How did you get your land?

MoonShine · #1 09/19/13, 05:56 PM

I know a lot of folks have land willed to them, but I didn't. I've tried looking at realtor listings and the prices seem to be inflated. Driving around looking for "for sale by owner" signs has been the most promising. Letting people know I am looking has gotten me some leads. I've checked out the hudhomestore online and I can't seem to get anywhere with those, although I did find some that included a good bit of land. I'm thinking about going to one of those foreclosure auctions they hold on the courthouse steps. They list the particulars of each property in the newspaper but I don't like that I can't give the place a good look over before I put my money into it.

So far I just haven't found the right place and I'm starting to feel hopeless about it. So, how did you find your land? And did it take you a long time to find the right place?

SLFarmMI · #2 09/19/13, 06:03 PM

We looked at a lot of websites like realtor.com and landandfarm.com. However the best thing we did was to drive out to where we were interested in buying and going into a local real estate office. We gave them our email and what type of property we were interested in and how much we wanted to pay and they would send us listings of what was available. We didn't have to sign any type of agreement with the agent and once a week we got an email with listings. We had about 3 or 4 agents hunting for us. When we got a listing that sounded promising, we called that agent and made an appointment to look at it. We looked at several properties before finding our place. It was a foreclosure.

goatlady · #3 09/19/13, 06:18 PM

Number ONE rule, have your financing in place! LIfe will not provide what you want/need if you are not prepared also. Bank pre-approval, downpayment saved or available, clear idea of what you are looking for and price. I personally made a written list of all the attributes I absolutely had to had available on property and then made another list of "nice to have". You really need a plan in order to be successful, no matter the situation. Took me most of 30 years to get to my final homestead but I would not have been able to handle it any sooner - learned LOTS along the way over that time.

Yvonne's hubby · #4 09/19/13, 06:28 PM

I have bought quite a few properties over the years... real estate office in the general area has always been my best bet. I was so impressed with the office here in this county I eventually went to work as an agent with them.

The place we have now was an estate auction deal. The heirs were selling several hundred acres, mostly timberland but it had about 100 acres of farmland. It was divided into smaller tracts and I picked out the one I liked best, showed up on sale day and kept bidding until everyone else quit. I have also ran an ad in the local paper in the area I was interested in and managed to buy property on the cheap that way a couple of times. I shy away from "court house door" sales. They normally do NOT promise clear title, the proceeds of sale only pay the particular claim against it that forced the sale, all sorts of other claims could be filed against it and as you say, I dont like to buy a pig in a poke, I like to be able to inspect the property and be assured of a clear title with no encumbrances or claims lurking around to surprise me later. My broker bought a place at the courthouse door once, a couple of acres with a nice doublewide on it, overall a nice enough place. When he closed the deal with the bank, and was granted possession he went to check things out closer... the mobile home was GONE! Seems as though the ex wife owned it and had come and had it removed the day before the sale.

Ramblin Wreck · #5 09/19/13, 06:31 PM

At the farm where I live, my Dad gave me 13 acres and I bought another 21 from siblings and a neighbor. So, I got my start with a gift and then built upon it.

Land has been down in price here for the last few years, but it's on the way back up, slowly. My brother (and eventually his SIL) and I split a 40 acre tract purchase two years ago. With surveying fees, we paid slightly in excess of $3,000 per acre for some good land. That's about 1/5 of what it would have brought early in the 2000's.

Good luck finding a place.

ET1 SS · #6 09/19/13, 08:27 PM

I shopped and shopped and shopped.

We moved around following my career, and at each location, we shopped.

Finally I found a place that we liked and we bought it.

danielsumner · #7 09/19/13, 08:42 PM

The 2 1/2 acres the house sits on we bought from the neighbor. It wasn't for sale, we just called and asked him, turns out the parcel belonged to my DW's family 60 or so years ago. He was happy that we wanted it. The twenty five acres across the road was were my DW grew up. We acquired the land by compensating her sisters for their interest in the homestead.

parthy · #8 09/19/13, 09:11 PM

We looked at properties and made offers on 3 places. They all withdrew from the sale -apparently just trying to see what the land was worth.

I went driving around one day and saw an old sign "for sale" and asked a guy who was cutting grass if he knew who owned the land. It ended up being his dad. I did a private sale with him, doing all the land titles thing myself.

chewie · #9 09/19/13, 09:16 PM

went asking around. seldom is anything in this area for sale, unless you buy a large piece (hundreds of acres) but we couldn't afford that much. i kept eyeing a barn with old house, and found out who owned it. the lady said she doesn't sell land, but come out next week and we'd go look. she said that day, she had another place that might suit me. showed me the one i'd eye'd, then showed me this place.

i went home and told hubby i found our place, they shot us an offer, including the contract for deed and here we is.

CurtisWilliams · #10 09/19/13, 09:16 PM

My idiot ex roommate found my farmstead. Her plan was for me to buy it and then take over the payments on a land contract. She started reneging on her word the very same month that the first payment was due. So, there she is and here I am.

It is a six bedroom house on an acre with a detached garage. Just outside of a tiny city, on county land. I went thru a mortgage broker for the loan. I recommend this as he will do SOO much legwork and paperwork for you. He worked with me for over a year as I improved my credit score to qualify for the loan.

am1too · #11 09/19/13, 09:33 PM

Bought my inheritance. Got a great deal.

opportunity · #12 09/19/13, 09:49 PM

Bough a forclosure this time but we still have the four acres we lived on before(our second house). We used money from our first home that was really run down. We up dated it and did a lot of work on the property and made money to buy another place.

willowworker · #13 09/19/13, 09:58 PM

I drove around the area I wished live in and knocked on doors. talked with folks...they got to know me. Eventually I spoke with the right person, and purchased 30 of the most beautiful acres....felt like "home" when I first walked the land. Still feels like "home."

elbowbeach · #14 09/19/13, 10:07 PM

29 years ago,I saw a very small classified ad in the Sunday paper(I still have the ad).The following Tuesday I made a short drive to check out the property.Driving back the lane,I knew I had found my place.The following day,I took a substantial down payment to the realtor and made no counter offer.I visited the vacant farm for the next 2 days and just felt totally "connected" to it.Saturday morning,I went to a bank in a small,rural village about 9 miles away.I had a mortgage on a house through them.The bank president and vice president happened to be in that Saturday morning.I told them of my interest to buy the farm.They said,"let's just ride down and look at the property." Thirty minutes later while standing in the lane,they said they would be glad to offer a loan on the property.It's the best decision I ever made.I love this place.

collegeboundgal · #15 09/19/13, 11:03 PM

I buying my parents farm directly from them, excluding the 5 acres my sister (and BIL with niece) and 19-20 acres my parents live on. (I still use this to farm on) all together, we have 115 acres. I will tell you that I'm not paying any interest to my parents, but, I make sure they are taken care of doing little things for my mom since dad's health has made him completely dependent. (dementia, trachea, bad choices, like stealing the car when mom was down for a nap...lol)

TnAndy · #16 09/20/13, 04:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elbowbeach

29 years ago,I saw a very small classified ad in the Sunday paper.......

31 years ago for us.....but same deal....small ad in the classified section of the local paper. Met the owner ( he was 70, said he always meant to get up here and build a little cabin, as he had owned the land 30 years, but at his age, figured that was out of the picture ), we walked over the place and I knew this was "IT".

Told him I had NO idea how I could afford it......it was 75,000 for 75ac.....which seemed like all the money in the world at the time.....we had never borrowed more than 10k in our young lives to build the house we lived in at the time. He said if you can pay me something down, I'll carry the financing. So I traded him a couple lots I'd bought in town ( I was building houses at the time ) for the down payment, and he financed 65k for us for 20 years. His comment when we signed the note was "Lawd, I'll never live to see this paid off, but I guess my kids will". So when we sent him the last of the money 9 years later, I called him up and asked:

"Hey Lynn......you still alive ? "

"Ahh....yeah" ( Guy was country as they come....you'd have had to have known him to appreciate this )

"Well....you were wrong. Last check is in the mail !"

SO, we've spent 31 years on our 50 year project. Taking a pc of steep, raw mountain land ( no road in, no water, nothing cleared, no power line )and trying to turn it into something. It's been a heck of a journey so far, and I certainly hope the NEXT guy appreciates what we've done for him !

And I agree, Elbowbeach.......best decision EVER.

CJ · #17 09/20/13, 05:37 AM

We saved up our money to pay cash, but it still took us 8 years of looking at every land listing that came on the market here to find a piece that suited us. Nearly everything in our area gets "raped" before it goes on the market, timber cut, minerals sold off... ugh. I believe I have walked more ground in the area than most locals have in their lives.

Rustaholic · #18 09/20/13, 06:04 AM

During the three weeks I spent riding around in a loaded 2 year old Cadillac that the real estate agent drove we looked at a LOT of places. I also turned 19. Like others have written I had a list of features I was looking for.
Then on a Saturday morning my mother showed me an ad in the paper.
I drove out here and this 5 acres was right for every thing that was on my list. Best yet it was Land Contract. I had the down payment in cash and it was $75 a month. (1976)
Five acres with a ratty old garage and a well. I had a nice place for a walk out basement. I called the owner and went and gave him $500 down and we signed the contract on the next Tuesday. I asked my Sweety to marry me that evening. That night when she told her parents they both said ,"It's about time."
There was nothing not right going on between us it was just that they had pretty much adopted me as their new son already.
That was mid March and we were married on June 19, 1976

I built this house the next year. It was a February thaw and the hole was dug and footings poured on February 27, 1977 and in 1981 the land contract holders called to tell me they were selling the contract. I asked what they were getting for it and it was 2/3 of what I owned. So,,, I bought it from them for cash.

dirtman · #19 09/20/13, 08:15 AM

I don't know how people do it now. Thirty five years ago when we bought this property interest rates were real high and rising. It was pretty easy to find land contracts. We found a piece of property that was too far off the highway to appeal to most people and were told that we would never get in and out of it in the winter. Admittedly, plowing snow has been a challenge but we are tucked back in here out of the way and have everything we need. Wood, water, meadow, swamp. cost a small fortune to run power back in since it had to be all underground and if I did it again I'd go off grid but for right now it suits all our needs. If I were to move again I'd go to the upper penninsula and get even farther into the sticks.

mnn2501 · #20 09/20/13, 08:27 AM

I found a Realtor and looked at about 100 places before finding the right one, put in an offer and after some haggling got the place -- took out a mortgage and me and the bank own it.