By this time, I had already accomplished step #1: paying off my debt and step #2: saving for a down payment. While I still wasn’t quite certain what my total amount needed for a down payment was, I was satisfied that I was contributing towards that savings. Now all we needed to do was find the perfect land to buy for our homestead.
I say “all” like it’s so simple, but in reality, this is quite possibly the second most important decision you will make in your life. Finding the right land for a homestead is tricky because you’re undoubtedly investing a large sum of money for the purchase of the land, then construction of a residence and all utility costs, then preparing the land and constructing outbuildings. If, you find out at this time that your parcel lacks the water supply to support a hobby farm, you’re in big trouble.
There are physical requirements for finding land to establish as a homestead. Good water supply, close enough proximity to your employment (if required), soil quality for whatever crops you’d like to grow, adherence to local zoning codes, etc. Then, there are aesthetic qualities which I maintain are equally important. What types of trees do you want on your homestead, how dense is the vegetation, what kind of views are you going to have, what is the school district for your children. These are the things you need to ask yourself when searching for land to buy for a homestead. Be strict with your parameters, or you’ll end up regretting the fact that you “settled”. Lastly, there is the one final, all-encompassing truth to ask yourself. Can you afford it? It doesn’t matter how perfect the land is if you have to struggle day in and day out just to pay for the mortgage. If you can’t afford to build on it, and live on it, then there’s no point in buying it.
This is why steps #1 and #2 are SO important. By relieving yourself of the obligations of debt, you can understand how much you can afford to pay for a (second?) mortgage for the land. By saving for a down payment, maybe you can afford to pay a little more for the right land to buy for a homestead.
Here were our parameters: I knew, without a single doubt in my mind, that whatever land we bought HAD to have a field. When our house is constructed, I wanted to be able to sit on the couch, on the porch, and at the kitchen table and just look out over our field. That was probably the single greatest NEED for me. Now, it is possible, and I told myself this many times, to construct your own field by clearing the land. However, this can take a very long time, and if there was an option of looking for land with a field then I wanted to make that a priority.
Secondly, Bre and I were concerned with the school district. We had a choice between three different school districts and when we evaluated them, our decision was pretty clear. Even though we don’t have children yet, we’d like to raise our kids on “the family homestead” and not have to move just so that they can go to a better school. The whole idea of finding the right land and building a homestead is that it is a life choice, one that we intend on maintaining for the rest of our lives. So you can see how a little forethought can make a huge difference.
Furthermore, we wanted to be by family. Bre’s family lives a few hours away, so that wasn’t an option. My mother also lives an hour away, but my dad lives just outside of the city we currently reside in, and that’s where I grew up. This also happened to be in the same school district which we preferred, so we focused our searches in this area.
Lastly, we had to consider costs. We knew, especially after going through so much hard work to get out of debt, that we didn’t want to over reach when we bought land. We didn’t want to have to struggle to put food on the table because we spent too much. By being realistic about what you can afford, it sets you up for success in the long run.
Now that we had our NEEDS established, we had to consider our WANTS. These are things that we preferred, that weren’t as important as NEEDS, and things that we could perhaps establish later on. These were not deal breakers, but welcome plusses when looking for the right land to buy. Water quality and supply was one of the first things we considered. While quality was more of a need than a want, supply wasn’t as important. In our area we don’t typically have to worry about droughts too much, so we weren’t overly concerned that a parcel would be lacking in water. Also, we haven’t firmly established what crops we’d like to grow so we’re still flexible in that area. Quality can be mitigated by filters and softeners, but if we didn’t have to deal with that and we could just have great water, that would be an obvious benefit. Secondly, we wanted to consider the types of trees that we had on our property. My dad’s parcel is dense with softwood conifers. I can’t stand how suffocating that is, and I really wanted to find some land that had a good variety of tree species. I prefer open forests, with larger conifers and hardwoods. This helps to keep the undergrowth at bay. Again, this was something that I desperately wanted, but it was not a need. As this ideal forest vegetation is somewhat rare in our region, I was open to sacrificing this want in order to not limit our search. Plus, we can always plant new trees.
Now that we had our NEEDS list and our WANTS list established, it was time to start looking. If you’re just starting this process, I think that it’s extremely valuable to discuss this process with yourself and your partner to determine what your NEEDS and WANTS are. It streamlines your search, and you won’t have to think “what if” when you don’t pounce on land that was ALMOST good enough.