Anyone live on a farm?

[Thornes70]

Okay, hold the old farmer and his daughter jokes...

I came across a 4 BR, 2BR 'urban farm' property for sale on 1.22 acres and I'm thinking strongly about making an offer if I get the kind of feedback from the realtor that I asked for (and obviously after a physical showing). It's so dated that it will give me the benefit of renovating (what I'm looking for), and will probably keep it off the market for a while.

While I have no intention of getting animals, the size of the land and the close-in location is perfect. I'd have to break our lease if we decided to go for it, but these kinds of opportunities don't exactly come along every day.

So my question for people who live on a farm is - what's the pros/cons with a property like this?

I was on rmls.com - here's the RMLS if you want to take a look at it: 8076496.

[namehater]

i have lived in an apartment, a normal in-town house with close neighbors and a small yard, and ive live on a 10 acre plot. the 10 acre house had about 1-2 acres that was nice yard, the rest was pasture, so it would be safe to say that it might be comparable to the house that your talking about. as far as im concerned being on over an acre is the only way to live.

i cant say that i dont really have any cons about country living other than you live farther away from stores. the pros are definitely there tho. id better list em...

you can make whatever noise you want and not have to worry about neighbors.

you have tons of room to landscape your lawn.

its enough yard that you can buy a nice riding lawn mower and enjoy mowing with a beer in your hand.

you can fence in your property and let your kids/animals play and not have to worry.

you can have company over and not worry about where people are going to park.

you can have multiple shade trees, and they dont have to be close to the house so you dont have to worry about wind blowing it onto your house.

you have plenty of room to have a nice sized garage/ work shop that wouldnt have to be attached to the house.

if you can get your hands on it for a decent price id say that you would not regret it, i absolutely love having a small piece of land. when we go to buy a house in a few years what you describe would be ideal for me.

[Thornes70]

I still wonder if I made a mistake by not buying 20 acres up in the Sandpoint, ID. area. yeah, I'm definitely all about the land!

I just kind of always figured the more land, the farther out you'd be - but the neighborhood this place is in wouldn't be putting more of a commute time onto what I already do - maybe an extra 10 or 20 minutes each way, which is basically nothing. That's what makes it so curious to me.

[namehater]

20 acres would be way to much for me, id be paying taxes on a lot of land that i wouldnt ever even look at it.

is this new house inside city limits? outside of city limits gives you a lot more freedom, but can complicate 911 emergency calls and such

[alter_ego_trip]

Go for it. We owned a 15,000 acre farm when I was growing up and it was a blast. It taught me about hard work at a young age, and the freedom was second to none. I live in town now and I really miss the peace and serenity, not to mention not having to worry about my daughter being abducted when she goes out to play. Make sure you do a thorough inspection of the house though. You mention it's older, and there can be a lot of hidden problems that can cost a ton of money. Is the house on a public water system or does it have a well? We actually had to haul our own water from town as we weren't on a well system (couldn't dig deep enough to find water in the area).

[Thornes70]

Ouch, that sucks about the well!

It is inside city limits & on public water/sewer/electric - it almost appears to be one of them "on the edge" type properties where you now see all them new houses that are two inches apart, know what I mean? That's why I really gotta decide if I'm going to jump on this. I just did a google map search, and it's location is pretty close to where we now currently rent.

As for age, it was built in 1938, and no info about anything being updated or when the last update was - electrical & plumbing issues are bound to be there so I have to figure that in, obviously.

[lovekeiiy]

I haven't lived on any kind of farm. I have had some family live on stuff similar to you.

I would look on how long you plan on living in that house if you buy it. An acre of land is a lot of lawn care. Do you want to being that yard work when you're 70? How close is the house to town and other city amenities such as hospitals? THere are other small things to consider such as internet services available, since you like the internet and online gaming.

[ZoomZoom71]

The last picture appears to be a survey, or plat map. Does the property abut an interstate highway?

Also, the listing information says it can be subdivided up to 8 lots. Does something like that seem to be a possibility, based on what's happening around the area? Could a developer come in and purchase up all the land, at some point in the future?

From what I can see from the pictures, it looks like that lot would be much fun, because of all the different structures (barn, shed, etc). Looks like the kitchen has never cabinets, but hard to tell. Definitely get a home inspection, just so you know what you're getting into.

[Thornes70]

Bot, the location is in the middle of town (well, from where I live). Based on the google map neighborhood, it's anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes from where I currently live - so I can still go online and bet against you ever winning a solo GRAW 2 match! As for the size/lawncare, it's really only an acre+ so it's not exactly as much lawncare as you'd think. Plus I have a nine year old son (what, you think he isn't gonna be using that mower? lol).

Zoom, that is definitely one thing that I considered, but still haven't had a return email from the realtor - if all the "possible" subdivisions are there, then that could seriously be something to bank on in the future. There have been a lot of new subdivisions that have gone up here in the last few years. But it would have to be verified by the county, and could easily be a contingent in any offer.

Looking at the work that would have to go into the property, it would be a lot, but tearing apart a house room by room & fixing it up isn't anything too difficult, right?

[Thornes70]

Oh - yeah, there's a freeway behind it (that part that says I-205), but all the freeways that run through Vancouver have a few acres between it and any residence.

Definitely a minus, no matter what, but not a deal breaker for so much land so close in.

Edit: Just got the physical address from the realtor, so I think we're going to do a drive by on our way to play some baseball in about a half-hour. Check out the google map of this add: 6000 NE 94th Ave, Vancouver Washington and if you were to go just a bit south-west, you'd see where I live on the corner of 72nd and Vancouver Mall Dr. Not too far at all.

[lovekeiiy]

the freeway thing only sucks for about first year. You would actually grow accustom to it. My parents and I live right next to the freeway for about ten years, and move to different town no way near a freeway; we didn't have a neighbors for about six to nine months. The quietness kept us up since we were use to hearing cars all the time.

[Steelhead]

I live on 43 acres and love the idea of not being in town. After living here for so long, there's no way I could adjust to city life. If I want to walk out on my back porch and take a piss, I do so. If I want to go out and blast some groundhogs...no problem. If I want to hop on the 4-wheeler and go riding..I can. If I want horses, a couple head of cattle, whatever...I can have that. I love it.

[Thornes70]

Well, turns out this property is a bust; we drove by it yesterday and it has that feeling of a big neon sign that says: "all meth addicts, come steal your scrap metal here." The neighborhood is trashy and the place itself looks way worse than the pictures suggest (which is surprising), and from what I could tell, the entire property is just a big overgrown blackberry patch. Too much work and nastiness for the price they're asking.

The freeway noise isn't that big of a deal (sounds sort of like you're at the ocean), and isn't any worse than the traffic noise we hear at our apartment, but no, this aint the place. *sigh* guess I'll keep looking for my little retreat.

[Prophet0ne]

I grew up on a 600+ acre farm in Washington's Columbia Basin. Can't say I'd have it any other way. Lots of space comes with extra chores though. I personaly loved it. My grandparents still own most of the land and raise a few beef cattle just for family consumption. We grow alfalfa hay every year and rotate crops between feed corn and green fertilizer every other year. You could have a lot of fun and it sounds like you're still on the city grid for power and water. Go for it.

[lovekeiiy]

Originally Posted by Thornes70

Well, turns out this property is a bust; we drove by it yesterday and it has that feeling of a big neon sign that says: "all meth addicts, come steal your scrap metal here." The neighborhood is trashy and the place itself looks way worse than the pictures suggest (which is surprising), and from what I could tell, the entire property is just a big overgrown ...

I guess that means no Field of Dreams for Thornes any time soon.

[Thornes70]

Nope. Someday, I will build it. And they will come (only unlike the movie, I'll enslave them and make them work hard labor on creating a huge pyramid that I'll fill with beer and once a year I'll flood the streets of Vancouver with flash brew floods the likes of which this world has never seen mwahahahahaha).