything you might think that is what you want until you get it

IF you want to check another site for recreation rentals use VRBO dot come--
it is also searchable by area so you can check what is within your dive time

I can understand why you might want a place to use for decompressing--
my SIL had job where he traveled S-F every week for project management--
he started out living in Atlanta where he went to college and used Hartsfield for commuting but decided life was too short to spend all his weekends in Atlanta
so he moved to west coast of FL--south of Sarasota--to small town on Gulf called Venice and bought a small 1/1 condo (no maintenance/fairly secure when he was gone) that was just across the street from the Gulf--
he could bike to the jetties and fish, chill out on weekends and it was about 30 min from SRQ airport

But he moved to his vacation spot and was there EVERY weekend--did not drive there on free weekends--

Before you sink money into buying a place make sure you WILL spend the TIME/ENERGY that it takes to use it...
and if you are married your wife has say in this as well


Make yourself preplan and book several months worth of 1 weekend a month in different places so that you commit to doing it--
going last minute is too harum-scarum--you might not find a nice place to stay in area and that might give negative perception that choosing a nicer place would avoid...

You can search at lakehouse site by drive time--so you can find any lake w/o hour/2hours/whatever
but take opportunity to go to different areas

[Cowboys fan in Houston]

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. Ill also look into renting a place to see how much we use it.

Im having the realtor look into it and we'll just see what comes up.

One final question, do you guys know how much it would cost to build a small house (a very basic two bedroom one bath about 1000 square feet)?

[loves2read]

My suggestion
Look at houses mfg off site and trucked in
You have better control over quality
Know your costs
The build co can probably help find legitimate co to prep site for the house

Assembled on site or neat things done w container construction
You would need to have power for utilities
Propane tank easier/less expensive maybe than running electric to site
U can get propane fridge and other stuff

Check out dwell magazine other alternative construction
Finding construction co/builder in area u dont know
Where you lack time to oversee--hard to get quality IMO

[Pete53FR]

I agree with Loves2Read a manufactured custom built home can be quite nice. Plus saves money.