What have been your experiences? Does it make more sense to purchase an existing farm or buy the land and put up the barn, fencing etc.?
Existing if it’s in decent shape and set up in a way that can work for you now and then be improved on as you go.
Existing if it meets your needs. Building something costs a lot more, takes a long time, and there are always headaches with the contractors.
You can build but it will cost you a lot more. We were going to add a cabin to our property and it was going to cost us over $300K to build it. We were able to buy a super nice existing property down the road on 20 acres for much less. The cost of materials and labor is huge. Buy and renovate.
Existing is usually cheaper although renovating a house that is in poor condition can cost more than building from scratch. Existing has a well, septic, proper zoning, driveways and other features that can be costly if you are starting from scratch.
I just built from scratch, on raw land. Building on existing (even if you rip everything down) having the infrastructure/utilities in place is worth it… and just because you build from scratch doesn’t mean everything can go exactly where you want it:)
Thanks for the replies! That’s what I’m wondering too. I see land that is ready to have fencing put up, but didn’t think about utilities. Pre-fab barns are readily available via the Amish builders in the area. The few properties that I have seen with houses on them, were in “tear down & start over” condition and the barns are about the same, so I wondered what would weigh out in the means of cost.
From folks around here, your “horse facilty” is not ever going to bring back what you put into it. Unless you can sell to a car collector, who wants the arena for storage, most of the fancy stuff is unwanted to buyers.
Buying and fixing up, is the way to go.
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EXISTING! We just went through this, at the same time as a good friend and her husband, living in the same area.
We started looking at properties about the same time. We looked at existing farms only. Some needed major renovations, others were more turn-key. Many had wonderful property, but weren’t set up the way we’d want (eg, barn too far away from the house, not enough stalls, etc).
Friend and her DH bought 15 acres on a horsey road. They bought the undeveloped land about the same time we bought our already-established property (early March). They had a harder time financing, because the appraisal was for the house, but didn’t really consider the value the fencing and barn would have to the owners, so the “horse” expense is mostly out their pockets.
Fast forward. We moved into our property by the end of March. The two main improvements (large hay storage building and large run in shed) were both done by mid summer. We had only one month of paying both rent and mortgage, and are deliriously happy with our new farm. There are still some projects we went to tackle (additional pasture, etc) but those can be in a year or three.
Friend STILL hasn’t moved into her house… and it’s been delayed twice now. Costs went over budget when a lot of the construction material and equipment were stolen from the build site. Land clearing cost more then they expected, and the fence and barn haven’t even been started yet. They are paying both rent and mortgage, and board on the horses, all this time. Yes, their place will technically be new and custom built for them, but in the end it’s been A LOT more expensive for them. She’s hoping to have her horses home by next spring, a full year after we moved into our place, and we started the process within a week of eachother.
Based on our experiences, unless I won the lotto, and had A LOT of money and time to spare while the new place was being built, I would choose existing, and just modify/upgrade/renovate as I can afford, over the years.
– the one caveat to this: we live in a WONDERFUL horsey area. There are LOTS of private horse farms available for sale in a fairly small group of communities. So finding one that was an acceptable match was feasible. If I was looking for a private horse farm in other parts of the country that aren’t as horse-friendly, I can see that I might have to build from scratch. Either because existing properties simply don’t meet my needs in regards to setup or safety, or they don’t exist at all.
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Wow, this all makes sense! Thanks everyone for the advice!
I’ve always been told that building was cheaper than buying. I bought mine, but my parents built theirs. I know that they only put in $250k for the house, metal shop, and pole barn on 15 acres. It appraises at over double and it’s exactly what they thought they wanted (they now wish they had done things different, but I think that happens with anyone who builds).
That’s my only knowledge on it, so I thought I’d throw that out there?
[QUOTE=Ready To Riot;8388607]
I’ve always been told that building was cheaper than buying. I bought mine, but my parents built theirs. I know that they only put in $250k for the house, metal shop, and pole barn on 15 acres. It appraises at over double and it’s exactly what they thought they wanted (they now wish they had done things different, but I think that happens with anyone who builds).
That’s my only knowledge on it, so I thought I’d throw that out there?[/QUOTE]
That is the exact opposite of current reality. We have been farm shopping for 5 years now.
To build the just barn I want, it’s easily $200k once you include the stalls, footing in the arena, nice lighting, fencing, etc. That is on top of whatever it costs to buy the house and land (at least $250k for a decent house with minimum of 5 acres). So at least $450k, closer to half a million to buy a house and land and then build the barn.
In turn, we’ve looked at dozens of properties that were pretty darn close to perfect, all ready to go, all under $300k.
Barns and outbuildings don’t appraise well. You might spend $200k building your dream barn, but when you go to sell the place, the appraiser might give you $50k of value towards it. They don’t hold their value at all. I know this from having multiple properties appraised. If someone’s place is appraising at double what they put into it, they have a generous appraiser. Or else something else is affecting their valuation (i.e. improvements to the HOUSE, neighborhood doing better, etc) because barns and outbuildings are pretty much a huge loss when it comes to investment value.
In fact, the property we just bought has a 60x120 indoor all steel arena and a 14 stall heated barn, both buildings 10 years old, and the appraiser only gave us $35,000 of value for both buildings. Huh. It would cost us $175,000 to replace them per our insurance company if a tornado came through and destroyed them.
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Best case scenario (imo and ime) is to buy a tear down and actually tear it down and start fresh.
The benefit is that the services and infrastructure are already in place–so septic, well, driveway, power, curb cuts and maybe the foundation is in place–which saves a ton of effort and cash.
The down side is the driveway may not be where you want it, or the foundation hole for that matter. With things already in place you may have less options to make it perfect for your needs.
If you buy a fixer upper, be warned about the mushroom effect.
Which is when you go to change a lightbulb and sees that the fixture is loose. While tightening the fixture you notice the wiring is not up to code, leading you down a rabbit hole of 30000 and knowledge of rewiring that you never really wanted to know.
And so on and so on and so on.
[QUOTE=suz;8388745]
Best case scenario (imo and ime) is to buy a tear down and actually tear it down and start fresh.
The benefit is that the services and infrastructure are already in place–so septic, well, driveway, power, curb cuts and maybe the foundation is in place–which saves a ton of effort and cash.
The down side is the driveway may not be where you want it, or the foundation hole for that matter. With things already in place you may have less options to make it perfect for your needs.
If you buy a fixer upper, be warned about the mushroom effect.
Which is when you go to change a lightbulb and sees that the fixture is loose. While tightening the fixture you notice the wiring is not up to code, leading you down a rabbit hole of 30000 and knowledge of rewiring that you never really wanted to know.
And so on and so on and so on.[/QUOTE]
Or the “As long as we’re at it” effect.
Element Farm’s description of her friend’s cost overruns & delays is spot on – that was my experience with barn building exactly. Also true – all of those surprises were much more financially impacting than we’d anticipated, because they came straight out of the old wallet.
That said, there are microclimates in real estate. I live in a very expensive area, and buying an antique farmhouse on an overgrown former pasture and slapping a small Amish-prefab on it was – while still horrendously overpriced, IMHO – cheaper than finding a place with the same acreage, house square footage, and functional barn. I found many places with barns that were collapsing – yeay, historic New England!-- and some real gems where BOTH the home and barn decrepit. The tear-down and take away costs started at around 18k, which I found too depressing to consider.
I guess what I’m getting at is it’s not as simple as buy vs. build in some areas. It’s more like compromise your dream vs. postpone it another decade. I bought the house + land, built a small barn. It was a compromise. But, I have 3 ponies at home, and therefore, I don’t give a rats *ss if the house falls down tomorrow! Best of luck, WaWa.
I ditto those who say buy existing. At the very least, buy something existing that has a driveway, utilities, septic, well, or whatever other rural necessities for the area. We bought this year and were lucky enough to find a place with a great barn, a small indoor that is attached to the barn, outdoor, fenced pastures, trails already groomed into the back 10 acres. We had to put up some more fencing, do some repairs to the house, are doing some limbing of trees, more cross-fencing, putting the irrigation underground vs. hand lines, etc.
I don’t think you ever get your money back out of building your own horse facilities. If we had to build our barn, arenas, put in fencing, put in all the utilities out to the barn, go through the permitting process, blah blah blah it would cost us much more than to buy a place that already has it.
My husband and I recently went through this same decision making process. We ended up buying an existing farm - even though my husband owns his own construction company. We can build more cheaply than most people, but it wasn’t even worth it to us to go through the time and hassle of building from scratch. Land clearing, putting in pastures, putting in fences, hardscape, etc., etc. Makes me tired just thinking about it, and it was going to take a long time. We did, however, have to look for a solid year before finding a place that we wanted to buy.
[QUOTE=Frog Pond;8388990]
Element Farm’s description of her friend’s cost overruns & delays is spot on – that was my experience with barn building exactly. Also true – all of those surprises were much more financially impacting than we’d anticipated, because they came straight out of the old wallet.
That said, there are microclimates in real estate. I live in a very expensive area, and buying an antique farmhouse on an overgrown former pasture and slapping a small Amish-prefab on it was – while still horrendously overpriced, IMHO – cheaper than finding a place with the same acreage, house square footage, and functional barn. I found many places with barns that were collapsing – yeay, historic New England!-- and some real gems where BOTH the home and barn decrepit. The tear-down and take away costs started at around 18k, which I found too depressing to consider.
I guess what I’m getting at is it’s not as simple as buy vs. build in some areas. It’s more like compromise your dream vs. postpone it another decade. I bought the house + land, built a small barn. It was a compromise. But, I have 3 ponies at home, and therefore, I don’t give a rats *ss if the house falls down tomorrow! Best of luck, WaWa.[/QUOTE]
Same here re; expensive area. I’m finding beautiful properties that have no buildings and then I’m also finding property with house and barn that are less than acceptable.
Your last sentence made me laugh!! My niece and nephew couldn’t pronounce my name when they were little and called me WaWa!! 
I think it also really depends on how handy you are and what you are looking for.
We’ve been wanting horse property for years, there’s nothing in our area for under 500k. There was one property on 12 acres with a 12 stall barn, run down fencing, no ring, and a 900 square foot house from the 60’s for 480k.
We looked at a foreclosure that was 13 acres wooded, a 70’s era 1100 square foot house that had some major issues (extensive rot, mold, holes in the floor etc) plus some older outbuildings for 175k.
My husband does sand/dirt for a living, and we already had quite a bit of materials fencing etc from my current barn (leased from a family member).
We were able to get into a 1500 square foot house, fenced, with two rings on 7 acres for under 220k. Granted, we did quite a bit of the work ourselves, took down the kickboards and reused for the new barn, and eventually will be taking the roof/barn off the old shedrow style barn to make runs in the pastures. We still need to pour concrete for the wash racks, and lay the brick in the aisle as well as finish the stalls and built the tack room, but when all is said and done it will be another 5k or so.
Oh and my builder was willing to build costs into the loan, so the barn etc was worked into the final price of the house.
here’s my farm page with a few pictures.
https://www.facebook.com/Maple.Farms.NC
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There is a middle ground here - land with existing house in decent shape.
That’s what I got. Well worth the fee I paid to an appraiser to check out the house before making an offer.
The places I looked at with existing barns had too many things unsuitable for me to buy into fixing up.
Either too much rehab needed or not setup as I’d envisioned “my” barn.
House needed only minor rehab: paint, flooring, turning 2 small BR into a Master.
I got exactly the barn/arena I wanted & 11yrs later the only thing I’d do over is install perimeter fencing - less mowing for me, more pasture for horses :yes:
Oh, original sale was for 10ac, Silly Me asked for (& got) just 5 of them.
Hindsight… :rolleyes:
