New Year with New resolutions... need some advice to achieve mine

[Weak440]

2012 was a good year for me and I hope all of you guys too!

My biggest goals for last year were to pay off my truck and get my Duster on the road again. I was lucky enough to be able to do both of those... even if the loan company cashed the last payment for my truck on December 31st.:toothy8:

The last time I took my Duster out, I took it for a nice long drive (95 miles). I laid some rubber :burnout: and got a few :thumblef: up in traffic. So, I would consider that a success.


In 2013, I am going to set the bar a little higher for myself. I want to buy a few (5 to 10) acres of land. This is something that I have never done before (obviously) and isn't something to take lightly.

I am not looking at building a house on it immediatly. My "plan" is to have a well drilled and electricty on the property. That way, when the time (and money) is right I can make a move on building a house. But, I am getting ahead of myself here.

What I am looking for is advice from someone who has bought property before and built their own house (or has experience with this kind of project). What are some of the things that I should look out for when buying property? What are some of the mistakes that are made when doing this? If you could do it all over again, would you do anything differently?

This is something that I am just starting to do some home work on and I really don't want it to spiral out of control and be in over my head before I realize it. So, I appreciate any help that I can get!

 

[Old Tired Rebel]

Happy New Year to you and you have a great new plan. One thing I would look for is land with no restrictions so you can build like you want as long it is done to code. And where there is no HOA

 

[Oklacarcollecto]

Happy New Year to you and you have a great new plan. One thing I would look for is land with no restrictions so you can build like you want as long it is done to code. And where there is no HOA

Cliff gave you some great advise here. Be sure to buy outside the city limits too. That may be the only way to buy that big of tract of land in your area but around here a lot of small towns extend their city limits to cover areas 5 to 10 times the size of the town and then they get to collect taxes plus get permit fees for anything and everything.

 

[K.O. SWINGER]

best of luck in the new year to you and yours...I had property In Oregon for about 15 years and loved it so much, but its a job in it self to keep up fences /out buildings/ wells/ roads on and on but you probably know this my advises would be give your self lots of wiggle room financially there will always be unforeseen cost in the years to come..getting land and a home is relay the easy part keeping can be much more difficult and can be sooo stressful if things get hard you are not just moving you will be losing part of your self!!

 

[jensens ag]

Best thing i can tell you is when you find an area to look at, go check with what would be new neighbors and see what problems the area has had with water tables and such. Good luck.We have acreage and know what we have gone through.

 

[mwls73duster360]

idk where you live at but i know two people that bought around 5 acres with good timber and the local logging company paid them for the trees they wanted cleared. with the money they got from the trees one guy ended up with more cash then he paid for the land the other paid about 3/4 of it off. if you have good trees around you can have a guy from a logging company come out with you and estimate how much the timber on the property is worth before you buy. just a note neither of them logged all the land

 

[Oklacarcollecto]

idk where you live at but i know two people that bought around 5 acres with good timber and the local logging company paid them for the trees they wanted cleared. with the money they got from the trees one guy ended up with more cash then he paid for the land the other paid about 3/4 of it off. if you have good trees around you can have a guy from a logging company come out with you and estimate how much the timber on the property is worth before you buy. just a note neither of them logged all the land

I would definately have the land under contract before I did this because it would be a quick way to loose the land all together.

 

[dodge freak]

Taxes, I would look how much the taxes would be, you gotta pay them twice a year-summer and winter. Do the math over 10 years and you might find its $$$$.

 

[Bad Sport]

Taxes, see if you can do a perk test or if one has been done if it is needed in your area, run it through a title company to be sure it has no liens, back taxes etc. on it.

 

[R4Sedan]

Taxes, see if you can do a perk test or if one has been done if it is needed in your area, run it through a title company to be sure it has no liens, back taxes etc. on it.

That right their is the best advise so far if your land don't perk your in trouble. You wanna know how far you have to drill for the well it can get costly!

 

[lou3500]

Every one of these are good points another thing to consider would be placing a mobile home on the property[build the house later] so you can live on it and not have bills spread out over two different places,also do you really need 10 acres of land [unless it's a great deal] just my 2 cents.

 

[4404spd]

When I bought my land a X corn field, It was perked and driveway site approved. I sold my 73 Duster 340 to pay for most of the land and financed the rest. I borrowed the money a year or so later to build my 28x50 garage with this I managed to pay for the land and the garage with the money I made on the side doing body work. Plus it helped I owned the house aross the street I lived in at the time this all took place in 1994-1995 by 2003 I paid it off and sold my old house and built a new one at this site. I would do it again.