Real Estate THAT bad!? Or just no "dream home" in my area (Jackson: for sale, real estate market)

[SouthernBelle26]

Hi all,

I am semi new to this site, I stumbled across it some time ago and I've always came to it every now and then just to read some of the posts, but now I have a question of my own! So I decided to register & give it a shot!

We are ready to buy a home, and I have always dreamed of living in an older/historic home. I've always been attracted to them, they are beautiful, full of history, and just remind me of a simpler time, if there was such thing.

The type of style I'm talking about is something you'd see in the movies, a Greek revival, colonial, Victorian, even a Sears & Roebuck! Those are just examples, if you catch my drift lol.

But sadly my hopes are slowly going down the drain! I KNOW these homes exist! I have SEEN them with my own eyes all over our great state. But I do not live in Natchez, or Jackson, or even Aberdeen. I live in east Jackson County (Gulf Coast area) and it just seems if these homes are non-existent! Sure they're all over Biloxi and Gulfport, but we do not wish to live there. I've seen some for sale in Moss Point, and while that's at the bottom of our list, We're still searching for the home of our dreams in an area we would love to be in.

I guess what I'm asking is, do these older/style homes not exist in this area!? I'm talking about Hurley, Wade, Big Point, Agricola...We wouldn't even mind if it was in George County or even Grand Bay,AL!

Why is it that there are no homes like that in these areas? Or is the real estate market still that bad that no one is selling? Recently when we had no luck finding such home, we decided to give up and search for something different. But even now we can't find not one home that we really REALLY like! You're probably thinking we are just picky, but I promise we're not! Aside from a beautiful older home, all we'd like is a nice size home (at least 1900 SF) at least a 3 BR, and a home with a clean appearance.

I did happen to find ONE home that we really liked, it was a foreclosure, and we contacted the people handling it, we never got any response!!! And all we expressed was interest in the home and was wanting to schedule a showing. About 2 weeks later I couldn't find it listed for sale anywhere! I assumed there was already a pending contract and someone had bought it. About 3 weeks ago I saw it listed for sale, with a even lower price and was being advertised under different people. 2 days later it was gone from the Internet again. I really don't know what was up with that, but I just took it as a sign that wasnt the home for us.

I've searched all kind of sites, local agents, zillow, trulia, even Craigslist! The home doesn't have to be a "registered historic" or anything like that. We just want something with that style. Heck, it doesn't even have to be that style, just a nice "homey" home that we can settle in and love and enjoy and one day start a family. I'm sure everyone wants this, but I honestly didn't think it would be this hard to find a decent home..

I know the housing market here isn't that big anyway, but we really don't want to move from this area. Am I looking in the wrong places? Is there someone here who's been "stuck" like this?

Thanks for listening to my long babble, and I'm looking forward to any feedback (no rude ones please

[Listener2307]

Did you ever consider building an 'historic home', or at least a home that looks historic? We stayed at a B & B once on the Texas coast, and the owner asked around the table to see who could guess the age of the home. The average guess was 75 years or so, and the home turned out to be 10 years old. It was built to replicate older homes, and they did a wonderful job.

Just a thought.

[Mouldy Old Schmo]

You may have heard that the three major factors in determining the value of real estate are location, location, and location. It is a relative term, of course. For example, while Cleveland is in the Mississippi Delta and not considered a desirable community by national standards, it has the most expensive real estate in the Delta. The asking price of an average home is at least twice that of any other Delta community.

[Alluvial]

It's possible that the older, affordable homes on the Coast were lost to hurricanes, I reckon. I know that Pascagoula lost a lot of older homes in Katrina.

Have you tried contacting a local Realtor?

[Madeline2121]

I would bet that the previous poster is correct in that maybe there are not alot of these homes on the coast due to being destroyed by hurricanes. I would also try contacting a realtor in the area. Good luck!

[zerhacke]

The original poster has already said they don't want to live in the Biloxi/Gulfport Coast area, which rules out the vast majority of Gulf Coast homes.

When an owner of a historic home finally obtains the home, they are not likely to get rid of it. This accounts to the largest reason why historic homes are hard to find for sale.

I think the biggest problem, though, is in how you are looking. This is the South. Most things are done the old fashioned way. You mentioned multiple websites you're looking on and only one "in person and by hand" way of looking - the local agent. You're going to have better luck with a local agent that specializes in historic homes in any given area (if one exists for that area) than you are going to have with craigslist searches.

At any rate, I wish you well and good luck in finding the home of your dreams.

[Ankhharu]

Actually, the lack of historic homes in Hurley, Big Point, etc aren't due to any storms or such. But merely the fact that that is an area that was primarily farm land or simply undeveloped for the longest time. My family has roots in Hurley since the late 30's or early 40's. My grandfathers home still stands, and up until the 90's, the home he had in the 30's, built in earlier part of the century had still stood too. But neither one of these homes are the type of historic home that you seek. The plantation style or Victorian style that you see in Gulfport, Biloxi, etc. Those were built by wealthy families (unfortunately, most of them have been wiped out by storms). Keep in mind, most of Mississippi, outside the riverside and gulfcoast, was mostly undeveloped territory in the early 1900's. After the Civil War, most of MS was plunged into poverty.
My grandfather was a farmer, but far from wealthy, so the homes are not of that style. Just small modest 3 bedroom homes. The thing is, most of the people that settled the area were poor farmers like himself. So unfortunately, you are only going to find modern homes in that area. Not the elegant historic homes that you seek.

[GrandviewGloria]

It seems you're looking for a nice old home in places where there are very few "problem people". Otherwise, you'd be looking in Natchez, Meridian, Port Gibson, Edwards, Hazlehurst, Greenville, Clarksdale, Vicksburg, Crystal Springs.... Or you'd be looking for a plantation home in the Delta. All those places have wonderful houses - cheap. I know of one elderly couple at Vicksburg, who are desperate to sell their lovingly-restored antebellum mansion. Yet it sits on the market...

I looked up Hurley, and see that it's in East Mississippi, where the land was too poor to support plantations - thus slavery. People on that side of the state were hard-scrabble poor farmers - often descended from escaped white slaves (officially "indentured servants" - but they were purchased with the intent of working them to death - unlike black slaves, who were seen as having great value). The escaped white slaves often mixed with local Indians. Basically, they were hiding out in the woods. Or they were loggers. Or they were Melungeons or other swarthy hybrids, fleeing to the deep woods, to avoid persecution by the newly-arrived waves of Irish immigrants. The timber barons lived in towns like Meridian or Hattiesburg or Mobile, and built a lot of incredible houses. But those towns are not attractive to you, because they had "jobs" at one point, and so are full of "them"... you know... I don't blame you. You're not suicidal. That's smart.

So, in Mississippi, in order to find a place without "them", you have to find a place where there were never any "jobs". That means areas of cut-over timber land, and subsistence farming. Being a logger working for a company, or being a subsistence farmer, paid very little. People were lucky to have food. Most Mississippians, back when the charming houses were being built for the lucky few, were so poor that they grew up wearing burlap fertilizer sacks. Flour sacks were luxuries. Flour was a luxury. Heck: fertilizer was a luxury. People lived in shacks.

A well-built three-room house, in post-Civil-War Mississippi, was for a prosperous middle class family. Those were the people who wore shoes in summer, studied trigonometry in school, had actual buggies to ride in, actual wells to get water out of... People who could afford ice for making ice cream (for special occasions) - people who had enough money saved up to see a doctor (in the direst emergencies), and who had money for stamps, and paper and envelopes - if they were careful, and counted their Pennies. They were people who could afford a paper of pins for sewing, or seeds for putting in next year's crop. They were the lucky ones.

Most of East Mississippi was too poor to support many of The Lucky Ones. Most people lived in shacks: houses with minimal ceiling height, minimal roof pitch, minimal square-footage... Saws were expensive, and you didn't want to have to saw many logs- even if you were building a log cabin with a dirt floor, and filling in the cracks with mud & moss. And if you could afford actual boards from a lumber mill, you used as few board feet as was possible. Nails cost money, too. And a roll of tarpaper for the roof was a huge outlay - maybe you'd have to live on turnip greens for years, just to pay for it.

If I were you, I'd buy an endangered house in some once-prosperous town enriched with throbbing vibrance, and move it to a good area that was desperately poor, prior to the 1960s. A couple bought one of Canton's mansions, and moved it to the North Shore of the Reservoir. Madison county had plantations. In olden times, Rankin County's land was too poor for plantations or slaves, and was where the escaped white slaves hid in the swamps. Anyway, the house is GORGEOUS in its new setting. And the owners don't have to worry about waking up to see throbbing vibrance standing over their beds, ready to enrich them before killing them.

Even if it has to be cut into many pieces, moving an older house means you're getting virgin heart timber, and joinery that is now available to only the very rich. Save an old house in a dying town, by moving it onto your land.

[maxmodder]

Build a historic clone in hurricane territory? Some brave souls in here!

[annie_himself]

Originally Posted by maxmodder

Build a historic clone in hurricane territory? Some brave souls in here!

Realize there's about 14 million people living in hurricane territory on the Gulf alone.