So not all places have well logs that are public records? Here in Oregon, that’s A Thing. Not that the well logs are updated or complete, but you at least have a place to start. I haven’t figure out how to get up-to-date info for the state where the land is. The most recent well was drilled in the last couple of years.
I think the figure was $5K for the well. The whole money pit of a septic system has not even been broached yet…
So true :dead:
$5k for a well? Shallow well… Mine was a titch over $20k. My septic was $12k-ish, though I did do a slightly more expensive version of the above-ground septic (my land did not perc, knew it going in), and went with a Glendon system. If you really want to do this, then you need to plan out EVERYTHING right now if you need the septic location picked and perc’ed before the bank lets you proceed.
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Yes, I agree. In my last town, my horse trainer had an undeveloped lot next to her house, which wasn’t so out in the boonies that it wouldn’t have been developed. She lived in a neighborhood of 5-acre lots and this was the only one that hadn’t been touched and had been for sale forever. The topography of it was basically that most of the property flooded every winter. Someone bought it unaware of the issues (and didn’t do their due diligence) and were none too happy when they discovered that the actual space available for building was limited to just one spot. Their bad for not checking on all potential problems.
In my current neighborhood, there is just one piece of land in a few-mile radius that has not been built upon. I call it the cursed lot. Someone bought it with the intention to put up a marijuana grow, but they need to do a house and shop first and they are having trouble with putting in the septic (we don’t have well water so that isn’t a problem). I think they have owned it for almost two years now with no developing done.
Even though the builder says he ran out of money before developing the property in the OP’s question, he should at least put in a well and septic and pull electricity to the property, IMHO. It would show that the land already passed the requisite “tests” and is otherwise ready to be built upon. My last neighborhood had one lot like that. Last lot left, owner was a developer who ran out of money. But he at least got those basics done - built a shop/garage, had a well put in, ran electric to the garage, did the septic system. There were lots of options for building sites, but he had a dirt pad cut at least for what could have been either a house or a barn.
There are other things to think about pricing out before you get started and make an offer, like potential building sites and shape of the property. Ideally, where would you like the house and barn to be located? How far from the street is that? Will you have above-ground or buried power lines? The farther from the street, the more expensive it is going to be to run power. Same for driveways - will you have gravel or paved? How far from the road? One driveway that splits or a separate driveway for each barn and house? Stuff like that can add up fast, especially if you have to do dirt work. I would imagine that if you need to get a construction loan, the bank will want to see line items for each of these types of things. If you don’t need a loan, it is still important to consider for budgeting purposes.
Find the Soil&Water/Natural Resources Conservation Service office in your county or district. There are soil scientists and soil conservationists there that can help determine the soil types on the property, drainage, and how suitable they would be for building and installing septic tanks. Also, the NRCS offices have cost share programs that may include assistance with putting in wells for agricultural use (if you’re establishing a farm) and pasture establishment. If there is county water nearby, you may not need a well. I also agree that you can use the lack of existing septic permit to your advantage in negotiating the price. Either the seller should provide evidence that the land percs or discount the property accordingly for you to have to determine this yourself. If you find that you’ll need something other than a conventional septic system for the soil types out there, it will cost more money to install it which will make that land less valuable.
Our building site was a long way from the road on the undeveloped property we bought so running water lines and power all the way back to the house was a bit spendy. We had to pay to have the water line dug from the road all the way back to our house (about 1600 feet!) plus a fee to actually connect to the county water. The power company ran our power along part of our property at no charge but then we had to pay extra to have the power run underground from the side of the property to our house so that we didn’t have power poles running across our land. You may want to identify availability of county water and where your power company would be routing your power from to determine if there are going to be extra/unforeseen costs to get utilities where they need to go.
I’m in Oregon, and last spring we had to redo/replace our septic tank and leach field. It ran about $5200.
A good friend bought 15 raw acres of gently rolling land that had other similar sized lots with houses built surrounding them. Builder started, but near the last thing that went in was the well. They drilled 4 wells. NONE of them shallow. The wells had water, but the flow didn’t meet county regs for passing. They were able to work a bit of a discount with the well driller and builder, but they still took a HUGE hit on their home budget at the end of the process.
Water is essential. Waste is gonna happen.
I would have your contract worded such that the property has to conform to a conventional septic and that water must be present.
A real estate attorney may be helpful, even if the state of the potential purchase doesn’t require one. The real estate agent just wants a sale. The attorney is hired to help you avoid pitfalls.
Best of luck.
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An excavator can perform a couple of perc tests on the property depending on where you might like the future home/barn. You can tell if you’ll have perc problems by the type of soil, clay doesn’t drain well and sand does. So what kind of soil do you have? While the costs of the septic and well can/will be included in your mortgage. You need to get qualified for a construction loan and that will be rolled over into the mortgage once the house is completed. We worked with a local lumber company and were our own general contractors. The purchase of the property, the cost of the house and barn were all included in the final mortgage.
We bought on empty land. We knew from the first that there were only 3 building sites on it. All that information was already there to be looked at. We also found out at the very beginning that we could not dig a well as it was too cost prohibitive. I double checked with a local well guy and he said the same thing so we are hooked up to city water. Had to pay a tap fee ($2,500) and put in our own line from the road to the house. Also, put in our own septic system. These costs were included in our mortgage along with the gravel driveway and electric. All that work was done by contractors that the builder recommended.
So after all that, we have been here for 17 years, with a house, barn, small outdoor arena, 4 pastures and a shed and the ONLY thing I would have done differently was to raise the barn a foot before building. I’ve had some minor flooding problems in the front area but we put in some drainage ourselves and it’s been much better. I’m actually surprised we didn’t make more mistakes but we really thought it through over the year it took to buy, build and move in. The barn was done a year later and so on.
Good luck! It was actually a lot of fun (I say that now!).
We started over on bare land a couple years ago. It’s both good and bad. Good because I placed things carefully for my purposes, so drainage is good, layout is very workable for me. Bad because it’s expensive and honestly, all that blank canvas (36 tillable acres) has been a little overwhelming.
It’s not a bad idea to talk to the municipalities to find out if what you’re thinking about doing is feasible before getting started. We did so in the places we were thinking about building, and we learned some very valuable information that steered us away from buying a couple pieces of land.
You don’t want to be right up next to the road, but the farther you get from it, the more expensive it will be in terms of driveway installation/maintenance and running electric out. I agree, that keeping some space from your neighbors is nice, but it’s also important to have a layout with good drainage, so the land contours will come into play. And It was also important to me that my pasture fences wouldn’t be close to anyone else’s home, at least as much as my home itself. No wandering children feeding or mingling with my livestock, please. I also wanted to be able to see as much of my pasture from my home as possible, and I wanted the run-in to face east, away from prevailing winds. I found it helpful to make a list of my priorities like that.
We also decided to come up with a sort of ultimate plan, and a “for now” plan. That way we could put in enough to make things work, without interfering with things that we might want to add somewhere down the line. We actually bought a really cheap used mobile home and had it set up here. Near, but not on top of, the place we’d like to eventually build a house. We’ll have a place to live during building, the drain field, well, and so on are all conveniently located for either structure to use, and we know where not to put other permanent structures, or plant trees, and so on.
Also good contractors have been really difficult for us to find, so that’s been a huge headache. I’m sort of tempted to live in this dump of a mobile home forever just to avoid having to deal with contractors again, ha.
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Two dogs, if you are on the east coast can you PM me his info? Thanks!
We are in the Northeast, so things might run a little differently in other parts of the country, but the first thing we did when we purchased our initial 20 acres was to ask for a soils map. We took the soils map to the engineer and he informed us which areas of the property were likely to perc and which areas should be avoided. We perced the front of the property to get the deal done even though we knew we would build in the middle of the property which was wooded and still needed to be cleared. I guess that is a long-winded way of saying, talk to your engineer. If the soils maps suggest you have multiple options, it may not be necessary to make tons of planning commitments at this stage.
Just to comment on all the suggestions that you insist on a well or engineering plans before you close the deal, those items cost money. If you are buying raw land, expect a lower price per acre and expect to do more of your own legwork. If you are purchasing a pre-engineered site with a well, expect to pay more per acre. If the developer has run out of money it is probably unrealistic to expect him to invest in a well or engineering plans if they don’t already exist.
Earlier posters have provided a lot of good advice that I won’t repeat except for one thing that bears repeating. And that is to hire good professionals. When we started clearing our land we hired a “family recommended” excavator. Things went well at first and then they didn’t. Eventually we fired him and hired a second excavator and the difference was night and day. We should have made the decision sooner. The second excavator was seasoned and plugged in to the building community. He helped us find a good well guy, a good plumber, a good electrician, etc. Ask your neighbors and friends for recommendations. Don’t be tempted to go with the cheapest or the one that can start the job the soonest if they aren’t highly recommended.
Building your own place is a lot of work and you’ll probably never get all your money back when it is time to sell, but if you plan things well, the satisfaction of having a barn that is tailored to your operation is immense.
Best of Luck!!
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Yabbut, how do I get the seller to guarantee water on the land if no well has been drilled? Or are you saying that you categorically would not buy land that did not come with a well that was tested for quality and flow?
Maybe you can put a contingent in your offer that land must be tested for water, etc and perk (for future septic) at the expense of the seller. If one or both things do not pass testing you can pull your offer.
I have raw land for sale. There are good wells all around it. If a potential buyer asked me to pay for, or even guarantee a well, I would pass on that buyer.
My contract was worded that it was contingent on a water availability study. Basically, I called a well driller who looked at some maps and saw where other wells were, and said “yeah you got water…but it’s a ways down.”
When we bought our land, the perc test was already done, but the well wasn’t dug. Our offer was contingent on a well being successfully dug. I think it was worded so that the first attempt would be at our expense, but if that didn’t find water within a specified number of feet, then a second attempt would be paid for by the seller. Our well driller exceeded the maximum depth on our attempt by 20’ or so, because “it just looked right” (I guess meaning something about the properties of the rock that was coming up from the drill). He was right. A previous buyer had backed out on the deal when their well drilling attempt (further uphill from ours) failed to find water before they gave up on it.
My other suggestion, from my days as a summer intern in a planning and zoning office, is to research the zoning of the surrounding area well. Make sure the surrounding area isn’t zoned for something unsavory in the future, like a new landfill or anything else you wouldn’t want to live near. You can also do a lot of research on the land at the planning office (and maybe online). I was able to trace the ownership of our lot (and the larger plots it was cut out from) back about 150 years.
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We did this 10 years ago. Lots of good advice here already for you. Get the well dug FIRST, before you start to build or solidify your plans for building location. Look for areas on the property where water is evident, if there are any. Natural springs, if they are there or nearby can be tapped into. Look for vegetation that indicates water, poplar trees like water, look for those, and dig the well nearby. If you have springs on the property, digging the well is easy and cheap. Get a quote for well digging in WRITING. We did this, then, because our spring water was so close to the surface, the well digger tried to change the cost to a “minimum charge” that was not on the quote. The quote was for $35 per foot, and water gushed at 60 feet. Then the bill came for more than the math indicated. We objected. Then the well digger died unexpectedly. And we never heard from anyone again, so our well ended up being free. Trust no one, get everything in writing beforehand.
Good gravel base makes for cheap septic field construction, if you do not have to bring in material to build the field.
