Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
bathrooms, and lots of other goodies, was hard to sell.
The county road was more than two miles of gravel
and steep. My driveway was 400 steep feet. The site
was five steep acres. The house was a restoration and
looked its 150 years.
We finally found the right buyers, after a lot of
money spent advertising, and then a 10 percent com-
mission paid to a good real estate agent. But we didn't
find that mythical buyer with cash, hungering for our
place. We financed it over several years.
letting some good places go by. And you get older in
the meantime.
You'll also find yourself shifting priorities as you
look at land. It's like buying a new car; you start revis-
ing your needs to fit whatever turns you on at the
moment. That's called salesmanship by the folks who
sell cars, and land. Later you, the buyer, wonder how
it all happened.
Friends of ours lived on a mountaintop in West
Virginia, miles from power and roads and schools.
They homeschooled their five children, worked at
whatever odd carpentry they could find, and sold
handcrafted woodwork at craft fairs. Most of their
time was spent subsisting — hauling water, gathering
and feeding wood into the cookstove and heating
stove, keeping lamps lit, caring for animals, and mak-
ing their garden productive. And they're not sure it
was worth it. The children have had some trouble fit-
ting back into society.
I'm not saying you should go looking for land with
an inviolate list of requirements, with eyes and ears
closed to more sensitive appeals. I'm saying that with
some major considerations allowed for, the right
place, when found, will be really right. Infatuation can
get expensive, in both dollars and years invested.
Forty years ago, I let a place on the Buffalo River
bowl me over with its beauty, to the exclusion of just
about all the practical considerations. Now my family
and I have a much more reasonable place, with its own
charm to fit our admittedly changed affinities. And it's
certain to wear better.
My idea of a real estate salesperson is one who
shows the land and lets you and it work out your rela-
tionship alone. You've heard it said that agents work
for the seller, who pays them. (Legally they do.) This
is not true of a good one. Good agents know the dol-
lars come from the buyer, who's going to be in their
area, starting now. They work for both, in that
demanding game of matching people and property.
And, if they're good, you'll see an interest beyond that
of handling a salable commodity, beyond that of the
money itself. When a salesperson cannot effectively
hide the boredom that comes when property all gets
to looking alike, I look for someone else.
You can contract with real estate agent for them to
act as “buyer's agents,” employed by you, the buyer, to
Choosing the Right Site
Enough about selling, which is the last thing you're
thinking about at this point. In deciding on a location,
you're probably pretty much mobile; most of us are
today. And you have probably chosen your general
location for reasons peculiar to you — a job, family, cli-
mate, schools, beauty, and so forth.
Your specific property should supply your specific
wants and needs. On or near a good road. Near
schools. Forested. Open fields. Great view. Privacy.
Close to neighbors. Far from neighbors.
Water. Even if you never garden, there are few
things as soothing as a spring creek or a waterfall. In
the ledge rock of the Ozarks, ours dried up come
summer. If you have visions of turning a grist mill or
generator with a water wheel or turbine, better have
streams with good flow on your prospective property.
And watch for flooding. My miller friends get inun-
dated and have to muck out every spring.
The springs have been polluted most places I've
lived. Lime-rock country lets the water follow under-
ground channels without filtering, which can some-
times give you a distant city's sewage. You even get
soapsuds in your well if the geology is wrong. Sandy
soil helps, and so does a remote location, with no sep-
tic tanks near.
In my work with log house building and restoring,
I've seen some pretty sick people who, for instance,
haven't seen the need for letting the bird droppings
wash off the roof before the water goes into the cistern.
Compromise, sometimes. When you really get
down to the specific location of your country place, it's
going to depend on what's available. Holding out for
the last requirement on your list of 19 will mean
