This thread offered so much good advice, I thought I’d go for round two.
Backstory: we’re approaching nearly 3 years of farmette searching. Lots of heartbreak and hours spent making offers only to come up empty-handed. We live in a weird real estate market. This time of year, the best way to describe the market is “sluggish” (understatement of the century).
We just passed on the farm in the link above-- too big. As if the real estate gods were watching and laughing, another potentially suitable farmette popped up on the market as soon as we passed on the other. But in true Goldilocks fashion, this one isn’t quite right, either.
House- meh. It’s liveable, meets our minimum needs, and move-in ready, but nothing to get excited over.
Location- meh. I’ll spare you the pluses and minuses, but it’s basically fine in the end.
Horse facilities- turn-key! Four stall barn with shelters and storage, paddocks in move-in ready condition with excellent fencing. Zoning allows my whole herd of three horses and two donkeys no problem.
Price- under budget! By quite a bit (thanks to the “meh” house and location), which encourages us that we could have money to make the property exactly what we want over time.
Lot size- 13 acres of level land… perfect! Except here’s the kicker: only 2+ acres are in pasture and the rest are in woods. head desk
Two acres of pasture is really too small for our needs in the long run.
BUT… with the property being so far under budget and otherwise turn-key, DH and I are pondering something that was otherwise a “hard no” for us-- clearing land. I can’t recall who said it, but I remember reading a quote here on COTH along the lines of “any land worth clearing would have been cleared by now.” But maybe it’s worth investigating in this case?
The thought being we could make do with the two acres of pasture for the time being and work on clearing another two to three acres to add more pasture and a small arena within the next couple years. Maybe we’d want to clear even more over time, maybe not. Either way, adding another 2-3 acres of cleared land would give the property so much more flexibility. But we also recognize we don’t know what we don’t know about clearing land…
So who has cleared land? What were your experiences? In this situation, would you consider it or keep moving on?