Let's talk about Country Living

Originally Posted by Scrappah

Just thought i'd throw out a bit more for you Sledge.

If you're moving out to the country you might want to weigh the pro's & con's of buying an existing place vs. opening up a piece of land.

Not every piece of land is good for building. That was one thing about the old timers .... they lived closer to the land and instinctively knew where to build back then. Some of the best lots were built on 50 - 100 years ago. The problem is that the houses on them are getting pretty old and crappy now.

There was a revolution in the building industry during the 1970's. There was a vast improvement over previous building techniques. There are a lot of advantages to building new as opposed to trying to fix up an old place.

About 80 - 90 % of the new homes i see going up now are factory built and trucked to the jobsite in pieces. I still much prefer a home that is stick built on site because i think you get better quality but these pre-fab homes are pretty efficient. The cost is lower and more within reach of the average working man.

If you do decide to open up a piece of land make sure that there's a clear title. You want to get a soil test done so as to make sure that you can actually build there because it's useless to build a house if you can't get a septic system in. You ought to have a survey done to verify that it is what they say it is. Sometimes a piece of land that was represented as being five acres is actually much smaller.

Maybe run the numbers ahead of time? There's a road in & site work. Electricity & telephone wires need to be run in. You need a well & septic. There's the cost of the land. Lawyer & title fees. Something in the way of a foundation....etc.

Look & see the height of the land as compared to the road. It's better if it's even or a bit above so that you don't get all of that runoff from the road washing down on your property.

~ Just random stuff to chew on .~

All great points and appreciated!! I think we are probably looking at an existing. I think it would be far too much that we know so little about to build a house on land. Boy this is really a whole new ball of wax isn't it? My head is starting to spin a bit! But your insight is MORE than appreciated. Anything else that you think of.. the knowledge will not be wasted on me!! I assure you!