We may have found land. Or maybe I’ll cry.

[Carrie12345]

Finding land is proving nearly as hard as finding an existing home. There are options, but our builder is picky about approving lots and even pickier in approving for a full basement, which I’ve dreamed about more than the house, lol.

My guy sent me a video of GREAT land in a neighborhood I can live with, but didn’t have the exact address yesterday. My satellite search shows me only one option that seems to match. If I’m right, it’s the last house on a dead end with almost complete privacy (we can easily add a little extra to one side) and I want to run over and plant my flag right now.

We (combined me and Dh, and the builder) have already rejected more than 20 lots, so anyone with spare fingers to cross...

[itsheresomewhere]

Fingers and toes crossed for you.  I hope it turns out to be the perfect piece for you. 

[ktgrok]

Good luck!

[Innisfree]

It sounds great. Fingers crossed!

[BlsdMama]

Oh! How exciting!

[Spryte]

Good luck

[mommyoffive]

Oh gosh I hope it is the one!!  We have looked at land too and it is so hard to find a great lot!

[saraha]

Ah! I hope this is it!

[hippymamato3]

When will you find out?

[TheReader]

Oh!! I hope you get it!

 

[Kassia]

Fingers crossed!  Good luck and I'm hoping for a happy update.

[Bootsie]

OH I hope it works out!  

[Carrie12345]

Thanks, all! 
I was right about where it was, and I went over to check it out. OMG. It’s practically a manicured nature park. I can’t imagine finding anything else that comes close in our given radius.

It isn’t officially a done deal. The listing was supposed to go live last night, but they haven’t pulled their trigger and I’m hoping it’s because they were told I’m interested. The engineer guy is going to check it out for basement worthiness. I am seriously considering foregoing my dream basement and coming up with alternative ideas in exchange for this lot.

Im excited, but I’m also sick to my stomach, lol. 

[Carrie12345]

Oh. I’m meeting with the builder tomorrow and it may become official then.

[Halftime Hope]

50 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

Thanks, all! 
I was right about where it was, and I went over to check it out. OMG. It’s practically a manicured nature park. I can’t imagine finding anything else that comes close in our given radius.

It isn’t officially a done deal. The listing was supposed to go live last night, but they haven’t pulled their trigger and I’m hoping it’s because they were told I’m interested. The engineer guy is going to check it out for basement worthiness. I am seriously considering foregoing my dream basement and coming up with alternative ideas in exchange for this lot.

Im excited, but I’m also sick to my stomach, lol. 

Can anyone build on the side or behind you, if more development is done later?  (We looked for that to be an impossibility. 😉 )

I'm really excited for you! 

[mommyoffive]

Everything crossed over here for you!!!!!!   I hope it works out.   It sounds dreamy.  How big is the lot?

[Ausmumof3]

That sounds awesome.  Hope it works out.

[Carrie12345]

1 hour ago, Halftime Hope said:

Can anyone build on the side or behind you, if more development is done later?  (We looked for that to be an impossibility. 😉 )

I'm really excited for you! 

Zoning-wise, it is legally possible for more residential to be built behind it, but highly unlikely. There’s around 100acres of high water table zoned residential, and then thousands of acres of protected wetlands. 
Totally worth the small risk, since all the other lots we’ve looked at already back to neighbors!

[Carrie12345]

1 hour ago, mommyoffive said:

Everything crossed over here for you!!!!!!   I hope it works out.   It sounds dreamy.  How big is the lot?

I don’t have the exact measurement (still not on any of the public sites, yay!), but it feels bigger than my 1.25 and I was told it was under 2.  I used to want, like, REAL acreage, but decided it’d take too long to work that out financially and logistically. This spot makes me not mad about it, lol.

[mommyoffive]

48 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

Zoning-wise, it is legally possible for more residential to be built behind it, but highly unlikely. There’s around 100acres of high water table zoned residential, and then thousands of acres of protected wetlands. 
Totally worth the small risk, since all the other lots we’ve looked at already back to neighbors!

Dreamy.  I want a lot that doesn't back to neighbors so bad!

[mommyoffive]

41 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

I don’t have the exact measurement (still not on any of the public sites, yay!), but it feels bigger than my 1.25 and I was told it was under 2.  I used to want, like, REAL acreage, but decided it’d take too long to work that out financially and logistically. This spot makes me not mad about it, lol.

I am dreaming of living on real acreage too.  But I have never done it and I am a bit scared of septic and well and everything else.   We live on .25 now and I hate it.  When the neighborhood wasn't so built up it was ok.  I would love 1.25.   Do you back to neighbors now? 

I hope you get it and that you find out tomorrow!

[Carrie12345]

10 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

I am dreaming of living on real acreage too.  But I have never done it and I am a bit scared of septic and well and everything else.   We live on .25 now and I hate it.  When the neighborhood wasn't so built up it was ok.  I would love 1.25.   Do you back to neighbors now? 

I hope you get it and that you find out tomorrow!

I’ve always lived on a septic (minus a few apartments as a young adult) and almost 16 years with a well, and this will be too, so no big deal to me. I mean, they have their issues, but they’re paid for by not paying water and sewerage bills, lol.

We do back up to neighbors but, like many properties here, we have untouched wooded backyards that make it seem like we don’t. 

[mommyoffive]

1 minute ago, Carrie12345 said:

I’ve always lived on a septic (minus a few apartments as a young adult) and almost 16 years with a well, and this will be too, so no big deal to me. I mean, they have their issues, but they’re paid for by not paying water and sewerage bills, lol.

We do back up to neighbors but, like many properties here, we have untouched wooded backyards that make it seem like we don’t. 

What issues do wells and septic systems have?  Just curious?   I got myself scared off of them and I am just looking for property in a city because of it.  But maybe it isn't something to be scared of?   Yeah I water bill is so high since we moved here.  Yes, we have more people in our home.  But the city just keeps raising rates.  And not small raises more like a 50% raise one year.  Then another 35% one this year. Over and over again.  

[fairfarmhand]

2 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

What issues do wells and septic systems have?  Just curious?   I got myself scared off of them and I am just looking for property in a city because of it.  But maybe it isn't something to be scared of?   Yeah I water bill is so high since we moved here.  Yes, we have more people in our home.  But the city just keeps raising rates.  And not small raises more like a 50% raise one year.  Then another 35% one this year. Over and over again.  

We've had septic for 20 years. It was a new system when we built the house.

Last fall, we pumped it and it wasn't funtioning properly. The guy came out and found one of the field lines was messed up, so he put in a new one. $2500 and we're good to go.  That was the second time it had been pumped.

We only put TP and bathroom stuff in drains. No tampons, paper towels, grease or chemicals down the drain. And that's it. It's pretty simple.

Wells....we have one for the farm, but have city water for the house. As long as we have power, the farm well is fine. If we added the house, we'd need a more powerful pump.

[Lecka]

We had septic and well for 3 years.  We replaced a water softener when we moved in, and we got a UC light and a charcoal filter.  The last two things were borderline for being necessary but my husband wanted to do it.  Then we had the tank pumped twice — no problem, except the first time I didn’t know where the hatch (?) was and they had to dig a little for it.  
 

In the house before that, we had city services, and had problems with a tree root growing into a sewage line.  This was a greater hassle than the septic/well.  On that street a neighbor had to dig up their driveway to repair a sewage line and I think it was also from tree roots.  Not totally sure on that.  I just know they had to dig up their driveway over plumbing issues.  
 

Where we lived with the well — I found out after we lived there, that 2 years before there had been a dry summer and some people were concerned about wells going dry and needing to be drilled deeper.  It never came to pass because all the water levels went up after that summer, but people did have some concerns.  
 

A lot of people used plastic water jugs (like Culligan) for their drinking and cooking water.  But some of that was for people who didn’t pay for whole-house systems for their water, for various reasons (like knowing they wouldn’t live there that long, or renting).  

[Carrie12345]

16 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

What issues do wells and septic systems have?  Just curious?   I got myself scared off of them and I am just looking for property in a city because of it.  But maybe it isn't something to be scared of?   Yeah I water bill is so high since we moved here.  Yes, we have more people in our home.  But the city just keeps raising rates.  And not small raises more like a 50% raise one year.  Then another 35% one this year. Over and over again.  

My current septic has done well being pumped every 3-5 years (not always normal for one to be able to go that long) for around $300, but repairs and replacements can be thousands to tens of thousands. How they’re built also depends on soil conditions.

We’ve replaces our well pump twice, which was about $2k each time.

When the power’s out, neither one is pumping.

We home test our water around every 6 months or so, and professionally test if/when the well’s been tinkered with (like pump replacement or kids throwing rocks down the shoot! Working locks are important.)
 

My mom’s rental was canceled a few years ago because the property’s well went dry. That’s SUPER unusual in our area, though. There is no city water for miles and miles, so the only legal option for occupy is to drill another, much deeper one. ($$$)

[Carrie12345]

So I’m incapable of having non-anxiety-provoking situations.

The neighbors of the property have seen the proposed listing agent, me, and my land engineering guy checking out the property and are supposedly trying to buy it out from under me. We’re trying to get a sale agreement out this morning. If I get it, I already hate my neighbors. 😝. If I don’t, I may need to take a mental health break from this whole game.

[mommyoffive]

3 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

So I’m incapable of having non-anxiety-provoking situations.

The neighbors of the property have seen the proposed listing agent, me, and my land engineering guy checking out the property and are supposedly trying to buy it out from under me. We’re trying to get a sale agreement out this morning. If I get it, I already hate my neighbors. 😝. If I don’t, I may need to take a mental health break from this whole game.

Oh no.   I wonder why they haven't bought it before? Fingers crossed, it sounds so stressful.

[ktgrok]

11 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

So I’m incapable of having non-anxiety-provoking situations.

The neighbors of the property have seen the proposed listing agent, me, and my land engineering guy checking out the property and are supposedly trying to buy it out from under me. We’re trying to get a sale agreement out this morning. If I get it, I already hate my neighbors. 😝. If I don’t, I may need to take a mental health break from this whole game.

Ugh. Maybe think of them as nice, just that they've always wanted to buy that land, and didn't realize it was going up for sale? You said it wasn't officially listed yet, didn't you? (or am I thinking of another boardie?) So not trying to buy it out from under you, just didn't realize it was finally for sale until they saw you checking it out? 

Still frustrating, but not nefarious, they may be perfectly nice people. I hope so, if you get the land?

[Kassia]

23 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

So I’m incapable of having non-anxiety-provoking situations.

The neighbors of the property have seen the proposed listing agent, me, and my land engineering guy checking out the property and are supposedly trying to buy it out from under me. We’re trying to get a sale agreement out this morning. If I get it, I already hate my neighbors. 😝. If I don’t, I may need to take a mental health break from this whole game.

 

Oh, that's so upsetting and stressful.  I'm sorry about the situation and hope it all works out for you.  

[Carrie12345]

23 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Ugh. Maybe think of them as nice, just that they've always wanted to buy that land, and didn't realize it was going up for sale? You said it wasn't officially listed yet, didn't you? (or am I thinking of another boardie?) So not trying to buy it out from under you, just didn't realize it was finally for sale until they saw you checking it out? 

Still frustrating, but not nefarious, they may be perfectly nice people. I hope so, if you get the land?

There was a lot of back and forth going on late last night and in the wee hours of the morning. Supposedly this lot has been listed in the past and never got sold. I guarantee it was a good deal cheaper then, too. So I don’t know why they wouldn’t have bought it before.  
And (again, supposedly,) the neighbors called the owner directly after seeing us, so it isn’t as though they couldn’t have made an offer in the past, even off market.  
 

And I’m probably bitter because the little old lady with the old world accent came out to tell me all about the property and wish me luck. 😒

[ktgrok]

Just now, Carrie12345 said:

There was a lot of back and forth going on late last night and in the wee hours of the morning. Supposedly this lot has been listed in the past and never got sold. I guarantee it was a good deal cheaper then, too. So I don’t know why they wouldn’t have bought it before.  
And (again, supposedly,) the neighbors called the owner directly after seeing us, so it isn’t as though they couldn’t have made an offer in the past, even off market.  
 

And I’m probably bitter because the little old lady with the old world accent came out to tell me all about the property and wish me luck. 😒

Oh. Well that is annoying!

[Amy Gen]

2 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

So I’m incapable of having non-anxiety-provoking situations.

The neighbors of the property have seen the proposed listing agent, me, and my land engineering guy checking out the property and are supposedly trying to buy it out from under me. We’re trying to get a sale agreement out this morning. If I get it, I already hate my neighbors. 😝. If I don’t, I may need to take a mental health break from this whole game.

Our house in Texas is on 6 acres, but it is surrounded by vacant lots because every time someone tried to buy one, my neighbor would buy it out from under them. He has Parkinson’s and is getting on up there in age. If he decided to sell, the whole neighborhood would be so different with houses between us instead of woods. I think other neighbors have first refusal agreements with him so maybe one of them would just buy them instead. 
 

So I understand why the neighbor is giving you grief. They may not be against having a new house on that lot so much as they are afraid of having a house there with horrible people living in it. It seems weird that people would assume a new family would give them issues, but I’ve seen it happen. 
 

If I were in your position, after securing the lot, I’d go out of my way to win them over and show them what a great asset you are to the neighborhood. My hope is that years from now, you all will laugh and say, “Can you believe you tried to buy this lot out from under me?” 
 

Fingers crossed here for you too! 

[Carrie12345]

Still nothing official but, after tons of talking and meeting, everything is set to roll if we get it. It’s been a long day!

[mommyoffive]

3 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

Still nothing official but, after tons of talking and meeting, everything is set to roll if we get it. It’s been a long day!

Still sending good thoughts.  I hope it works out. 

[Scarlett]

I am on the edge of my seat for you.  

[hippymamato3]

21 hours ago, Scarlett said:

I am on the edge of my seat for you.  

Me too!

[Carrie12345]

No exciting update. 
Did find out the neighbor in question isn’t the one we thought, so at least she wasn’t fake nice! Lol. 
My land guy had me email a personal letter to convince the owner I’m the best steward of the land they’ve meticulously cared for as well as the fastest and easiest money. We shall see.

Driving past two more lots for back ups tomorrow, but my perspective has been permanently altered. 😞 
 

The house itself is making progress. On paper, lol.

[Carrie12345]

Oh, let me add...

In the email, I shared my phone number. Some of my FRIENDS - close friends- don’t have my number, that’s how much I avoid phone calls. (We use messenger.) And I was told to mention that my guy gave me her number, and I’d “love” to get in touch. He wants me to follow up by phone tomorrow.

I’m 95% certain I’d rather give up than call this stranger to plead for my dream property. I mean, I might be able to do it after a bottle of wine, but it probably wouldn’t help my cause.

[ktgrok]

9 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

Oh, let me add...

In the email, I shared my phone number. Some of my FRIENDS - close friends- don’t have my number, that’s how much I avoid phone calls. (We use messenger.) And I was told to mention that my guy gave me her number, and I’d “love” to get in touch. He wants me to follow up by phone tomorrow.

I’m 95% certain I’d rather give up than call this stranger to plead for my dream property. I mean, I might be able to do it after a bottle of wine, but it probably wouldn’t help my cause.

As a fellow phone phobic person, I hear you. Hugs. 

[Lecka]

When we were selling my Dad’s house, the realtor had me call and talk to a serious-seeming looker from an open house.  I did not want to do it!!!!!  But I did it.  
 

I got their voice mail and then they followed up with the realtor, so I didn’t actually have to talk to them — I was so happy!

 

 

[mommyoffive]

53 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

Oh, let me add...

In the email, I shared my phone number. Some of my FRIENDS - close friends- don’t have my number, that’s how much I avoid phone calls. (We use messenger.) And I was told to mention that my guy gave me her number, and I’d “love” to get in touch. He wants me to follow up by phone tomorrow.

I’m 95% certain I’d rather give up than call this stranger to plead for my dream property. I mean, I might be able to do it after a bottle of wine, but it probably wouldn’t help my cause.

Oh don't give up.  I love the phone, but I hate calling people and then having to leave a message.  I am never ready for it and then leave horrible and long voicemails and sound like such a dork.  

Don't give up, it is totally worth feeling uncomfortable for 10mins to get the lot of your dreams.  

I hate that you didn't find out today.   UGH.  Waiting is so hard.   Sending some more lot dust your way. 

[hippymamato3]

Oh wow - this is so stressful! I hope you get it and love it!

[Carrie12345]

Here’s the last non-update I hope to post.

I made the call.  
And I got voicemail, thank god. Because I wrote a script for voicemail, lol.

I shook like a leaf the entire time and may have sounded like a crackpot. I did ask for a response by phone or email, even if to decline, because we don’t want to continue our search unless we know we have to.

I’m still shaking.

Now watch her call me during my scheduled loan officer call. 😳

[Kassia]

@Carrie12345Nice job!  Hoping for the best for you!

[Innisfree]

44 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

Here’s the last non-update I hope to post.

I made the call.  
And I got voicemail, thank god. Because I wrote a script for voicemail, lol.

I shook like a leaf the entire time and may have sounded like a crackpot. I did ask for a response by phone or email, even if to decline, because we don’t want to continue our search unless we know we have to.

I’m still shaking.

Now watch her call me during my scheduled loan officer call. 😳

Instead of sounding like a crackpot, I bet you sounded like a sincere person who really cares about taking on that land. I hope that appeals to the seller. It would to me; I'd rather it go to someone for whom it's a big deal, kwim? Instead of, say, a builder who was planning to put up a house on spec. So, you may have felt uncomfortable, but it may have been a better message than it felt to you.

[TheReader]

Still praying/hoping you guys get it! 

[mommyoffive]

YES!!!  I am so glad you did that and didn't give up.   At least you gave it your all and don't have to live the regret of that.   Sending some more dust your way.

I would have sounded like a crack pot too.

[RootAnn]

Good for you making the call. I hope you get it!

(None of us like phone calls--making them or taking them. I'm always amazed at college admissions people thinking that calling prospective freshmen is a good idea.)

[Lilaclady]

Praying you get the land!!!!