What property to buy?

[TheSongbird]

My husband and I have pinched and saved and we are now ready to buy. We ar scheduled to look at two properties next week in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. I would love advice as to what would make the best mini farm/ homestead.

Farmhouse, completely renovated move in ready old farmhouse on 17 acres with a creek, barn I good condition, fencing and cleared land. House is 2100 sqft. No room to grow but the house will work.

Log cabin, in structurally good shape, but needs some work. Propane fireplace for heat, very pricey, so we have to convert to woodstoves. Also has unfinished basement which would need to be finished because we have eight children and the cabin as is is pretty small. No barn or fencing, no creek. Property is very pretty, kinda our dream home. However needing to install woodstoves and prepare for animals is time consuming and expensive even though we would do the work ourselves.

We want to keep goats and chickens. Both properties are the same price, both have well and septic and are well off the beaten path and offer privacy. So far we have only been dreaming/researching about homesteading, and now that our time has come to make it a reality, I'm terrified of choosing wrong.

Please offer any advice.

[Harry Chickpea]

I'd select the first one, given what info you have provided.

[TheSongbird]

Is there any info I can give you that might help? I'm really concerned with having a creek. I just feel like having two water sources is really important, there is a spring with the cabin property, but is 12 acres from the house.

[BlueRose]

Okay you did to write down your pluses and minuses. You have more than likely already done that. Add the kids into the mix. 8 kids I am sure they all have some opinions.

You did not say how many acres the 2nd one was. Or they located in the same area?

[HOTW]

I'd go with th efirst since you have 8 kids to help you can jump rght into raising animals and getting a start on self sufficiency. With the second you will have a lot of work whole having 8 kids. Size of the first house works well, with the other I'd be more concerned with injuries due to woodstoves and small space-kids do hurt themselves in play(we had a few injuries with 5 kids) and while picturesque is nice , practical is very impoprtant when looking to raising food and dealing with kids

[Michael W. Smith]

You don't say how much property comes with the first piece, but you are getting a barn and fencing with the first property. Barns and fencing aren't cheap - even if you do it yourself.

And with 8 kids, how would you find the time to do all the work that would need done with property #2?

Buy property #1, and you can get into animals when you want to.

[Pinetop Hunting]

By reading your descriptions id say your mind is already made up. Lol

From what you've told us so far it's a no-brainer . # 1 . That could change if # 2 is absolutely your dream property & you have the time , willpower & money to be able to develop it into exactly what you want . A dream can turn into a nightmare if you are not fully prepared though .

[Harry Chickpea]

The flood zone is a key issue. Knowing that property one only has a limited area that floods is important - especially if the house is in that area.

Sloping and hill land looks fantastic, but are difficult to use and farm compared to bottomland.

Going into a project, having a useable base of operations that doesn't require "work" is a big plus.

Log cabins are OK, but have their own idiosyncrasies. Someone more familiar with them can point those out to you.

[lurnin2farm]

Same as the others I also vote for #1 based on info provided. You said no room to grow. Are you planning on having more children? If so I am sure you can add on to the house. Best of luck with your new home whichever you decide to get.

[farmgal]

I like property #1, 17 acres is a nice number. easy to maintain yet large enough to support your dreams. I would look at more than just two properties tho. This is a big purchase.

[chewie]

how many acres is #2??

[krische1012]

Not really enough information particularly about the 2nd place. With what you have said though Property 1 sounds like a better choice.

[DEKE01]

You need 3 lists

1. Absolute needs that must exist and are items you can't reasonably purchase if they don't come with the property. This might include a minimum acreage in fenced pastures to move your existing herds into and you don't have time to clear trees and improve grass. It might be a max distance to your job or the grocery or airport.

2. Needs that can be reasonably bought within your time frame. This might include barns, fruit trees, fenced fields, a home with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, etc.

3. Highly desirable wants. A view of the sunset over the Shenandoah from your back porch, horseback access to trails, mature sugar maples. Ranked the wants in order of priority.

You should make these lists BEFORE you look at property so that you do it with a clear head. Then rate your candidate properties against your lists and the answer will become obvious.

[rharper]

Don't underestimate the time involved.

DW and I bought a fixer-upper property (the house was in good shape, but the land was logged over and had come back thick brush--it is Virginia, after all--and the land immediately around the house was cleared and backfilled with poor soil). We chose the 14 acres of hard work over the three-and-change acres of well-fenced pasture, and in retrospect it was the wrong move.

We have the willingness, but we just don't have the time. We've been here 18 months, and just haven't done much beyond the most basic day-to-day (we take care of the animals, and the garden, but that's about it) because we both work full-time and we have two kids--one of whom is almost four years old, the other one almost four months. We're lucky if either one of us gets an hour a day to do anything that might count as actual "improvement" ...

It'll pass, we know ... and it is getting better. Years from now we'll probably laugh about it. But frustration matters, in the moment, and it's worth factoring in to the decision.

The other place needed a bit of work too, on the house, but it was more a matter of voluntary remodel rather than necessary renovation, and, frankly, if we'd moved there we could still have had our poultry and gardens, and perhaps even a grazer or two in the back ... and we'd probably have a nice looking, mowable front yard, rather than the two-foot-tall weeds that have to be whacked down because there are too may rocks and divots to run a lawn mower over it.

Sometimes what is is more important than what might be ... every time you look at a place and say "well, we could do X ..." try and also consider the "well, what if we couldn't get X done ..." as well.

[montysky]

Originally Posted by TheSongbird

Is there any info I can give you that might help? I'm really concerned with having a creek. I just feel like having two water sources is really important, there is a spring with the cabin property, but is 12 acres from the house.

I would go with option 1, but what are your concerns about the creek, flooding, the kids or snakes?

we have a creek on your place, the house was been here since the 1880's without any problems.

[Gray Wolf]

Check into the cost of insuring the log cabin versus the 'normal' house.

[o&itw]

I have completely rebuilt 3 old "fixer uppers". It used to be if you had the knowledge, ability and time it was they way to go. However, in the past few years "parts" to fix up a place have jumped terrifically in price. It is now to the point that if you buy a house in good repair it is usually cheaper than fixing it up yourselves.

A lot of people will fix up their place when they get ready to sell, and never began to get the money back out of it they put into it. You can usually buy a place with a good pole barn for about the same price as you can buy one without. Many people don't worry about that much, so they buy the place (without the barn) for not very important reasons. Then when they find what it is going to cost them to build a barn now, and get electricity and water to it, they are flabbergasted.

Things like light switches, water faucets, plumbing parts, hinges, door latches, etc have greatly increased. Not so long ago I could buy a gallon of the best paint around for 10 or 12 dollars... price a gallon of good paint now. I used to get concrete for $25-$30 a yard. I haven't bought any in a while, and I hate to guess what it costs now.

[TheSongbird]

I have no concerns about the creek. I'm concerned that the cabin property doesn't have a creek. It has a spring, though.

About my 8 kids, I should have said that 3 of then are teens now and very helpful. We've flipped three houses to be able to afford our homestead, and our oldest kids have been knee deep in all that for years. We will all be new to homesteading but not hard work.

There are 7 cleared acres on the cabin property. The rest is forest. The only work it "needs" is converting those money guzzling propane fireplaces to wood stoves. The basement finishing would just give us some wiggle room. Then he chicken coop and a goat house barn.

We have one more property our realtor added on the list, God bless that man-he keeps digging up these properties. It's an 18 acre farm house, a little bigger, but a little further away than unwanted to be. So we will see. Probably will go with the move in ready, because Im very practical. Thanks for all the advice.

[TheSongbird]

I forgot, the cabin property or #2 is 30 acres...