House Hunting

Fidget and I went and looked at 3 hobby farms yesterday. The last one that we looked at wasn't too bad, but it was about 50 yards from the nearest turkey barn...and it smelled bad. And if it smells bad on a 30 degree day in December, it will be unbearable with a little humidity and/or heat. Needless to say, that one's not for us. The second one we looked at was nice. The house had sort of an odd layout: there's only one bathroom and it's on the mainfloor. Which might be okay...except the laundry room and office/5 th bedroom was on one side of the bathroom and the rest of the house was on the other. That house also featured something I'd never seen before, and something I called the "Jeffrey Dahmer option". It had a room on the second floor with a bathtub in it; the bathtub is not connected to any plumbing, nor is there a commode or a sink in the room. It's literally a room with a claw-foot bathtub in it...with a drain that goes outside, through the wall. Hence my nickname for it. The house was okay, but just didn't feel like it was solid. The first site we looked at was great. The house needs lots of work, but the structure is solid and the price reflects the work it needs. Had a great barn, okay garage, wonderful other building, and a few tin buildings that we would probably tear down. Property needs to be baled, but would be exactly what we're looking for. Except the driveway. The driveway is just over 1/2 mile long, curvy and muddy. It would take $2000-3000 worth of gravel and work just to fix the driveway--and then there's the matter of snow removal in the winter. If it weren't for the driveway, it would be a serious consideration. The well is good, the septic needs work, but the owner is willing to pay half to update that. Damn driveway.

Those were pretty much the only hobby farms near our price range and in the area we're looking at. So, we expanded our area and decided that if we could find a house we loved that there are a few towns nearby we might consider living in.

The market here is ridiculous. The city where I attend school is about 30 miles south of us, and that's where the majority of Fidget's family live so we had initially thought we'd move there. The prices are a joke! If I wanted to spend that kind of money, I would buy a house in the Twin Cities or Denver...where they actually have a job market/economy to support the prices. The little town we live in is the same. It's insanity.

We're hoping the outlook improves in the next month or so. We are selling a turn-key home. We are (at the suggestion of our realtor) painting the halls and living room white. We are doing this even though we just finished faux painting last summer. The houses we have looked at (about 15 so far) have had walls that were hot pink, electric blue, green, black, red...NONE of them have had white walls--or any other neutral shade for that matter. We just got new flooring (linoleum in the bathroom and kitchen/dining and laminate throughout the rest) in the entire main floor of our house. The houses we've looked at all look like they're straight out of the 70's with filthy shag carpeting, gummy old linoleum and the like. And I'm not talking about the "fixer upper" that we looked at!

One place we want to look at, and people will think we're nuts (maybe we are) is an old schoolhouse that's been pseudo-converted into a house. It's tens of thousands below our price range, it's sitting on a few acres, and the area isn't too far from where we want to be. It could be a fun project--but it could also be a pain in the rear.

That's all for now--for those of you in my area, please keep your eyes peeled for hobby farms for us.