Before we bought this place, we were building a cabin on a spring fed pond in Fentress County, TN. We were driving 5 hours up, working about 5 hours, then driving back, all in the same 24 hour period, every weekend. My DH was fed up and exhausted and even though I had earned the money, through real estate sales, to have the interior finished by someone else, he decided he wanted to sell it to someone younger and stronger than we were. The guy had a 5 yr plan to sell it and now that property is for sale again, finished out beautifully. We just happened to find this house, part of an estate, for a real deal and bought it, though I was not thrilled to stay in Georgia. So, here we are, six years later, still here.
We've done lots of improvements here but my DH has a serious back problem and any steps are hard on him. There aren't that many here, but with his pain he's always in, any are too much sometimes. So, I said if we ever left here, we were definitely going back to TN, anywhere from Tullahoma and Arnold AFB back toward the east.
Kate, I'm not at all surprised at the price of your mom's property. Not many cheap places left in Georgia and the ones that are do not appeal to me.