Questions on Buffalo (water,septic,etc) (Jackson, Story: mineral rights, for sale, real estate)
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Hello,
We’re still bound and determined to live in Buffalo. Well, outskirts – not middle of town. Close enough so our daughter doesn’t spend too much time on the school bus (I will drive her if necessary) but far enough to allow room for our dogs to play and daughter to have a horse. View of mountains or hills important to us.
What types of septic systems are used (ie septic tank w/leach field, mound system, holding tank, etc)? We currently have septic tank w/leach field. Are percolation tests required by the state? If not, is it common to request a perc test? By us, the sellers generally have results in hand before they even put land for sale.
Well water testing – anything special I should request when asking for water testing on existing wells? If buying land, is there a test or way to know if the property will have quality and quantity of water? I’ve read posts that say even if neighbors have good water and water pressure that doesn’t mean the parcel next to it will. Seems scary to buy land and not even have a clue if you will have drinkable water or enough water to take a shower.
Are there any areas or subdivisions to stay away from because of water/septic/flood issues, etc? I’ve read other posts about Story and Shiloh. Being so far away makes it hard to get a feel for if there are other places to be careful of.
We looked at 35-40 acre lots in Saddleback Hills (hwy 16 east about 12 miles) and the views were nice. Anyone have impressions on that area? Any idea how long a school bus ride would be from there?
If we buy a parcel with a small cabin, can we build a larger home but not tear down the cabin (thinking it would be nice for when my parents visit)? Or is it one home per parcel? If one dwelling per parcel, is it easy to get the parcel split so we could keep the cabin? When I say “larger home” I mean just a 3br ranch. We just wouldn’t make it long-term in a 700sq ft cabin.
Anyone know a good website to find FSBO listings for Buffalo?
There seem to be many modular and manufactured homes. Anything we should be wary of? One realtor told us to pay attention to whether the home is on a permanent foundation because otherwise we won’t be able to get a loan. Never even occurred to us that a home would not be on a permanent foundation! We don’t see many modular/manufactured homes in our area and they have a bad connotation people around us. Still confused about the difference between modular and manufactured.
What types of septic systems are used (ie septic tank w/leach field, mound system, holding tank, etc)? We currently have septic tank w/leach field. Are percolation tests required by the state? If not, is it common to request a perc test? By us, the sellers generally have results in hand before they even put land for sale.
Our septic has a leach field. That's all I can tell you about with regards to the septic, because I'm clueless.
Well water testing – anything special I should request when asking for water testing on existing wells? If buying land, is there a test or way to know if the property will have quality and quantity of water? I’ve read posts that say even if neighbors have good water and water pressure that doesn’t mean the parcel next to it will. Seems scary to buy land and not even have a clue if you will have drinkable water or enough water to take a shower.
A friend of mine has a 4 acre tract of land under contract, contingent on the seller drilling the well the water being usable. Someone bought 40 acres near this tract and they must haul their water - there isn't any usable water available on their land. It's a crap shoot. The best thing you can do is talk to adjacent neighbors to find out about their water. In saddleback hills, how is the water? We drove out there to look at those lots earlier this year and I wasn't impressed with them - very arid land with nothing but sagebrush and probably lots of rattle snakes. Since I'm from Michigan, I must have my trees.
Are there any areas or subdivisions to stay away from because of water/septic/flood issues, etc? I’ve read other posts about Story and Shiloh. Being so far away makes it hard to get a feel for if there are other places to be careful of.
Water is always going to be an issue around here. Shilo is the only one I know of with the potential for flood problems. If you're looking at 35 acre tracts, you shouldn't have to worry about septic issues.
If we buy a parcel with a small cabin, can we build a larger home but not tear down the cabin (thinking it would be nice for when my parents visit)? Or is it one home per parcel? If one dwelling per parcel, is it easy to get the parcel split so we could keep the cabin? When I say “larger home” I mean just a 3br ranch. We just wouldn’t make it long-term in a 700sq ft cabin.
Well, this is where Johnson county can be a blessing or a curse. There are NO ZONING laws in the county of Johnson. That basically means that you can do whatever the heck you want to with your land. So, yes, if you want to build 5 more houses on your land, you can. However, you would need permission from the county commissioners to subdivide it, I believe, but I might be wrong about that.
There seem to be many modular and manufactured homes. Anything we should be wary of? One realtor told us to pay attention to whether the home is on a permanent foundation because otherwise we won’t be able to get a loan. Never even occurred to us that a home would not be on a permanent foundation! We don’t see many modular/manufactured homes in our area and they have a bad connotation people around us. Still confused about the difference between modular and manufactured.
Modulars are pretty common around here. There are different qualities of modulars - some are better than others. I believe that modular means they came in on trucks, in sections, and the sections were assembled on the site (like 2 halves were put together). Manufactured means the walls were pre-made at a different location and then trucked to the homesite. I think they're made in a factory somewhere and then brought to the site and slapped together. Then the put the roof and siding on the outside and do the finishing work on the inside. Basically, the shell of the house is pre-made. Modulars arrive with everything in place - the toilet, tub, drywall, etc, is already there.
Dea13 ... I'd urge you to read through the older threads on this forum which answer many of your questions in exceptional detail.
Briefly, however:
Unless you are looking at a "lot" within the city limits or a platted subdivision, the typical parcel minimum acreage will be 40 acres. This is due to the State Engineer's requirements as to a minimum parcel size for a domestic well and septic system. You may find smaller parcels where they were divided out many years ago when the Engineer's office was not as concerned about water use and allowed folks to plat out smaller parcels ... but that would typically be prior to 1970's ... and with the land availability here, most folks didn't break out such small parcels from their farms/ranches.
I suggest you contact a realtor in the Buffalo area and get an up to date report on the availability of smaller properties in the area. When we were looking earlier this year, the choices were primarily lots in town or larger acreages ($$$$), there simply weren't many 40-75 acre parcels around.
Water: in addition to having a functional delivery of domestic water, you must check for the water quality. The "normal" water tests are rather minimal for basic contaminants affecting health and safety. However, we now know that there are a lot of other water quality concerns, and you would be well advised to have the water tested for nitrates and other potential contaminants that result from area farming, ranching, or extractive industry activity. These tests are somewhat expensive, and out of the norm; many of the locals will not know about these issues and will not be concerned about them ... ("we've never had a problem") ... but it's your health at stake. Know what you are buying .....
Typical septic here is a tank (vault) and leach field. Perc tests are rarely needed due to the soil qualities and our arid climate. However, a septic inspection/pump out is required with the property sale and may reveal problems that the seller is unaware of. For example, an adequate septic system may have been installed years ago .... before additions/remodeling to a house; the system may no longer be conforming or adequate (especially leach field location & size), or the domestic well may be located closer than the current standards allow. Here again, knowledge of what you're buying is important. You may be buying a problem which can take a lot of money to remediate.
With the absence of county zoning in many locales, you will be allowed to build whatever you want on your unincorporated parcel, unless you're in a platted subdivision with restrictive covenants and a HOA. However, you may not necessarily be able to split off a parcel from your property with a house on it if each is less than 40 acres ... because you won't be able to have another domestic well/septic permit. The "old cabin" may be relegated to a "guest house" or a rental dwelling on your property.
The modular/factory built housing issues are due to the efficiency of building a structure here quickly. A factory built home to UBC standards may, in fact, be of higher quality than a stick built home ... and for much less cost psf. There's a number of regional plants building these structures, and they're all pretty good ... and will qualify for conventional loans as they are placed on permanent foundations. Portions of the structure may be moved in their entirety on a temporary frame on wheels from which the building is removed at the job site. These factory built homes are essentially completely built and finished inside a factory like a stick built home, but with more accuracy and controlled conditions to build them in. The key element here is the UBC code quality and standards for the building. You can get these built to almost any floor plan layout you desire just like a stick site built house.
That's quite a difference in quality from a "mobile" home, which is built to a different standard and designed to be moved on it's own permanent integral frame on wheels. It may be set on a foundation slab, skirted, and the wheels removed, but it's still a mobile home built to a different standard which may not necessarily qualify for a conventional home loan. You'd still be able to get a loan, but it will be in a different category for terms and rates. The structure will actually be "licensed" as a mobile home and titled with the motor vehicle department in Wyoming. Your deed to your property will be only for the land and not the mobile home.
Relatively speaking, the cost per acre of land in Buffalo is rather high for Wyoming. It's more like the costs of the Western areas from Jackson down through the Star Valley, which get a lot of tourist and 2nd home interest.
It's a beautiful area, and if you can find work and income equal to your costs of living here, it's a very nice place. The equine experience is part of the local culture, and having a horse(s) is very accepted in the area, even if you have to buy your hay because you don't have enough land to graze a horse. You'll be welcome to ride many places, including private lands (with advance permission, of course), as well the extensive public lands in the area. You could ride trails for many years and still not see all the area, there's that much riding to be had.
Please be a good neighbor and keep your dog(s) under your control at all times ... either in an enclosure, your home, or your personal active supervision and control. Even though you're out in the country, nobody likes to hear continuous dog barking noise ... or have a neighbor's dog running or attacking/killing their livestock. Your neighbors will appreciate your thoughtfullness ... or may be forced to take pro-active measures to ensure the safety of their livestock. I'm saddened to say that it's a less than pleasant experience for all concerned when forced to choose between seeing more livestock destroyed/injured or shooting a loose dog ... and it seems like "city folks" are the first to not understand that their dog when loose and not under their control may revert to it's predator instincts, even joining hunting packs with other neighbors loose dogs at times ....
so my husband's idea of water tasting and looking ok isn't going to cut it...
Thanks for the replies.
My husband thinks that if the water tastes and looks ok that it must be fine. I'm more skeptical and that's why the water questions.
Rest assured my dogs are ALWAYS under control. We live in a rural area now and there is no way I'm going to let them mess with our neighbor's chickens or get hurt. Love my dogs but they're animals and no matter what anyone says, you can't ever kill the hunting instinct. I've seen my dogs when they go hunting with my husband.
We really would like 40-75 acres but it seems unless we get into a subdivision like Saddleback, it will remain out of our reach. The lots there are about $90k and that we can afford. $250k for just land would be way too much. We could buy land without selling our house here first. If we want to buy a house there, we have to sell our house here first. We can't afford to carry two mortgage payments.
So now we decide if we want to get something that's not quite what we want or try to save more money and wait to move. I do like trees (must be a midwestern thing ) but that may be something I have to compromise on to get out there. My allergies are really driving for the move to be as soon as possible. Our house is for sale now so as soon as it sells (our market is extremely soft right now) then we'll have a decision to make.
Sunspirit, the reason many pieces are 40 acres or larger is because that is a true quarter, quarter of a section. There are 640 acres in a section and 40 is a 1/4 of 1/4, it was easier to just divide up land on the section and 1/4 and 1/16 lines. Also, if you own anything above 35 acres or greater, in Wyoming you are exempt from Subdivision Regulations by state statute. One thing that you are not exempt from is a septic permit from DEQ! You cannot just "put in" a septic system. I am a planner over in Campbell County so I don't know all the regulations for Johnson County, but I would advise anyone to go in and talk to the Planners over there. They will be knowledgeable and helpful for what you are looking to do.
megan ... actually, while it's a convenient way to think of the "40 acre" chunk of land being a quarter/quarter ... it's not very common for much of the state that parcels that were historically split off of larger holdings followed any regular pattern of the section grid. You might be a planner in the county office, but I can darn sure bet you haven't been around for more than a few years ... when most of the parcels were split off from bigger landholdings by historical larger landholding families.
If you get a chance to fly over many of the farms/ranches of Wyoming (as I do, at a 1,500 to 2,000 foot AGL level) ... you'll see many highly irregular shapes to the properties. They tend to follow creek/stream beds, unused corners of fields, and other natural geographic and topical features of the land.
In my own personal case, one portion alone of my property takes 2 pages of the assessor's metes and bounds description because it's all in distances of 50' to 500' lengths surrounding 135 acres. Consider, too, that the adjacent properties have similar lengthy descriptions. Some of my other adjacent parcels were bought in 37.23 and 35.45 acres and so forth in very odd shapes along Crow Creek, defined by bluffs and streambed locations and historical pasture fences that bore no relationship to the section lines, and the convenience of the ranch divider/developer for where he wanted to locate an access road with minimal earthmoving and best topography for drainage. Of the 31 parcels he's cut out of the old 6 section ranch (well, actually only 3 sections so far), only 18 were "squared up" 40's. Toss in an old railroad bed (long abandoned) that traverses the old ranch holding at an odd angle from NNW to SSE, and it really creates some very odd shaped pieces of property. It's been a real work of the surveyor's art to make sure that the parcels as divided out all met the minimum requirements for size and accessiblity (for marketing purposes).
It's only in the more recent history of the state that we're seeing "squared up" parcels aligned with the section lines as larger acreages get subdivided or platted out in 40's for resale.
The State Engineer's office, Groundwater Divison, is responsible for administering/permitting all of the groundwater in the state which happens to all be owned by the state. Their policy has been to require a 40 acre property minimum for a domestic well application. So that's been the driving force behind the 40's ... not a concern that a 40 acre chunk is a surveryor's convenience or a nice precise 1/16 of a section.
No, I have not been around for years, in fact, I just graduated from UW but have lived in Wyoming my entire life. You can be darn sure that surveyors do not split land now "historically" as you refer. And the woman moving to Buffalo is not looking for 135 acres with a 2 page legal description. Oh, and you could fix that "problem" simply by having your land re-surveyed, so that you could have a legal that is not so cumbersome and un-useful to the rest of the modern population. I will heartily laugh at all the surveying problems you will probably encounter when you do split your land. And that is the reason you see so many "squared up" parcels of land, because countless times surveying problems have arisen when "historic land owning families" divided up their land based on "rocks, railroad beds or creek beds." The point of the PLSS is to make surveying more accurate and the division and description of land more modernized. Please don't tell me you think that Wyoming can go on after the "old families" die with parcels that have 2 page legals based on "your old creek bed" and so on.
meagan ... the land is the land, no matter what convenient method of describing it or quantifying it for a legal description suits you folks in the planner's offices.
The motivations to parcel off lands remains the same for many as it did years ago ... to divide up larger landholdings for family distribution, to give children a home site at the family ranch, or to sell off a minor parcel for income, or to sell it off in affordable chunks for today's buyers (as in pivot fields, another meadow, fenced off pasture land, feedlot and facilities, a parcel with a house and live surface water, other housing parces, etc.)
Surveyors do not determine how the land will be divided. They only measure and record what land owners sell.
Not all land is divided off to suit the needs of a developer in nice little parcels. Although, as you well know, today there are a lot of speculators coming in (or old time landholders) subdividing to meet current Wyoming land demand.
Why would I want to spend the money to have my land re-surveyed (for a more convenient legal description) when it has a perfectly adequate and legal description on the books now? Should there ever be a problem with my old survey ... why, that's what I've got a general warranty deed and title insurance for. Besides, that old parcel is all within additional parcels that I now own, so if I sell the whole ranch as an inclusive property (worth a lot more today to the right buyer as a total package than subdivided off), it's not going to be an issue.
Wyoming has and will survive quite well with the old surveys, just like it survives with old court order adjudicated wells alongside state engineer permitted wells, and old mineral rights ownership. There's a long established means to deal with it all.
And, while the OP was seeking a modest parcel, (it was reasonable to infer that) the arbitrary size of that minimum parcel of dreams was based upon their perceptions of land use/utility formed by their perception of land in Wisconsin. There's a huge difference in the land use and productivity of lands in WI due to climate and soils (among many other factors) compared to Wyoming. I kinda' have a passing familiarity with that area as my wife's family is from there (pioneer family, long established landowners/business people) and were real estate brokers for many years up that way ....
Best wishes, meagan, for you in your planning office career ... you've only got to keep counting those days until retirement and you'll do just fine.
Oh I believe I will do quite well in my planning job, and will work to establish credible and better ways to deal with land in Wyoming than any of the old timers who hold this state back in the stone age.
meagan, I have no doubt that your idealism and activism will find a place in your office.
You might, however, in the fullness of time, discover that your task is to serve the people, not the other way around.
Some of us would prefer to keep Wyoming as it was for a bit longer ... so that our children and theirs can have a chance to enjoy this place as it has been for awhile.
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so my husband's idea of water tasting and looking ok isn't going to cut it...
) but that may be something I have to compromise on to get out there. My allergies are really driving for the move to be as soon as possible. Our house is for sale now so as soon as it sells (our market is extremely soft right now) then we'll have a decision to make. 
