I am so very sorry to hear about this.
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OP - not sure this applies to your exact situation, but may apply to many others. There’s two options 1) Move 2) Work for it, and get creative
I grew up in the greater Boston area and have always dreamed of moving back one day; however, it’s just not a reality. If you live there currently, do you realize how lucky you are to have so many rated events, schooling shows, and other showing opportunities all within 15 minutes - 2 hours? You also have dozens of options for trainers, vets, farriers, body workers, and tack shops. Don’t even get me started on things like culture and restaurants…but I digress.
Option 1 Move:
I’m a “semi-pro” Eventer who runs a boarding/training/lesson barn in a southern/midwest college town in addition to working a regular 40 hour per week job (now mostly remote). I just raised my board prices here to $660 for a stall and have quite a few happily living out on $440/month pasture board. I have a beautiful farm with covered arena, small XC course, and huge multi-acre grass turnouts. I have good hay and get my feed shipped in from KY. I have multiple horses with prelim/training level experience who I would happily lease to someone for free, if they would help with a few feedings a week or tack horses for me all day on the weekend. My lesson packages are extremely cheap, and I give lots of free lessons to people who are willing to help out in some way.
The negatives: I work 90-100 hours per week in order to afford this. Our closest event is four hours away, but most are six or more. There are no USEA or USEF rated competitions in my state. If I want to take a lesson or XC school training level or above, my minimum drive time is 4 hours one-way. If I have a horse who is 3-legged lame, there are no vets who will make a farm call. IF I can reach one on the phone (highly unlikely) they will advise me to either winch the horse into a trailer and drive to the closest vet hospital 2.5 hours away, or shoot the animal (or there is a man who will come by and do that if he can take the body afterwards to use for god knows what…please note, I have never used either of these options for any horse I was responsible for). If my horse looses a shoe, it’s likely going to be 3-5 days before it can get put back on. With this situation, I’ll probably never get to the 4* or 5* level, but it’s very do-able to be slightly competitive at the lower levels.
Option # 2: Work for it and get creative:
Like many of the other posters here, I too played the real estate game and also treated each horse as an investment. I started this journey with a $68,000 house and a $50 sway-backed OTTB. After extensive renovations, I sold the first house and bought small farm, I foxhunted and evented the $50 OTTB through training, then traded him for a 4 year old OTTB. I evented the 4 year old and then sold him, bought two more, etc. etc. It’s been SLOW and painful progress, and I’m nowhere near where I thought I would be in my riding by this age, but I now have some incredible horses to ride, a beautiful 24-acre farm, and I’m about to do a CCI.
Is it worth it? I have no idea…
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Hilarious and informative post. 
I’m a CPA and just want to add that owning rental real estate is great for your 1040 tax return results!
I love your attitude, especially towards your marriage. I will say, as someone who no longer shows (whose horses are not show horses!!) and can’t really get off the property either; that I have found I enjoy the horses purely as horses now. That isn’t an answer for most, I know most people really live for showing; but an important thing to remember is: showing does not define one as a horse person, one’s relationship with one’s horses defines one. To have horses and to not show is not a failure, even if it baffles people!
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So sorry to hear about your horse. Big hugs. 
Do you think large institutional investors are using this kind of funding?
I’m more concerned about first time home buyers who may not have any stocks at all being able to afford homes than already wealthy people borrowing against their stocks to inflate values for everyone else.
If huge institutional investors are doing this with people’s retirement funds, that’s no bueno.
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OP, I think you got a lot of answers from people who may or may not have to take into consideration the wants and needs of family and dependants. Or people who knew what they wanted early in life and planned the trajectory of their lives around that.
And then there is the rest of us 
For those of us who share your financial limitations, the answer is that we may not lead the horsey lives of our dreams, but we are enjoying what we can.
Like @beowulf, I love to hunter pace. It’s a fun, affordable way to get myself and my horse out and about. Not sure if that is something that interests you, but a budget of $600 would allow you to hunter pace all year. There is an active area Facebook page that lists all local events.
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We do have 3 active hunts within 25 miles of where OP lives (it turns out we have met, and I live about 6 miles from where she does.) All have hunter paces, 1 or 2 a year, really nice areas to ride. It’s fine to be a casual, walk-only rider – though those of us who volunteer would beg that you get an early start time! And of course you need a horse that doesn’t mind being passed by other, faster teams.
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Yes, I also love hunter paces! I’ve done several in the area, we are super lucky to have close proximity to multiple hunt clubs. For sure, pleasure riding and hunter paces are options for the future (my current horse sadly is done with paces). It’s not all doom and gloom, with my horse’s retirement I’ve found a new hobby with chickens. In the meantime, my current horse is still capable of quiet hacks, which I intend to continue doing for as long as he’s comfortable.
Thanks to those who understand my situation.
Curious as to why you make this recommendation?
I have my theories but I’m just generally curious.
My husband and I do own a rental property - our first home, which we didn’t sell when we purchased the second - but I recognize that we are able to afford to do that and not need to access 10 years worth of equity in order to make a sufficient down payment on the next home. We do not live in an area where there are homes for $70k 
We’ve refinanced that property several times to drop interest rates/terms on it depending on what made sense at the time.
As for the institutional investors - a large portion of the current real estate market is being driven by institutional investors. One of the homes for sale in the neighborhood where our first home is located was sold to an institutional investor who turned it into a for-profit group home and is trying to buy two other houses in the neighborhood for the same purpose.
A lot going on here that I admittedly have not read but can chime in with my perspective as another person who’s dealing with the same thing.
Profile: Early 30’s, currently work in corporate marketing after starting my career in banking, live in a mid/large-sized city with a reasonable cost of living, married but no kids and no plans for any, which I understand is a big barrier for a lot of people
Biggest thing, a lot is dictated by your individual career and if you can design that career around horses. It took me a lot of planning, a lot of waiting, a lot of execution, and a lot of luck.
Years 1-7: In my 20’s, I worked in financial research for 7 years in a major city center. The plus side, I had the income to afford horses. The down side, the hours combined with the commute killed any hope of making the time equation work. I knew this when I took the job so laid out a 5-10 year plan on how I’d essentially design my life around my horse habit and excepted I’d hand up my boots for a while to play the long game.
In my location, there are quite a few major companies with large operations outside of the city center. I pushed to move over to a research team that covered those industries so that after I had built some experience I had a logical path to transition to one of those companies without having to take a step back.
I kept a running list of barns in the area that would fit my needs, then mapped out commute times between potential employers and said barns. Turns out that multiple combos of employers/barns could get me within 10 minutes door to door so those employers made the short list.
Years 7-9: Transitioned to one of those employers and did have to take a pay cut which set me back another year or two; however, the hours are much more flexible and the location is perfect. Again, accepted I’d have to put horse plans on hold a little longer and really dove into my work to show my worth and push for promotions and raises ahead of schedule which I was luckily able to secure.
Present Day: Finally have the work setup that provides the time and sufficient finances to own and compete one horse without too much financial strain, although the current horse market is twisting the knife quite a bit. COVID has helped. It’s an awful thing to say, I know, but employer knows that remote work options are here to stay and I’ve been able to leverage that in order to take an extended lunch to squeeze in my daily ride and can work remote as needed for competition travel.
So much really depends on your career and how much you’re willing to let horses dictate that (and the rest of your life, for that matter). The most important (and painful) thing I realized early on was that in order to make it work long-term, I had to accept that it couldn’t work short-term.
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Because if an adjustable rate goes up, you can quickly be in a place where you can’t afford the note.
So, let’s say you want to make $100k in improvements on a house using a HELOC. You have a million dollars in the market that is making 10-15% in a banner year, so you don’t necessarily want to pull cash out to do the house. Fine, get a HELOC where rates are 5% adjustable. Can those rates go up? Sure, but then you’ll just pull cash from the market and pay it off. You’re covered.
In the meantime, let the $100k you left in the market make you 10-15% while the HELOC costs you 5%. You’re actually making money.
If someone is buying their first home on an adjustable rate mortgage, and they cleaned out their savings to come up with the downpayment, they can hit foreclosure real fast if rates jump. Way too risky. Run away, run away.
Imo, adjustable rates are for the convenience of letting money you already have do other things for you while the bank’s money does another thing for you. Only use if you have the funds backed up another way and would be able to wipe the loan out the second the rate goes from convenient to inconvenient.
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Totally off topic from the subject of this original thread, but for example a local bank offers a 10/1 ARM with a maximum increase in any given year after the initial 10 years of 2% with a 5% lifetime cap. Your maximum interest rate in this scenario is 9.250%.
Presumably, then, my interest rate is then lower than the current market (in this case, this 10/1 is currently trending a full percentage point less than the rate for a 30 year conventional from the same bank) at the point when the loan is most expensive because the principal is highest.
Then there’s the other consideration, which is that most people do not stay in their first home, or any home, for 10 years.
At that point you’re talking about an overvaluation issue, which I believe is true in this market, because someone buying now may lose a lot of their downpayment when home values drop. That being said, if you were to buy a house right now on a 10/1 ARM, let’s say a $600,000 house with 10% down, you would pay $62,617 less interest in those 10 years on the ARM. All things are exactly equal in that 10 years, because the rate isn’t adjustable until after that.
Would you still caution any buyer, first time or not, against taking that deal?
Have you thought about any other side hustles you may be able to do, in order to start saving up now, while you are still enjoying your older horse?
Some side hustles I did before I got my promotion and it all just got to be a little much
- Pet sitting and dog walking
- Barn clean outs and organization
- I did an estate sale for Denny Emerson
I don’t recommend this one lol. - I’m crafty so I dabbled in some etsy type stuff for horse decor and stirrup covers etc. If I could of had an etsy shop (Canadian in US on a NATO visa - no social security number, so I couldn’t create an account) I may have done it more
- Saddle rejuvenation and dying
All of these I accidently stumbled into(yes, even the estate sale), and granted, i am crafty and very good at organizing, but was able to pay for some showing that way. We also volunteered a lot at a venue that paid their volunteers in vouchers to show at their park.
Currently, I had a bunch of furniture that didn’t sell at Denny’s, which he gave me, that I have completely refurbished from older cherry wood style to gorgeous modern pieces, and I honestly LOVE it. We have a wood shop at our new farm and my husband is absolutely on board with me having a few projects at a time to keep me busy (it’s a failure of many officers in the army - I’m not a fan of “white” space in my own life), and maybe contribute to the equine fund.
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Maybe all your Boston people should form a corp and buy this place with 7 living quarters, 4 arenas and 45 stalls.
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Clever windows on the barn, though I hope they have bars for them when it’s buttoned up in the winter.
I saw that listing when it went up. I hate to say it, but it’s in a prime place to be developed.
My head spins at the estimated mortgage. 
45 horses on 10 acres?!?!?! I guess that’s where we’re going as truly large properties turn into subdivisions but that sounds like a management headache to me.
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There was a facility I rode at when I was younger that was absolutely stunning - huge acreage, multiple barns, nice covered walker, massive covered arena, large turnouts, seriously everything you could want.
The place was clean and well kept too. I think about it often and wish I had access to something like that now.
So often, in fact that I looked up the property records as I knew it had been sold and closed to public lessons/boarding a few years back. According to records it was sold to an investment company and is now listed as a subdivision with sections reserved for a future road. So I assume that means it will get developed into a neighborhood.
It truly saddens me to think about (and maybe this is more appropriate for the H/J boarding thread) and it’s even worse to know that that isn’t the only place that has been shut down and turned into developed land. Sounds like it’s happening everywhere.
Tamarack (Denny Emerson) appears to have sold out to a developer as well.
