Looking for help on living "rural"

Rural is different than city.

You won't find much until summer. You don't sell a rural property in winter unless you have to. no one is looking, no one is selling in winter.

The typical realitor for city houses doesn't handle rural houses. Many are sold by the owner, or through an auction service, or the like.

It's just a different environment, you need to find what works for rural properties.

And - there are less rural homesteads, with a more stable population on them. You will have to look longer.

This is different than city folk. You'll have to find what works for your area.

Find something on a gravel road. You'll save $50,000 right off the top, all the fancy people stop being your competition.

--->Paul

I hope you find what you're looking for. When we decided to move from our small city (13,000) where I had the luxury of walking to work every day, we opted for the best piece of land we could get (134+acres) and a less than stellar house. The house has good "bones" but we've been working on it for 5 years now. I commute 150 km (roundtrip) daily and drive in some nasty winter weather. But for me, it is ALL worth it..When I drive down the driveway, see all the land, and my gardens in the summer, I am never ever sorry that we bought this place.
It really is a matter of what you decide fits your lifestyle.
good luck!

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A gravel road never bothered me much, so that's a plus, Paul. :-)

Thats what took us so long, finding land with any decent standing timber on it.
Most of what we ended up looking at had been "cut off".
Seems to be a common practice here, logger buys the land, cuts the good wood off and puts it back on the market for the same price he bought it for.

Unless you get the land very cheap, building a house that size will put you way over budget. I assume one of you works full time, in which case you won't have time to DIY unless you're willing to be under construction for a number of years. Don't forget the other costs of building on raw property: Cutting in a driveway, getting utilities in, putting in a septic system, and paying for permits, which can range from a few hundred dollars on up to tens of thousands of dollars, depending upon the area. It's easy to burn through $30K before you ever start on the house. That being said, we bought raw land, and will be building on it soon, Lord willing. We didn't have the money for a house and land when we bought, but we have been saving, and have enough equity in our existing house to build a very modest house- nowhere near enough for 4 kids. I'm also taking a year off of work to build full time, and hopefully it will be 100% by then.

I would say you need to look longer, and stretch your 'must haves' to include smaller houses, longer commute, less land, a little more money, or whatever combination it takes to find your home. Your children will flourish out in the country, and be exposed to many things that kids today have no clue about. As for smaller houses- go to the 'tiny house' thread that's in here lately, and see what people, even families, are getting by with. Americans live in what would be a palace in most other parts of the world. I read somewhere what the average size houses are in other countries- you'd be shocked.

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REALLY consider VERY carefully purchasing anything is a "subdivision" until you have in your hands a hard copy of any Restrictions and Covenants - those are the subdividion rules and regulations and if they do not entiely forbid animals they usually limeit the number of chickens, etc you are "allowed" to have on your own property. Also, the further out you go the cheaper the land prices and a significant savings per acre will buy a LOT of gas to commute.

I agree that you should probably be looking at smaller houses, and houses that will need some work (as long as they have 'good bones'). Keep in mind that fifty years ago, the average house size was somewhere around 900 square feet -- people raised big families in those small houses! You can always add on later, if that becomes necessary and possible.

I DON'T agree that you should expand your search area! It seems very likely that gas prices will be increasing again and this time they may never go back down, so staying within an area where you can commute to work is going to be very important. The other possibility would be if you were able to transfer your job to another area, or find a new job (hard in this economy, but not necessarily impossible), you might be able to get into an area that was less costly. But if you've got to stay where you are, I would try to stay as close to your job as possible.

Kathleen

Matt -You've asked for our input, so here goes - here's my opinion for what it's worth! I live in northwestern MN and in my opinion nothing near the Twin Cities would be considered "rural". But then, if you have lived in the cities all your life, you probably think Prior Lake is small. That being said, if you desire a 30 min commute to your work, then that's what you'll have to work with. (Are you sure you couldn't stretch that commute time to 40 or 45 min?) I would go for as much land as you can afford. If it has a less than perfect house, I would work with that (not all homes that need a little tender loving care or work are necessarily problems). As someone mentioned in an earlier post, you won't find anything cheap near the cities. If you find land without a house, you could either put a modular home on it and make that extra special with your own modifications, or build a home. My husband and I built our home ourselves. We used a brother in law who is a carpenter to help us, and worked hard to build it. It's not totally done, but we are living in it and do what we can afford, little by little. One neighbor did electrical work for a living and helped us with that, and we bartered for his time and expertise (my husband did welding jobs for him). We designed our own house and that wasn't anything hard to do. We took our design (simply drawn to scale on graph paper) to a local building supply place, and their estimator drew up a list of materials we would need. We purchased them as needed, and some things that guy said we needed, we didn't actually need at all. So - don't be afraid of building. What we didn't know how to do, we asked the experts, read stuff online, tried things on our own, talked to other folks who built, etc. Our house is not a fabulous multi-leveled McMansion, but we're sure proud of it!

I assume you are either planning to rent something now that your house is sold? Then take the time to look really good. And like one post mentioned, city realtors don't know too much about country property. And yes, find something on a gravel road. You'll save money. Up here in my neck of the woods, wooded land is going for $1000 an acre. Don't buy into any subdivision - it'll never be rural, especially as the twin cities expands more and more each year.

Do you have a career type job? If not, then consider a job in some other part of the state (if you like MN). I have lived all over this state, and I can tell you that land is cheapest in the SW and NW regions. Anything around Duluth, Twin Cities, Brainerd - forget it. (I sold a tiny little cottage on a tiny little lake near Brainerd and got a fortune for it! Seems like all the city folks want to be there, they love Brainerd as the "up north" destination)

Basically, I would buy as much land as you can afford with or without a house on it and go from there, and like others have said - take your time. I'm not sure what you mean by "sacrifices" living rural because I feel that I have the best of everything in the country! Whenever I have to go to the twin cities I just dread it, and count the hours until I can get out of there! By the way...........0.63 acres is the size of ONE of my 4 gardens!! Good luck to you! I hope you will find a way to make your dreams come true!

go for the land, and dont' be afraid of a nasty house, if it has utilities you can knock the house down and get a rather nice used manufactured home for cheap and set it up with the utilities. Utilities/well are going to be big expenses for putting in on raw land, and you can usually find great deals with nasty houses. Land is the important thing to look at though, you can't make a swamp be dry.

Avoid the CCRs/nazi subdivision rules at all costs!

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ps, we got a great deal on our house because it was a hard sell due to three giant dogs in the house and it REALLY stank--all it needed was the carpet removed, luckily the lino on the florr underneath prevented the stink from going into the subfloor.

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Their time and gasoline are valuable. If you look at 50 houses on separate houses your realtor could easily spend two to four hours of his/her time with you for each house. (I'm thinking about rural places...looking at the house and the property.) You also have to consider the gas.

50 houses X 3 hours each is 150 hours 150 hours X $20/hour = $3000

If you're not getting an expensive house it probably isn't worth your agent's time to truck you around. $100,000 X 3% (1/2 of 6% sale's commission) = $3000. That means that your agent is only making $20/hour and isn't being reimbursed for training, car, insurance, gas, etc. It's not likely worth an agent's time in this case.

If you purchase a house that's for sale by owner be certain to have an attorney go over the contract before signing, get a survey, and make sure that sale is contingent on inspections (home, radon, termite, mold, etc.... and do the inspections) and appraisal. You don't want to make an offer that's higher than the bank's opinion.

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http://homes.point2.com/US/Minnesota-Real-Estate.aspx

Just a link of properties for sale in MN that might be helpful.

Here's an update. My wife and I recently made an offer on a suburb house in Savage, MN. However, the inspection was as far as we got before feeling uncomfortable. We have our dream, but are not quite sure how to fulfill it. Ideally, we'd love to find cheap land and pay off any debts to never again owe anyone anything. Cheap land and alternative housing like with shipping containers has really held our interest. Perhaps we could rent for the time being while we pay off debt and look for land up north? Or maybe it would make sense to buy a duplex and rent half of it to save money? The only thing would be getting rid of it again.

We'd love to find 10+ acres for $1,000 an acre in mid to northern MN or something. What worries me is all the government red tape, etc, that would make building cost-prohibitive if we're trying to keep debt as minimal as possible.

having done this in the past, i would settle on less house and more acerage..a less than steller house can always be fixed up with a lot of found things in the future..but you'll never be able to add acerage unless it is already available adjoining the land.

you will be amazed at how easy it is to fix up a house that needs updating..we totally flipped my Mother in law's house when she died..doing the work ourselves for around $30,000....includinig replacing all the siding, inside walls, appliances, most of the plumbing and elec, paint, all new doors..etc..

it can be done a lot easier than almost anything else..and also if you have the TIME before you move in..you can get a lot of it done really quickly..esp in the summer..we flipped the entire house in less than a year..completely..but if you are moving in to it you can probably take some time...We used all new materials but you can likely find some items at places like resales stores or salvage yards..

Also if you are living there you can watch for huge sales on the items you will be needing and put them in as you can obtain them..

spring is the best time to be watching for sales on home building supplies as well so a good time to get a start..wishing you the best.

We looked at 87 houses before buying our current home, and 103 before buying our previous home so your 20 homes is nothing.

25 years ago, Prior Lake was rural but it was never very cheap, todays its much less rural and still not cheap. I think you need to slow down, look at more houses and determine if your $ amount is realistic for what you really want. Sometimes something has to give: Location, Price, condition or size of the house, or amount of land.

Where do you get the idea that it takes 3 hours to look at a house, I can look at 8 - 10 houses in 3 hours and have many many times. 10 minutes at a house is enough to know if its a possibility, if it is, then you take another 10 minutes, if its not then you move on to the next house. You group the houses you want to look at together in a geographic location (not driving all over the country from one to another, and map them out ahead of time.

I could eliminate a house in 2 minutes because I had very specific expectations for 2 rooms, if those 2 rooms didn't meet those expectations we were done with it, didn't matter what else it had.

Looks like my computer locked up instead of posting for me... Let's see if I can remember my two cents worth..
You can add a house to land but you can't always add land to a house! Find the right property first and foremost. Make sure there aren't any covenants or restrictions as a friend of mine bought 'horse' property that would ONLY allow horses. They ticketed and fined her when she bought chickens!
If there is a house on the property, make do with it until you can afford to build a new one. Your kids are small enough that they won't care one ioda because they're going to be having blast running around outside. Then look into the manufacturers that build either walls or entire rooms inside a warehouse. They build your basement on site and then ship the house and get it finished in weeks. Our neighbors did this and it was awsome to watch the neighbors rubbernecking, myself included. You'd never know that this house wasn't built on site!
OH!!! I almost forgot!! You may want to find out how soon you need to 'reinvest' your money from your sold property before you get hit with capital gains. We were told that if we sold this place we would have to bid on another property within 6 months and close on it within 9 months!! You may not want to wait 2 years!!
Just something to think on. -Catherine

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Do you happen to know any good manufacturers or have additional details you would mind sharing? Thanks!

Check out United Country realty's website. I live a little bit south of Duluth and right now Potlatch is selling tons of their wooded acreage cheap and United Country in Moose Lake is their listing agent. We just bought 40 acres for $50,000. There is currently a 220 acre property listed for $225,000, just to give you an idea of what kind of prices that are out there. I believe property further up north is going for less in some areas. Maybe you can get something small in the cities (like a foreclosure to fix up) and acreage up north. There is a cute log cabin at Tobie's in Hinckley, the guy told me he could make it turnkey (except well and septic) for about $70,000. As far as zoning issues, it depends where you are. The area I am in has very little zoning, but you can go about 10 miles from here and they have really stringent zoning regs.

Great info! Thanks! Some really beautiful properties. We have about $10,000 saved up right now, so that would need to cover a downpayment maybe if we need to get a loan. We'd ideally like to buy something outright, but that would be tricky with our budget. The toughest thing will probably be on the job front as I currently work near Prior Lake, MN. I wonder if there are lower-paying jobs available that would work given economies of scale?