I'm here in Eastern KY for 2 days- anywhere specific I should looknat houses? (Lexington: rental car, low income)

[phoenix02]

Hello all!

Our house in California is up for sale and I just made the trek out to Kentucky for the first time. I started with a 96 F350 towing a 28ft 5th wheel converted to a flatbed, which decided it didn't like me, bent the tongue section and snapped an axle in Kingman, AZ. So, I rented a 26' uhaul, transfered everything over and continued on.

I was finally able to unload into a storage in Richmond today, return the uhaul and pick up a rental car. I'm staying at an airbnb in Berea, and have to head out to Louisville Thursday to catch a flight to Vegas Thursday night so my in-laws can drive me from there back to Kingman and I can get my f350 back to California.

So, that gives me Tomorrow, Tuesday May 3rd and Wednesday May 4th to drive around. I was thinking I could go south tomorrow, Manchester, Hazard, Pikeville and back to Berea, then Wednesday go into Northern KY and have a look around before heading to Louisville on Thursday.

I'm looking for at least 2 acres, preferably more, at least 3 bedrooms preferably at least 4, and a shop space- large garage, weather tight barn with a floor, or a property cheap enough that I can have a pole barn built. I am a woodworker by trade, make everything from custom pistol grips to guitars, furniture, whole kitchens, antiques restoration, vintage audio repair, some metalworking and machinery repair and maintenance... a little bit of everything to make ends meet, so I have to have a workshop to work out of.

Any ideas where to be checking out in the next couple days?

Thanks!

[censusdata]

When I checked out land for sale a couple years ago cheapest per acre was South Central KY. Coal companies still own massive swaths of SE KY making smaller plots hard to come by. I'd probably recommend somewhere near I-75, US 27, or Mountain Pky to have easier access to customers from cities.

[Crazee Cat Lady]

Hi! Welcome to Kentucky!

It's a really large area you are talking about!
Not sure of your price range.
You could contact a local realtor. You could punch in the places you are looking at
in Zillow (Kentucky) and see if there is anything to your liking. I am not sure in the smaller towns and more rural areas...houses are selling like crazy here in Lexington. The average home is only on the market for three days before it is sold.

Eastern Kentucky/Daniel Boone forest sites you might wish to check out:

Cave Run Lake


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le3cjbtpMiQ
Moorehead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJqqF4qLr1g

Laurel Lake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWPGUlOk_Jc
Cumberland Falls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jy2AtEA77c

Kingdom Come
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg5L9xv5hGY

[phoenix02]

Thanks! I've been looking at Zillow for a while and have a few places I wanted to drive by to check out. Once the house sells we're looking at around $200k or so to work with possibly $250k max, so I figure I'd need move in ready at around $200k, then down from there- I am not opposed to a fixer, as long as I have the resources to make it liveable and workable within that budget.

There aren't whole lot of options that fit my criteria in my price range, but I know God's got a place for us, we just have to find it. I consider us political/social/religious refugees fleeing California.

[phoenix02]

Well, I'm a little soured to east KY. Thought it was a hardscrabble place of honest, hardworking folks.

I just stopped at a grocery store close to Manchester, KY. Apparently I dropped my wallet getting out of the car. Someone turned it in to the store, but not before stealing almost $70 I had in it. I guess "honest" should get stricken from that definition. Halfway honest, maybe. Self serving thievery? More like it. :-(

So, I think I'm going to look more central or Northern, perhaps.

[Crazee Cat Lady]

Originally Posted by phoenix02

Well, I'm a little soured to east KY. Thought it was a hardscrabble place of honest, hardworking folks.

I just stopped at a grocery store close to Manchester, KY. Apparently I dropped my wallet getting out of the car. Someone turned it in to the store, but not before stealing almost $70 I had in it. I guess "honest" should get stricken from that definition. Halfway honest, maybe. Self serving thievery? More like it. :-(

So, I think I'm going to look more central or Northern, perhaps.

That is awful. I am so sorry that happened to you. I hate thieves.

[recycled]

Originally Posted by phoenix02

Well, I'm a little soured to east KY. Thought it was a hardscrabble place of honest, hardworking folks.

I just stopped at a grocery store close to Manchester, KY. Apparently I dropped my wallet getting out of the car. Someone turned it in to the store, but not before stealing almost $70 I had in it. I guess "honest" should get stricken from that definition. Halfway honest, maybe. Self serving thievery? More like it. :-(

So, I think I'm going to look more central or Northern, perhaps.

If you dropped your wallet getting out of the car before entering into the grocery store, how did you pay for the groceries at the check out counter?

OK, so maybe somebody turned the wallet into the store counter while you were shopping? That would be a small miracle to be very thankful for in any place, with or without the cash left inside. $70 is peanuts compared to the massive hassle of having to cancel all your credit and debit cards, replace lost drivers license and insurance cards, etc, etc. Especially being far from home. For this peanuts amount, you cast aside all the people of an entire region? Wow, just wow.

[nalabama]

Sorry for your loss, but not surprised. Eastern Kentucky has a significant population of folks who don’t have good jobs, good homes, or good health. Then there are those that have addictions to drugs and drink. Then there are those that are just mean. But then there are those that are just wonderful. In your search for a new home you’ll find a lot of areas that have this same mix. I wish you the best of luck.

[Crazee Cat Lady]

I was noticing in your posting history that two years ago you were planning on moving to Maine.
Did something go wrong to change your mind? (Kentucky is a beautiful area I think, but so is Maine!)
Just curious. For awhile I wanted to live in Maine, because I love, love, love snow!!! We get some snow here in Kentucky, but nothing like they do up there!

[phoenix02]

Recycled, I was raised low income and live my life the same, other than the blessing of right place, right time to be able to buy our house at the bottom of the market and hopefully sell it at the top in CA so I can make this move. I also learned the value of honesty and attempting to follow the Lord in all things, regardless the benefit or injury I see doing so. It would never occur to me NOT to turn in a wallet or purse, WITHOUT stealing anything from it. The fact that I should be "thankful" for the common decency and honesty of turning in the wallet, and the implication I am somehow in the wrong for being perturbed at the theft involved shows two things- first, some folks don't understand the value of a dollar when $70 is a pittance to them, and second, we live in a massively degradaded society where the expectation should be the worst and thus ANYTHING better than that is a full positive.

As to the circumstances, I went into the store to see prices for the area and compare them to my budgeting in California. Walked around for a couple minutes and was about to leave when I hear someone saying my last name. It took me a minute, but I reached into my pocket and found my wallet gone and put 2 and 2 together- it was the store manager talking to a checkout clerk about someone bringing a wallet into the store, which happened to be my wallet.

Nalabama, I'm sure there's a mix of folks in the region, as there is anywhere, but the experience kinda sours you. It's like going on vacation to, say, Thailand, and someone pickpockets you the second you come out of the airport. Probably a beautiful country with some great people, but that one jerk skews your trust and perception of the whole place, right?

Cat Lady, we waffled back and forth about that for a long while. What we eventually came to is that KY would be better for us, due to some health issues making the extreme cold of ME a little too much to bear half the year for the rest of our lives. It's a very beautiful place, though, and I want to at leaat visit again sometime. I have a couple houses I'm going to go check out tomorrow northeast of Lexington, so I'll keep an eye out for crazy cats, point them your way.