Buying Land

So,

As some of you may have heard, Annie and I have been looking for a small piece of Carroll County to call our very own. After several months of casual looking (ie internet searches and paying attention to the posted ads at our local feed stores and builder supplies) we have settled on a patch of ground to call our own. What makes this particular patch of ground so very special is that it is only about 1/2 mile down the road from our friends Paul and Terra. Aside from that, the only thing that really made it special was that it was cheap. Here are some photos of that bit of land

I guess I could post more, but that might just get redundant. Essentially it is a few tall trees with lots of scrub and briars. We fought our way through it right after we got the contract on it, and did confirm that there is a creek just off the property line at the back of the property.

Anywhoo, it will be 9.6something acres, and Annie and I will hopefully build our own little house on it and start creating our little patch of agricultural paradise. Interesting recent discovery - our real estate agent was talking to someone else who was looking for land, who apparently knew the land we just bought and suggested it would be a great place to install a pond/lake. He thought it could make a nice 3-4 acre lake, because a large part of the property is already somewhat bowl shaped.

The only pre-condition we put on buying the land in our contract was that it could pass a soil test for a septic tank - which it did. We already know that there is a water source there, because the houses on both sides of our land have city water (Mt. Zion city water).

And tonight's breaking news is that along with Paul and Terra we have (or are about to have?) a contract on the 5 acre plot of land across the street. They need a place to live semi-permanently while they build on their place down the road, and we need a place to live semi-permanently while we build on our place across the road. So we also hope to have a contract on a repossessed trailer - hopefully tomorrow. Then we can begin the process of getting a section of the land graded, making a foundation for the trailer, pulling the trailer on to it, getting utilities and putting in a septic tank.

It is all a good deal of running around, but hopefully we are going to have a pretty sweet trailer for the mean time, and then all end up with decent houses. And then since the trailer is not on the land we want to live on, we can either sell it or perhaps start renting it out and getting some rental income.

Big things are afoot.

Jeff