My son, the farmer! I am so proud! (home, inspection, area)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My son and his girlfriend put an offer in on a farm over the weekend - a nice, solid little two-bedroom farm house (built in 1925) on 11 1/2 acres - and we just found out the offer was accepted!
I am so excited for them but I can't help but be a little nervous as well - it seems to be a pretty big commitment for a 22-year-old (his girlfriend is a year older) and I hope they didn't bite off more than they could chew (not payment wise - they got a GREAT deal) and that my son doesn't get burned out before he's thirty trying to take care of it.
The house has been empty for almost twelve years; the property was bought by a timber company and they sat on it all this time until they could harvest the timber, which they did last summer.
They put a new roof on the house, painted it, put in a new hot water heater, pressure tank, and water filtration system, insulated it and put it on the market last August. They recently dropped the price $20,000.
The house is small (only 816 square feet) but there are just the two of them and their three spoiled house cats. It could easily be added onto later.
The timber was logged at the back of the property - maybe four acres total; the rest is in rolling pasture.
It has a separate garage and what my son calls a "chicken coop." It's one of those long buildings with a lot of windows, but looking inside, it doesn't look like a chicken coop to me - more of a barn/shop thing. It needs some work but appears to be pretty solid.
When my son took me to see it a couple of weeks ago, before he had arranged to see it with a real estate agent, we were looking at the outside of the pump house and I told him that it was pretty big to be "just" a pump house and I told him that I thought that it was most likely also what I call a "canning room" - an insulated building set up to store home-canned goods (we couldn't see inside because the door was padlocked). When my son and his girlfriend went to see it a week later with the agent, guess what? I nailed it! That's exactly what it is! My son says it's big enough for a chest freezer as well.
He's so excited! He's got plans for a big garden of raised beds and a green house and he wants to raise a beef (his girlfriend's father said he would buy a steer and buy the feed for it and then they could split the beef). My son also wants to check into raising "pasture hogs" - possibly American Guinea Hogs - and raising some meat birds.
And......he wants me to sell my place and move onto the property. Not into the house but to buy a park model and set it up. I know he worries about me out here by myself when my youngest graduates high school this year and moves out and he has always talked about buying a place that I could also live on.
And, yes, the goats can come! In fact, he wants the goats. The dogs not so much but we would work around it - we would fence in a large area for them, probably using a portion of the barn/shop/coop (whatever it is) as their "house" (since I have too many dogs to fit into a park model with me). The cats, of course, are welcome, as are the chickens but I don't think he wants the 50-60 Muscovies. lol
It makes a lot of sense but I'm not sure I can do it. I like my privacy and I'm not sure about living on someone else's property - even if that someone else is my own son. He's got a spot picked out at one side of the property where there would be some trees between us that he says would be "perfect" and where I would have my own driveway; he says it would be like we were "just neighbors."
Also, this farm, while still surrounded by other farms, is much closer to "civilization" than what I am used to - I'm pretty remote out here and I like it. I'm not sure about moving closer to town.
And by selling my place, I would have a bit of a nest egg to probably see me through until, well.....until I didn't need it anymore.
Anyway, lots to think about but no decisions have to be made right away. In the meantime, I am just so happy for him and excited that at least one of my kids got the "farmer gene."
My relatives grew corn for Kelloggs, and they were wiry and strong into their sixties - not burned out by a long shot. Exercise will do that for you. If he's not strong now, he will be.
People in that field (no pun intended) tend to help one another, and he will become a member of a larger community.
He has huge plans for the place; I just hope he paces himself (both financially and otherwise) and doesn't get overwhelmed - and realizes that it will all take time.
Things continue to move along - the inspection is done, the water test done, the assessor was supposed to be there the other day (hopefully there won't be any surprises there - it hadn't been reassessed in years). I know my son and his girlfriend have to go into the realtor's office tomorrow to sign off on some more papers related to the inspection.
He still goes over there and pokes around, walking around the property and snooping around in the barn (it's not locked). He counted seventeen fruit trees the other day; he says they're all apples but I'm not sure he can tell positively what they are just yet. One thing that's for sure and that is they haven't been pruned in years so he's got some work ahead of him if he wants to rehab them.
He's intrigued with something he found in the barn - what he's convinced is a "secret room." lol Apparently, there is what looks like a wall with shelving on it. He got to wondering about it because the shelves are real narrow and didn't look quite right and he realized the "wall" moves - it's a door that opens into a small room (8X8 or something like that). So, now his imagination is running a little wild, but like I told him, I remember my grandfather's barn, which was likely from that same generation of farm buildings, having several nooks and crannies that you didn't realize at first were there. Anyway, he's having fun with it.
He's still intent on my moving onto the place, and while I am not old and decrepit yet, I am on my way and it is something I need to consider - especially from a financial aspect. I told him the other day that it will be hard for me because I've always been independent and had my own place and I don't know about changing that - I'm afraid I would always feel like a "guest." He says I would have my own driveway and I would have the area around my "home" to do with what I want - I could plant anything I wanted. The goats and the dogs would have the run of the entire fenced pasture. He doesn't particularly want all the poultry I have at the moment, but that's ok because I don't want them either - at least not in the quantity that I have and I currently have ads on Craigslist trying to sell off most of them.
Anyway, it won't happen soon. There are a lot of things to do to get this place ready to sell and details to work out. Selling this place would give me a nice nest egg, though, for my "golden years."
How wonderful that your son was able to buy a place at his age!! Congrats to him and his fiance'.
It sounds like it might be a great option for you to move onto the property with him. If it was me, I would give them a couple of years, just to make sure they didn't change their minds and decide to sell the place.
Also, there may be grandkids in the future. Are you prepared to be the "baby-sitter"?
I wish that I had such an option. Although, my husband is alive and well, I think about what I would do if he wasn't around. It makes me a little nervous.
Good luck to all of you!!
How wonderful that your son was able to buy a place at his age!! Congrats to him and his fiance'.
It sounds like it might be a great option for you to move onto the property with him. If it was me, I would give them a couple of years, just to make sure they didn't change their minds and decide to sell the place.
Also, there may be grandkids in the future. Are you prepared to be the "baby-sitter"?
I wish that I had such an option. Although, my husband is alive and well, I think about what I would do if he wasn't around. It makes me a little nervous.
Good luck to all of you!!
Thank you.
I would have no problem being the granny babysitter.
I have granddaughters that I see only about four or five times a year because of distance and time constraints and I would love to be involved on a daily basis with any future grandbabies.
My son has been over here both yesterday and today helping me with a minor car issue; part of me thinks that the reason he wants me to live on his property is because he figures if he's going to be helping me with that kind of stuff anyway, it would be a lot easier if I was just a few steps away. lol
And I think you're right about giving it a couple of years; that's probably what I would be looking at anyway with trying to figure out all the issues with the animals and getting this place ready to sell.
Things continue to move along for my son and his girlfriend, although the closing date will likely be in April (instead of this month) due to the USDA running about twenty-five days behind schedule.
The inspections have been done, the well is fine (300 feet deep, 12 gpm), the septic has been pumped (at seller's expense), a new tax assessment has been done, and my son and his girlfriend are spending today lining up the insurance.
Does anyone here know if it would be advantageous for them to split the property into separate tax lots - one for the house and whatever minimal acreage would be required and another for just bare acreage? I'm a little concerned because the new assessment came in at around $8,000 more than what they are paying for the place and I would like to see if there is some way to keep those taxes down if possible. I don't even know if maybe it would cost more to have the property divided than what it would save them in taxes.
... Does anyone here know if it would be advantageous for them to split the property into separate tax lots - one for the house and whatever minimal acreage would be required and another for just bare acreage? I'm a little concerned because the new assessment came in at around $8,000 more than what they are paying for the place and I would like to see if there is some way to keep those taxes down if possible. I don't even know if maybe it would cost more to have the property divided than what it would save them in taxes.
You may need to speak with the tax assessor.
My land has two different tax rates. One for the residence and a different one for tree-growth. The tree-growth tax status is a lot lower. So for us it makes sense to keep as much in tree-growth as possible.
However in your case, I do not know what tax-status' are available to you. And what the differences may be.
Supposedly the loggers are supposed to come back and re-pod the acreage that was logged off. My son doesn't really want them to because he would rather have it in pasture, so I don't know what will happen there or what his options are. I told him to take some of my goats over there; the little firs won't stand a chance.
I guess more than one person besides myself has told him he should check into the separate tax lots; I hope he follows up on it - at least find out if it would make sense for them or if it's even doable.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
