How many acres do you own?

[oosik]

Five years ago a realestate agent actually came out to my house. He had thoroughly checked out my 80 acres. He first asked - "how deep is your ten acre lake". He had a client that had the HOTS to buy. He would have got well over $25K per acre for me. The client was from CA and had plans to subdivide the 80 acres.

I was tempted but realized it just could never be the same if I sold.

When my neighbors would have found that I had sold and the new owner was going to subdivide and develop. I would have only been safe it I moved to some small, remote village in Mexico. AND - I don't speak Spanish.

The sunset view off my front porch.

 

[Mtsoxfan]

Five years ago a realestate agent actually came out to my house. He had thoroughly checked out my 80 acres. He first asked - "how deep is your ten acre lake". He had a client that had the HOTS to buy. He would have got well over $25K per acre for me. The client was from CA and had plans to subdivide the 80 acres.

I was tempted but realized it just could never be the same if I sold.

When my neighbors would have found that I had sold and the new owner was going to subdivide and develop. I would have only been safe it I moved to some small, remote village in Mexico. AND - I don't speak Spanish.

The sunset view off my front porch.
View attachment 859881

Beautiful!!
So, how deep is your pond?

 

[ultrarunner]

Never heard of that before. Maybe a California thing?
My sisters live in Vt. which has a somewhat convoluted property tax system. Apparently you get a discount on your taxes if it's your primary residence, both have additional property (mostly woodland) and they have to pay the full assesed tax on those lots.

Here in N.H. we have a tax category called current use, designed to help preserve open space. You need a minimum of 10 acres to be able to utilize it. Tax savings are considerable. There are restrictions, including not being allowed to post the property for foot or equestrian passage (you can prohibit motor vehicles and maybe hunting) and if you take it out of CU you owe the difference in taxes for a certain number of years' worth.

Could be a California thing as several cities in CA have it but also learned WA state is exploring same.

VPT Vacant Property Tax

VPT Vacant Property Tax

www.oaklandca.gov

 

[oosik]

Mtsoxfan - the pond is called Martin Lk. Named after the original homesteader. It's 80 feet deep. Water depth at the shore line - 15 to 40 feet. You fall in - you best be a good swimmer. You will have to swim along the shore line until you can find something to grab. Water depth at the cattails - 8 to 10 feet. Both the North & South shore lines are the same. Vertical basaltic lava cliffs with absolutely no shallow water.

This lake is a small example of many of the lakes in this area. This area is called - the Channeled Scablands. Created by the numerous floods from ancient Lk Missoula.

 

[BackRoad]

Sounds like diving is allowed off your banks Mr. Oosik! That would be amazing, to have that kind of depth in a pond...

Any fish? (Just asking for a friend )

 

[scott_vt]

Good Evenin Bigtiller,

And I bought and paid for it with my own money, no generational wealth here.

Amen, that was the way here also ! What my parents left me was worth far more than generational money !

 

[etpm]

My wife and I own 10 or 12 acres. The reason for the disparity is because the property lines are not accurate. But we own at least 10. The woman at the county told me we were welcome to have it surveyed and if it came out to be 12 acres the county would be glad to charge us the increased property tax. We had a good laugh at that.
We love where we live. When we bought the land it was trashed. This was way back in 1996 or thereabouts. We could not have afforded the land if it had been in better shape. So we put in a lot of sweat equity to clean it up and it has paid off handsomely. We now have a beautiful home on the acreage. And about 1.5 acres is developed while the rest is just woods with a mile or so of trails running around through them. We own it all outright.
Because we were willing and able to put in the work to haul off the 12 or so tons of scrap metal (got paid for it too!), and the 95 tires (but hadda pay 5 bucks per tire) we saved a lot of money. We got the fire department to burn the condemned cabin on the property and that saved us about 10 grand, plus we had a great party watching the building burn.
So that's the acreage we own.

 

[paulsharvey]

Currently, only 2 acres. Looking for a new place with min 5, preferred 10+. Growing up, had 24, then 80, then 13, then 58; so 2 seems cramped. We found 6.7 on a pond, but bank stuff didn't work out. Looked at couple more, but locally, it's very hard to find a decent ammount of property for less than $20k/acre; looking in the $9-11k/acre price range.

 

[etpm]

When we were looking for land my wife said that 5 would be fine. I said 10 was the absolute minimum. Then we were shown a perfectly square 5 acre lot that was cleared. It was only weeds. My wife said "That's five acres!?" We need at least 10! We have more than once wished we had 20 acres. But we got what we could afford, where we could afford, at the time of the purchase. And it's OK. We lucked out having good neighbors. And we might be able to buy a 5 acre parcel that is adjacent to our property. The parcel is mostly wetland. That's fine with us, we don't want to build on it.
Eric

 

[paulsharvey]

A perfect clear, square 10 acres is still not pee in the front yard kinda privacy. That's only 660 lf x 660 lf. How you position a home/infrastructure, as well as how you buffer the property lines, has a huge effect.

There is a pretty nice little 10 acre pasture for sale, no infrastructure at all, and a square parcel, touching a 2 lane, 55 mph, state road. It looks tiny. Also, they want like $275k for it.