Help finding poultry friendly property!

[duckncover]

I may be selling my childhood house soon and I'd like to move into a smaller house that is not super close to neighbors has a medium-large sized yard and the rights to have poultry on it. I have tried so hard to look for something like this but haven't had much luck. It must be cheap as we will not get much for our house since it is in bad shape. I'm not looking in any specific area but I live in Scranton, Pennsylvania now and would like to consider staying in the surrounding area of Lackawanna County if possible. I'm not finding anything but someone will have some ideas for me.

 

[perchie.girl]

Have you talked to a real estate agent?

www.zillow.com is a good source for finding stuff as well and its free to look.

good luck

deb

 

[FridayYet]

We had a hard time finding property where we could have poultry. Many realtors don't know the zoning regulations and if certain subdivisions have additional restrictions.

What worked for us is to find "poultry people" here on BYC and find out where they lived and if they had "legal" chickens. Once we knew the village allowed chickens, we were able to find a house.!

Maybe ask on the PA thread to see where some people with chickens live in your area. It might help.

 

[samurai chicken]

I'm a Realtor in California - just a note to all, to keep in mind: Many cities do allow backyard chickens in residential zoning areas - there are Homeowner's Associations that do, as well...now. The problem with HOA's is that they are subject to change by votes from the stakeholders. That means, if yours does allow chickens now, it could change in the future. I know of one case where a woman purchased a home, wanting chickens at some point, but before she could get them, the HOA changed the rules. If she'd already had them, she would have been "grandfathered in", and would be allowed to keep them. But since she did not have any when the rules were enacted, she was out of luck, and no longer wants to live there.

If keeping chickens is important to you - and, well, of course it is!!! ... it's important to stress this to your Realtor and do your homework before buying your new place.

 

[seminolewind]

I'm sure the right home will pop up real soon

 

[MeepBeep]

For me when I was looking, I knew that most of the towns and cities by me are way to restrictive and/or simply don't allow chickens in residential zoning... Thus the first thing I did was go to the county website and download zoning maps for the entire county... These maps also showed me 'unincorporated' areas... From that point I was able to narrow down and cross reference the zoning laws, for me my focus was on unincorporated areas knowing that there are a lot less restrictions... In the end I really lucked out and found what accounts to what was a real working small farm, that was zoned rural estate, around me that is pretty much equivalent to being zoned agricultural...

I spent a lot of time on Google Maps and Bing maps cross referencing properties with the zoning maps from the county... Around me Google maps the unincorporated areas are actually a different color so that helped, can't say if it holds true everywhere...