Long term planning of selling your home?

[Snobdds]

I have yet to come up with a scenario where prices correct significantly (more than 10%), that doesn’t involve both a recession + stock market correction (25%+)If we get those two concurrently, Real Estate deflation is on the table...Without those, I think we grind sideways

No one wants to admit what it reality is economically: Young people + immigrants serve the boomers economy. Plenty of jobs making coffee, caddying golf, home health care aides, driving Uber, delivering Amazon orthopedic inserts or Chewy Pet medicine for Buster.

Without a period of deflation...the only correction will come once the boomers pass on.

 

[CliffordK]

At this point, with a 3 story house and 37 acres, we've come to the conclusion that that place is definitely to large for just the two of us.

Do you have a layout in the house that would allow 100% living in a single story?

Kitchen, Bath, Master Bed, Living Room, laundry, etc?

Also, can you hire yard help? Do you depend on farm income?

If so, an option is to hang onto it until you are ready to downsize into an apartment sized dwelling.

Mom still has her place. She got rid of her last horse a year or two ago. She still does about 25 acres of hay, and allows a local rancher to bring is cows over for the summer. It doesn't make her any money, but she is comfortable.

The place is too big for her, but it is a nice central location for the family.

 

[Sigarms]

Do you have a layout in the house that would allow 100% living in a single story?

Kitchen, Bath, Master Bed, Living Room, laundry, etc?

Also, can you hire yard help? Do you depend on farm income?

We actually looked at the first floor when we weren't certain where my mother in law was going to stay. Her husband passed away in 2021, and my dad was still living in the basement and my mother in law wasn't certain if living by herself was the right thing.

With zoning for any new structures we wanted to put on the property, we looked at perhaps redoing the garage as a bedroom / bathroom remodel, but at the end of the day, mother in law ended up feeling fine living by herself a hour south of us, and we decided the layout would feel too funny having a bedroom coming right into the kitchen after that.
Way it's laid out now is office, living room, kitchen, laundry half bath on first floor, 3 bedrooms 2 full baths on the second floor, and bedroom and full bath in the basement with a refrigerator and wet bar counter area. Basically the basement is laid out so that my dad could live down there without needing us for much of much, other than my wife's home cooked meals LOL.

No farm income. We bought the place with 6 acres and bought the additional 30 or so so no one could use the land for anything (we just didn't want anyone to be able to build). We also wanted any future children to be able to play outside and get lost in the woods if they wanted to.

My wife is from Vermont, my dad was career military so I grew up all over the place growing up. As I grew up, I ended up working all over the the Northeast myself. Didn't buy this place until I was in my early 40's. Hard to explain, but home is where the heart is, and although we like the area, other than being around my MIL now, we don't feel tied to the place if that makes sense.

What we'd like is 3 to 4 acres max, 1,500 or so sq feet, single level, detached garage. House would need 3 bedrooms 2 full baths. One for MIL as back up on what happens with her, and one for the son who would hopefully visit LOL

 

[Sigarms]

Can you sub-divide the 37 acres, say keep 5 or so acres and then take the money from the sale and build a one-story with wide halls and big bathrooms? Could probably pay cash from the 30 acre sale and 3 story house to build the smaller house.

That is a possibility, but if we subdivided, it would be us on about 18 acres and selling the home with about 18 acres.

A creek would basically divide the property.

The issue is on the other side the of the creek, you'd have to build about a good ways off the road up on top of a hill. The bottom low laying fields do get soaked good and hold the water after a good rain.

Only thing is the access road to this area is really on a bad section on a rural road between hills and has a curve. Entering generally isn't a problem, but a blind spot with a curve looking left, and a lot of people drive like idiots speeding right in that section (more than a couple of times young kids have ended up having the police called because they wreck coming around on bend right at the entry point to this side of the property. Leaving the property this way gets more risky the more I think about having this as my exit point.

 

[BackRoad]

Mr. Sigarms, you're pretty savvy based on reading your posts over the last 4 years...you'll figure it out.

Lots of good comments in this thread. We have first hand experience following Mr. EddieWalker'outline.

Excellent realtor, who included as part of her offering a house stager. We thought we had the house ready - her punch list was 8 pages long...easy stuff, cosmetics (well, some painting too), pre-check on the septic, etc. House looked like a Pottery Barn ad and sold from the initial open house, closed 6 weeks later with cash in hand. It was intense, but I'd do the process all over again because it worked.

We built a 1 story, with consideration for being handicapped designed in. It's our forever home, wide doorways, walk-in shower, open floor plan, etc for future proofing. We made it easy to live here forever, and easy to die here. The undertaker will have no trouble coming in and carting our dead bodies out!

We closed on our new land, sold our old house and both retired all in a 2 week period in the fall of '19...we planned it to domino that way.

We then traveled hitting National Parks for a few months till the 'vid hit unpredictably in Feb 2020. As a result of all the nonsense, lock down disruptions and cost spikes from that, we finally finished the new house build 6 months ago, in late '23...5 years from our start of execution.

And that is the real issue - how fast your next 5 years will pass...

2029 seems a loooong way away looking into the future, but suggest getting your long-term plan decided pretty quick, and start working on the detailed actions to make it happen sooner than later.

Don't wait...

...It's been over 4 years since Covid was first released - and just think how fast the last 4 years have passed...

The next 5 years will pass in a heartbeat!

 

[Sigarms]

Appreciate all the feedback.

Talked to our old much well respected (on our end realtor, who sold us this place and also worked on behalf of the original homeowner) and he basically reiterated everyone else's comments.

Re painting the house this year, hold off any any more money redoing things inside, and make it presentable when we're getting ready to sell.

The PITA aspect is finding a place and the time frame between moving and selling. The wildcard would be my MIL as she's in her late 70's and living by herself, which could change.

 

[Tomtint]

Real estate is always a moving target and price/values can swing quickly in either direction. The problem with selling your house in 5 years, Is that you are buying in the same market you sold out of. IMO.. Prices won't come down in our area in the near future. There is no land, Materials are high and not likely to fall significantly and labor goes up every year. When interest rates finally start to come down.. Home prices will then explode unless there is a flood of people putting their 2-3% mortgaged homes on the market.. Which I don't see happening all at once. We have land now and bought it 12 years ago for what everyone said was waaaaaay too much.. Today people say I stole it. We plan to sell off a couple lots in the next couple years, then sell our current ( 12 year old ) home and build another home that's a bit smaller and we will make changes as needed to design. So long story short.. Buy sooner than later.. Maybe rent it for a few years before you retire to cover any mortgage / taxes. Then in 5-10 years you won't be paying 2x more to buy when you sell.

 

[Sigarms]

Real estate is always a moving target and price/values can swing quickly in either direction. The problem with selling your house in 5 years, Is that you are buying in the same market you sold out of. IMO.. Prices won't come down in our area in the near future. There is no land, Materials are high and not likely to fall significantly and labor goes up every year. When interest rates finally start to come down.. Home prices will then explode unless there is a flood of people putting their 2-3% mortgaged homes on the market.. Which I don't see happening all at once. We have land now and bought it 12 years ago for what everyone said was waaaaaay too much.. Today people say I stole it. We plan to sell off a couple lots in the next couple years, then sell our current ( 12 year old ) home and build another home that's a bit smaller and we will make changes as needed to design. So long story short.. Buy sooner than later.. Maybe rent it for a few years before you retire to cover any mortgage / taxes. Then in 5-10 years you won't be paying 2x more to buy when you sell.

Completely agree with your assessment on buying sooner than later.

In some aspects we were talking about moving out of state, but the reality is with my MIL involved in the equation, most likely won't happen.

That said, pick up 3- 5 acres in the near future, most likely won't lose on it in the far future.

Just kind of really stupid pricing out there...

 

[tulenutn2o]

I hate moving. Been on my little acreage now for 29years, staying put unless town creeps out. Then I’d sell for big money to get away from town rules. Not that close yet, but who knows. Becoming old and cantankerous.

 

[Sigarms]

Then I’d sell for big money to get away from town rules.

Sell for big money, but then you have to buy for big money...

To think back in 2005 I would be just as happy to break even if we sold the place in the future when we'd ever be ready to grow out of it.

If I sold for it what what I paid for it back in 2005, we could end up going to the poor house on what we have to buy now.