Oooh, this is great!
The ten acres has NOTHING on it but a graded dirt road up the incline, a well head and a huge barn. There are three good flat spots suitable to put something. Lots of oak, pine trees, a few cedars. The road washed out a bit next to the barn, so that would need fixing before the flat spot above the barn could be used. The property on one side is owned but vacant of habitation; there is an occupied house on the other side. It's higher in elevation than where I live, but only five miles away. Short sale.
The smaller property really, really draws me. The house is above flood level. Heated by wood stove, has a hot-on-demand water heating system. Yard water is drawn from the stream, but house water is on a well which requires regular treatment as it is shallow.... There are small trout in this stream (which I saw) as well as crawdads. And dragonflies and .... Oh, wait, the property has a few fruit trees, too! Two apple, a pear, two different cherry trees. This property is about 15 miles away, but nearer to "amenities.". Owned and occupied by sellers who are moving to more acreage which they have already purchased.
The major consideration here, really, is that either would be a second property, totally chicken and rooster legal. Where would I want to go every day to care for the majority of my flock?
The one thing that stuck out at me was WOOD STOVE. Now, I'm from Maine, remember that. What kind of winters do you have? Would it get below freezing? Would you need to keep the house heated to avoid the pipes freezing? Would you just winterize the house and remove the water from the pipes in the winter? Have you ever used a wood stove? How big is the wood stove, is it rated for the size of the house? Is it a wood furnace and not a wood stove?
When I first bought this house it had an oil furnace, 2 wood stoves and a fireplace. The main living area had a small wood stove in it, as did the basement in case we lost power so I could keep the pipes from freezing, or use it to heat the basement and/or the floor above it. The small wood stove in the main living area has since been replaced by a pellet stove, and the wood stove moved to the fireplace. The wood stove was nice, but it wasn't rated to heat the entire area that it was in, although that improved with the addition of a fan for the top of it to disperse the heat better. The problem with it was it was a pain in the butt. I didn't feel comfortable scooping out red hot embers, so I'd let it die out to clean it (which got cold). It died out, anyway, many times. It doesn't last 8 hours, so you have to get up in the middle of the night to put more wood in it and stoke it. It died when I went to work. You have to carry wood in and store wood. It takes a while to heat up after it's been cold. That was the biggest kicker for me. I'd come home from work and it would be 58 degrees in the house, and I didn't want to wait an hour for the stove to start to produce heat for the house, so I'd just put on all the clothes I owned, turn on the heated blanket in the bed, and shiver until I got heated up. Then I really didn't want to get out of bed and mess with the stove. I do love the way it smells though, and I still use both wood stoves often in the winter, but it was just too much of a hassle to use daily for heat, especially when I was gone for a large chunk of the day, or sleeping. I changed to a pellet stove because that's automatic. It stays on while I'm gone all day, and the house remains warm. I can turn it up or down and the heat is almost instantaneous. The only issue is it isn't able to run when we don't have power, although a generator is the next thing I'm saving up for.
I don't know if any of that is applicable to your situation, but if this is going to be a second house, you won't be there often, so I'm guessing it's similar to my situation of being gone about 10 hours a day for work. I'm certain your winters aren't as bad as ours are, but if you need the stove for heat, just think about what that entails.
There's also the risk of fire with a wood stove. Keep it clean, use good wood, have it serviced and inspected yearly. Take care of your ash/embers appropriately, and consider that they're always hot, even when they appear to not be. We have a lot of fires each winter due to burning wood. Many people have chimney fires, but there's also people who burn their house down because they thought their ash was cool, and they placed it in the trash.
Oz, I know it is legit, but I also know that you are grinning right now............
so is SCG.
Oh no, I was snoring. After my skunk ordeal the previous night... had a good nights sleep last night. No skunks outside my bedroom window dousing themselves in gasoline and then setting themselves on fire (that's what it smelled like). The cats behaved. The temperature was right. No wood stove to get up to fill... It was glorious sleep.
It's just the price difference -and the size of the properties - that makes me wonder which would be the most sensible purchase. I have to tap IRA funds for either one; the large property would take less than half the amount of the smaller property. But there's no power, no septic.... Five times as much land with a fixer-upper barn for less than half the price of the property with a small, "fixer" but habitable house AND a mountain stream close enough to dabble toes on hot days. My real estate broker is making an appointment for us to see the latter (smaller) property together on Wednesday. In the interim, I am dithering around with pros and cons and "feelings." Hence the solicitation of other Old Folks Home participants' much valued input.
