Been looking into houses.. finally found one I like. Great area away from everyone. My only issue is it's on a 5 acre plot. (farm land) I don't plan on farming but I love the idea of no neighbors. My concern is maintenance. I'll probably need a huge tractor to keep overgrowth in control so i'm not sure what to do.
Tips?

 

You do not need a huge tractor for 5 acres. A residential zero turn is more than enough for that. Alternatively, carve out a "maintain regularly" area of the yard, and tackle the balance every so often. Or just buy yourself a goat or two. 5 acres isn't enough to isolate yourself from neighbors, but usually puts at least enough of a buffer between you that you can't hear them fart in the shower.

 

This is a really subjective question, but here's my experience:
First ex-wife reeeeealllllly loved horses and wanted to do the whole Little-House-on-the-Prarie thing (until she discovered there was work involved, just like a marriage - both fell apart eventually.) Obliging idiot that I was, we bought a few acres of horse property on the outskirts of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. (Lovely commute to work, that, but she didn't have to do it so it didn't bother her one iota.) Corner lot, only one neighbor (who was Awesome), great place if you want to have space.
I was absolutely thrilled to sell it a few years later.
It took soooo much work to keep that place up. We didn't have a lot of money (especially after buying the property in the first place) so I ended up doing all of the maintenance/upkeep myself. Just like anything else if there's more of a thing, there's that much more to maintain/take care of as well. Outbuildings needed repair, there was always something growing/overgrowing somewhere, hornets decided they wanted to move in to the irrigation ditch and the firewood pile and never, ever move out again, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum. A full-sized tractor would have helped with some of the work, but nowhere near all of it. If I was independently wealthy and could have paid someone else to do a lot of the upkeep then that would have still freed up some time, but then you get to play project manager/coordinator so you still end up spending extra time on the place. If you're wealthy enough to hire someone to coordinate all of that as well then I suspect you'd be buying some place bigger with elevators and the over-the-top stuff you see on rennlist, but in any case go for it since it's nothing you'll need to worry about.

I still am a huge fan of owning a house. I'm in one now. Specifically picked one with no HOA; I can work on my cars in my driveway or garage and no one can say Boo. (They usually say "Nice Car!" or "Cute Car!" or something to that effect.) Would I like a little more space occasionally? Sure, it gets a bit crowded sometimes and I wish I had an RV gate or an extra garage space.

Would I buy acreage again?
Thanks,
But No Thanks.

 

We looked into buying land and building over renovating. thats about all i can add to this thread.

 

5 acres? that's a house plot, as Supe says. On town water/sewerage, if so there is nothing more than your normal household operations? If not, you will need to understand electric pressure pumps (piece of ****), and septic systems, pretty much the same. If you understand and play with cars, you are 95% there already. And sheds, you can never have too much shed. Officially, it is to harvest the rainwater. Unofficially, .... well I needn't say anything more here .

I have lived here for nearly 50 years, first 40 acres, then subdivided and now 20. 'Nuff said.

 

I say if you buy a house you need a minimum 2 acres, 5 sounds perfect to me. But I live in a rural area and feel weirded out when I'm in the city or 'burbs and houses are so damn close to each other. If I lived in a normal neighborhood the neighbors would lose their **** with my shop, motorcycle, and dirtbike shennanigans. 5 acres you could build a nice dirtbike track.

Is maintenance required as part of the deed? My 2 acres takes nearly nothing, although I like to keep it nice so I definitely put in work and admittedly do have a small tractor. But really that paid for itself when I dug my well and septic with it, and now I mostly use it to spread gravel and odd jobs. I'm going to use it to put up a wind fence this year.

I think as Johnny said it's more of a lifestyle thing. If you prefer to live in the city don't bother, but if you enjoy your privacy and like spending time on and around your own property, you can't beat it. A nice house + shop and 5 acres and really, why do you need to go anywhere else?

 

I appreciate the feedback guys. My entire life I've lived in a 2 bedroom apartment so this is a huge change for me. I've always wanted a property like this but never had the "guts" to go forward with it. In my current location, there are 2 types of properties.. 0.2 acre plots where your neighbor lives in your lap, and farmland which is becoming more rare. It's crazy to me that the 0.2 acre plot properties have +5k in taxes while the huge rural area properties are <3k so this is a huge plus. I got a chance to read the owners letter and they are saying they have been renting half the property out to farmers so i'll probably continue that at least in the beginning.

 

@aidandj has about 5 acres out on the west coast and has been there a good number of years. He can probably give some more info on how its going.

 

I bought 8 acres of AG land a while back. But mine is all wooded. I can say for certain that land filled with trees seems bigger than empty land. 8 acres is just barely enough to feel "away" from the neighbors. I also bought mine as an investment, I'm hoping to retire on a little bit more than 8.

 

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer: Hell, yes!

 

Sooo i got a chance to view the house today. it was decent. Few broken down houses in the yaard that need to be either taken down or built. One thing that the agent said was this house was purchased in 2017 for 200k and bunch of work was put into it. She was saying now if it sells for 500+, taxes will get updated to the new value. Not sure how to proceed at this point.

 

Is there a home on that? What's the taxes situation on an empty property?

 

Not anymore. It was reassessed as "vacant" and zoned 100% as AG land. So taxes are around 1200/year. The property also has city power, internet, water and natural gas. But no sewage. I paid 10k an acre. This is also in SE Michigan.

 

The bolded bit.

Get a feel for what 5ac vacant brings, what improvements THAT YOU WANT TO KEEP are worth, what cleanup will cost, and offer a good net figure that values the house/land as you would start out with. If it needs work to make it habitable immediately, that comes off too. IOW only pay for what is valuable/useful to you. Then walk if that is not accepted, sounds like better deals (though more costly to start with) might be available.

Follow-up: Do you want to buy a fixer-upper?

 

you guys dont want neighbors?

 

Just to update the thread. Property went for 650k (asking price was 500k) I ended up passing. The search continues. One thing which worried me about this property. In 2017 it was sold for 270k. Taxes were about 3k a year because the property was valued at 270k. . The person put in work and was now selling it for 500k (sold for 650k) so I'm assuming the yearly taxes will end up jumping to closer to 6-7k per year since the city now knows the new price. Am i wrong in that line of thinking?

 

city is going to tax how they wanna tax -- coincidentally my taxes go up every year...

 

Yup, everyone does it differently too but around here it's the state that keeps them somewhat honest. If it's your homestead, our taxes can only go up a fixed percent per year. Coincidentally, home values are coming down or at least stabilizing near me but my taxes will continue to go up that fixed percent since I have yet to catch up to the what they want to charge me versus what they can charge me.

And then there's things like portability which I used to keep my taxes at a level from when I became a homeowner in Florida. So my neighbor who is a recent new homeowner in Florida pays close to double what I pay. Fun times.