Escape to the Country ~ Start of the Journey

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Escape to the Country ~ Start of the Journey – It was a dark and stormy night…. Really, it was!

That night started my journey to move back to the country.

As I was coming home from work in early evening, snow was swirling everywhere.

I could barely see.

I had actually left work early, as I had heard that the snow was coming.

Of course, I wanted to get home before the worst of the commute hit.

Silly me.

I had seen so many times before the effects of heavy snow during a commute on a freeway, and quite frankly I was too tired to deal with it again.

On a normal day, I would be home in 40 minutes, resting from a hard day at the office.

Every day.

Twice a day I entered into the chaos and maze we call “the commute.”

I didn’t know that this particular night would be so different.

Moving to the Country Start of the Journey

Once I was on the freeway it became clear that this would be no normal commute.

Buses were stuck in all lanes of traffic.

Semi-trucks were jackknifed in every way imaginable.

A very fancy and expensive Mercedes was spinning alongside a concrete barrier, bouncing against the hard surface as it tried to regain traction and move forward.

The car lost the battle.

I would stop and then move forward a bit.

Once in a while I’d creep along an inch at a time.

After a couple of hours, I’d traveled only two miles.

I wondered if I would ever really get home that night.

Or even get home safely at all.

About this time traffic funneled into one lane, zig-zagging around stalled and stuck cars, trucks and buses.

The chaos was brutal and it reminded me of several scenes in the Terminator movies.

Many people abandoned their stalled cars or just pulled over to the side and went in search of warmth, food, and a place to sleep.

But some of us wove our cars in and out.

And finally, after many more hours, I arrived home.

I was safe.

I didn’t know that awaiting me was an email that would change my life and take it in a new direction.

Direction I had dreamed about, but had never made any steps to realize.

It started with an email

After a nice dinner with my wife, I fired up the computer and there it was.

Not just one but quite a few emails, as I hadn’t checked them for a couple of days.

Most of them were from our grown kids—group emails bouncing back and forth.

Now you need to know that our kids are all very different, but they also are very close.

Together they have 11 children–now I am dating myself–that I am very proud of.

I think the message thread started with an email from our son, and the others responded back and forth.

The gist of the discussion was this:

Do you guys remember growing up on the five acres?

Do you remember the rope swing?

Do you remember the horse ‘Nick’ that just showed up?

Do you remember our two cows that seemed to get out all the time?

Do you remember playing with the other kids on the property?

Note to readers: They were referring to the home I’d built years before on five acres abutted to two other five-acre parcels developed by family and mutual family friends.

The Property Search emails continued…

“Why are our kids growing up in the city??” and then, “Why don’t we get some property and move to the country and live on our own farm or ranch?”

As I kept reading the emails, it was clear that my kids were all in agreement that this was something they wanted to do.

As one of the highest compliments they could jointly give their mom and dad, they continued, “and let’s ask Mom and Dad to come too!”

That’s how Marie and I got included in the conversation.

Let the property search begin

And so the journey started.

First thing was to search and find that perfect piece of heaven.

And that is what these kids did.

Every day, the emails flew back and forth, each showing real estate listings for farms, ranches, and lots of raw land.

We looked at listings from Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and California.

This continued for virtually months, with ongoing discussions of the pros and cons of different property listings.

During this time, it became clearer what we were looking for (what we learned will be in a different post here) and that most pieces of property listed had some kind of fatal flaw eliminating them for our needs.

At least in our eyes.

As this continued, I became numb looking at these listings.

They all started to blend together.

Our daughter seemed to be sending listings for us to all look at on a daily basis.

“You need to look at this!”

“Look at this one!”

It took a lot of time and effort on everyone’s part to really look hard at all these listings.

Then one winter day, we all received an email, “I know I said this before, but THIS ONE YOU REALLY NEED TO LOOK AT!”

Moving to the Country – Is this the Right Property?

I had looked for property many times before, both for family homes and for business projects such as resorts and office campuses.

I had purchased raw land and purchased existing homes.

There is a huge difference between looking at rural property and looking at houses for sale on smaller lots.

When looking at land, the key before starting is to quantify exactly what you want to do on the property.

Or, in one word, PLAN.

One of the abilities I seem to have is “visualizing” how things could be.

That has helped me in various areas throughout my life and my career.

When I built our first house on five acres, the land was essentially a forest.

We knew what we wanted to build, and I determined the perfect site… with the forest still intact.

Couldn’t “see” it so she just had to trust me that it would look right and be a good fit.

Fast forward to the email I received.

Here was the “perfect” piece of land.

It did look nice, with pretty pictures, but it was fairly expensive and it was over 100 acres!

I was thinking in the back of my head of a nice quiet five acre piece somewhere where my wife and I could retire.

Even with our large extended family, what would we do with 100 acres?

Just to walk around it was over two miles!

I realized that I hadn’t done step one when we all decided to look for property.

We hadn’t done any clear PLANNING.

Property Search Planning for the big picture purpose:

Find a farm or ranch where our family could live, work and raise young kids in a rural environment.

And to do it together.

The listing sent was intriguing enough to go take a look, so off we went to see it.

One of our other daughters and her husband were able to go with us.

We met the listing agent and visited the property along with other parcels in the area.

Right Property
Right Property

It was late winter, with a bit of snow on the ground, but the weather was beautiful.

This land had a lot going for it.

It had pasture, thick forest, thinned forest, and a large pond.

It was at the end of the road, and yet was only 20 minutes from the nearest town.

At one point on the property, you can see for miles.

I saw a couple of deer by the pond with an eagle gliding overhead.

I took out my cell phone, and my goodness–I saw four bars!

Still connected to the world!

As we tromped around this property, it became very clear that as a family (with five family units) we could do almost anything we wanted with it.

After our visit the family had many discussions about it, sharing photos and impressions with those that weren’t there.

Should we get this?

Or keep looking?

As our discussions continued, it was clear we all had ideas and plans.

And they were all varied, but it was clear this land would meet our initial goals and fit our reasons for this purchase.

The planning continued.

In my mind, the piece of land just seemed so big, but as I saw the seriousness, passion and excitement in the faces of my kids and felt the stirring in my own heart, I concurred that this was the place.

So it was decided that we would put an offer on this piece, giving ourselves some time to further research the issues or potential issues that could arise.

In the development business, this is called doing your “due diligence.”

I have done this many times for projects I have developed so I knew what to look at.

So now to the next step in realizing our family dream of moving to the country!

But, my goodness, 100 acres???

Is this the right property?

So our journey from the city to the country continued.

Was this really happening?

We had been talking about it for a while, but now we had found the perfect property for us.

At least we thought it was perfect.

After we walked the land with another son and discussed it at length with each of the kids, we put an offer down on it.

Actually, quite a bit had to happen to make it all come together, but the journey starts with these first steps…so we started.

Our offer was one that was contingent on many items.

It was very important to us to make sure that we could do everything we envisioned doing on our future piece of land.
Caution Tape

Rural Property Due Diligence

To start this process, I had to truly divorce myself from my emotional feelings and excitement about the property.

This was really hard to do, as I was pretty jazzed and I really wanted this to work.

If I kept this mindset of excitement, it could cause me to overlook some potentially very serious issues that could stop all our plans for the property.

So it was crucial to do my serious “Due Diligence” to ensure that this indeed was the right property for us.

The investment was considerable, so I approached this like I approached my other business projects.

First off I compiled a due diligence checklist of important issues that needed to have questions answered.

My “Due Diligence List” is part of a package available as a FREE download as a bonus for subscribing to our mailing list.

If you are interested, you can subscribe to the mailing list by clicking here.

Not all of the questions on the list will get answered–sometimes no answer is available.

In that case, you have to determine specific potential outcomes and the risk that each of them brings to the project.

Rural Property Due Diligence example:

In our case, there were no water wells on the property.

Obviously water would be needed to develop the property into our farm and ranch.

But can we get water?

As I looked into this, I contacted some neighbors and found out that the land in the area had a history of very poor wells.

State records showed the same.

Local well drillers had a rosier picture, but no guarantees.

So there was a very significant risk that water could become an issue.

I didn’t want to invest $6000 to drill one before we closed on the purchase deal.

So…put that one down on the “unanswered questions” list.

Buying Rural Property issues to look into:

Water access, water easements, easement, power, legal access, telephone, road construction, county building requirements, master planning…and the list continues.

In our case, I was able to quantify the cost and issues for each of these items, and they resulted in no more real questions.

It looked positive…except for water.

Maybe we should just buy an established farm?

Maybe.

We had looked at several.

But this piece of land seemed so perfect.

I formalized my findings, and we had another family meeting discussing the added costs to develop this land.

Should we still buy it and assume the water risk?

After much discussion and prayer, we decided to buy it and take the risk.

But we did it with our eyes open.
Is this really the right property? Flying Kites on the Farm

Why it’s easier than ever to move to the country

The internet has changed everything. Decades prior, people didn’t have access to property listings across the country much less in the next county over. If someone did learn about a property and wanted to see it, they would have to make the journey. Now, we have all the advantages of searching for property and real estate online.

In addition, many of us can work remotely from home by being employed with a company or earn a living by using the internet as a freelancer, consultant, blogger, etc. According to Gallup, remote work is persisting and trending permanent

How to know if this is the right rural property to buy?

So with much celebration, after our due diligence, we bought the property and our family farm/ranch became a reality!

Challenges lay ahead, but we were all pretty darn excited about this.

The whole family gathered on the property for a big “homestead party” and land blessing.

Marie helped each of the grandkids make a little “land stake” flag, which they decorated and put in the ground.

Interestingly, this land project has brought our family even closer together.

We seem to be tied together and to this land in a way that we can only describe as “being tied together the right way.”

snow over hill and dale
snow over hill and dale

Who knows what the future holds?

We know it is in God’s hands, that he loves us and has a great plan for us.

In the meantime it is time to build a playground for the grandkids.

And PS: We have water!

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