2manyrocks
Super Member
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2007
- Messages
- 8,637
a) ending up with two homes on two acres could be hard to resell later unless your neighborhood is such that you could subdivide your 2 acres into two tracts and the resulting two properties would be appealing and more valuable to buyers in your market. However, you don't want to spend money building or adding something that ends up costing you money or makes it harder to resell what you already have. That is, if buyers in your market expect to see a home on at least 2 acres and now you're trying to sell two homes each on 1 acre, that might not be good. It depends on what you have and what your local market is.
If you really want 5 acres, there's no way to turn 2 acres into 5 acres unless those 2 acres are very valuable and can be sold to buy 5 acres somewhere else. Whatever you do, you don't want to do something now that ties your hands later and actually prevents you from getting where you want to be.
b) Generally, I suspect what you feel is 2 adults + 3 older children in 1,300 SF is just too tight.
My wife's parents raised a son and two daughters in a house about the size of yours on roughly the same acres. We kid about it, but my mother in law has a reputation for keeping her house just so and isn't reluctant to get rid of any clutter. After the children moved out, the house was big enough for my wife's parents, and my mother in law continues to live there after my father in law passed.
Some possible strategies are to decrease clutter, and consider adding to or rearranging the space you already have to make it more useable. However, if you just know you aren't going to stay there, also consider whether the same money could be better spent on paint, flooring, and kitchen updates to make your home more appealing for resale. It depends on what you have and what your local market is.
c) one bad tenant can really set you back if they quit paying rent, trash your house, and meanwhile you have to keep paying the mortgage while you go to court to kick them out. Managing tenants requires a certain set of skills and there is risk if you don't screen out the bad ones.
d) presumably your Mom would sell something at a favorable price and you wouldn't incur a realtor's fee. I don't know your family circumstances. Could be that your Mom may need your help in her older years and being close by would help? Can't speak to the schools issue except to say some schools are good and some schools you don't want your kids to go near. If you just want 5 acres, maybe your Mom would sell them to you, and you don't necessarily have to live there if you're mainly interested in the land.
One thing you may not want is for your Mom to think you aren't interested and then she sells it to someone else.
If you really want 5 acres, there's no way to turn 2 acres into 5 acres unless those 2 acres are very valuable and can be sold to buy 5 acres somewhere else. Whatever you do, you don't want to do something now that ties your hands later and actually prevents you from getting where you want to be.
b) Generally, I suspect what you feel is 2 adults + 3 older children in 1,300 SF is just too tight.
My wife's parents raised a son and two daughters in a house about the size of yours on roughly the same acres. We kid about it, but my mother in law has a reputation for keeping her house just so and isn't reluctant to get rid of any clutter. After the children moved out, the house was big enough for my wife's parents, and my mother in law continues to live there after my father in law passed.
Some possible strategies are to decrease clutter, and consider adding to or rearranging the space you already have to make it more useable. However, if you just know you aren't going to stay there, also consider whether the same money could be better spent on paint, flooring, and kitchen updates to make your home more appealing for resale. It depends on what you have and what your local market is.
c) one bad tenant can really set you back if they quit paying rent, trash your house, and meanwhile you have to keep paying the mortgage while you go to court to kick them out. Managing tenants requires a certain set of skills and there is risk if you don't screen out the bad ones.
d) presumably your Mom would sell something at a favorable price and you wouldn't incur a realtor's fee. I don't know your family circumstances. Could be that your Mom may need your help in her older years and being close by would help? Can't speak to the schools issue except to say some schools are good and some schools you don't want your kids to go near. If you just want 5 acres, maybe your Mom would sell them to you, and you don't necessarily have to live there if you're mainly interested in the land.
One thing you may not want is for your Mom to think you aren't interested and then she sells it to someone else.
