An add on to what does your farmhouse look like.

lovethechickens

Songster
11 Years
Feb 16, 2008
153
1
131
Antioch California
I am curious to see how people acquired their farm houses. In other words, did you buy or inherit? What do you do for a living in order to afford your farm home? Can you give those of us who dream of living on a farm any advice on getting the dream to be a reality?
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Long story that I will try to make short.

My wife's ancestors were some of the early settlers in the area where we live. Over time because of economic and other reasons the family farms all let the family. When I met my wife to be she was living on her grandmother's farm. It too was sold after her grandmother died.

When retirement from the Army was on the horizon we decided to look for property in the area where my wife and her sisters had lived. The farm my wife lived on was not an option so we looked at another one of the old family farms (call it farm #2. Checked a couple of real estate agents to see what they had to offer and one of them was listing farm #2. We made an offer and bought it. Borrowed some money from my wife's brother at a lower interest rate than we were getting from the bank.

OK, now we are the owners of 100 acres of logged over old non-productive land. I retire from the Army, move to where I live now, build a "temporary" house out of a pole barn and start trying to improve the land.

Things aren't gloing the way I want and I get a job in New Mexico. When my wife is drivng out to meet up with me she totals our truck. With the settlement from the truck we are able to pay cash for a repossessed double wide which we put on 40 acres in NM.

Time to leave NM. We sell our place and when all is said and done we are able to pay off ALL our debts except for a car payment with 1% interest. We could have paid that off also but the interest rate was good. Now that is also paid off.

We are attempting to live off my Army retirement and so far we are doing OK. Have to live frugally but that is OK.

We acquired our place by being in the right place at the right time. We paid it off from an accident that was a blessing in disguise setting things up for a future sale. I do have to acknowledge the hand of God in all this. I usually don't talk religion but I really believe there was more than luck involved.

How to reach your dream. Live below your means. Get out of debt, stay out of debt, save. Network and keep your eyes and ears open. Be willing to move and start over again.

Just my story.


BTW, you might want to change the title of the thread to something like How did you get your farm?
 
It had always been my dream to have a farm and own horses and lots of other animals.

When I was in my late 20s I had enough saved up for a down payment on my farm. I bought it and it took another 8 years before I could come back to Maine and move in. I rented it out, kept slowly getting it restored and moved in after graduate school. Over time, we continued to buy the land around us, instead of buying new clothes, taking trips, and buying new cars. And we waited to have kids until we were financially secure.

We had to refinance in order to do some major renovations about 10 years ago. We have about 8 years left on our mortgage and actually plan on trying to pay it off sooner.

We have 185 or so acres now. And we are in education and do not make the big bucks.
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