The landowner. That’s me.
I once heard of a woman, about my age now I’m guessing, who had been going around disposing of her considerable financial assets by buying properties in rural areas of Vermont. About six or seven years earlier my friends John and Michael had bought 100 acres with a wonderfully intact, well maintained and very old farmhouse on it. Behind the house was a summer kitchen, and behind the summer kitchen was a large greenhouse. Behind that, my friends built a fabulous building, designed to look like a barn, that would eventually house their mutual dream, a fancy pants restaurant. They operated their excellent restaurant for a few years, then decided the life wasn’t for them, so onto the market the property went. It was expected to languish on the market for a while - the dang thing did have a defunct restaurant very close to the house after all - but it was promptly snatched up by the aforementioned woman. My friends had lucked out.
I heard the woman's kids had her declared incapable of managing her own financial affairs soon after this purchase was finalized, and that was that for her buying spree.
I recently purchased 100 acres on a lake in upstate New York State that has a rundown farmhouse, two teardown barns, and a lot of junk in the woods behind the house. A few years ago, I purchased a house, which I currently live in, in the small hillbilly town I grew up in. And now I am eyeing the house next door, a gorgeously well-maintained Craftsman home.
That would make three, and counting, properties.
I wonder how many more I could buy before my daughters had me declared incapable, too.
This is my entry to @mariannewest's daily freewrite challenge. Today's prompt is the landowner.
Oh my goodness, I missed one of your posts...how is that possible?
I think I missed one of yours at around the same time. A glitch in the code perhaps. Are you on your way home? Hopefully by the time you answer, you will be home. I've left my phone at the lake, and have to make the 3 hour drive back there, and home again, to fetch it.
You're either very rich or properties are very cheap or both. I can't imagine owning more than one place - we could barely afford the little hovel in which we live.
Houses are cheap cheap where I live! And the lake house has been in the family since 1790, I and my sister bought the others out. I'm hardly rich! But I can see why you think that.
The house next door would be my biggest expense, and it's gorgeous. Very small, full of chestnut orginal details. Three large raised beds in the back yard would augment what I have going on here already. The guy living in it now has been positively anal about fixing every little thing. I can't resist. I'd rent this one out hopefully, retaining use of the back yard, for some passive income.
How much is it? Australia Hasan insane property market. The average mortgage is 700k AUd. People in their 20s can barely afford to buy their own home and some never will. The median price of houses where I live is 1.4 million. We got on property market 17 years ago just at the right time. Our old house quadrupled in value so we could afford to buy a million dollar house outright - only 81 sq m and needed some work. We don't owe the bank a thing. We would need another million at least to buy a bigger house. It's bonkers.
The sellers are holding their asking price quiet at present, but I think it will go for under 200k USD, or 300k aud. And it is gorgeous, my dream house. My current house was 100k usd. I could buy six or seven good, livable-in houses here for the price of one where I moved from. Very small town that was once prosperous so there are fabulous houses here, for very little money.
I'm fascinated how some towns here in Australia sell for nothing - you can pick up houses for a dollar! but they are in buttfuck middle of nowhere, so I'm equally fascinated by people who'd want to do that haha!
Buy it, buy it - I want to see your dreamhaus!
I am no expert, but it always seemed to me that purchase of land was never a bad idea, in fact, quite the good investment. I guess if you were buying swamp land or the Brooklyn Bridge.... there could be cause for concern. LOL....
Some children see what their parents have as belonging to them already and have plans for the money. Heaven forbid the parent should spend it or invest it another way.
Unless there was some other happening with the money, I don't see how anyone in authority would thinking buy land meant a person was incapable of handling their money. Of course, there are many things in life I don't understand. :)
The only problem I see here is that all three properties would be in New York State.
My daughters have asked me to wear one of those necklaces with emergency buttons on it. I said I would if they did it too.
ha ha....yeah, something outside the state might be a good idea, in case you ever needed to escape!
My brother was talking recently about Mom and a necklace emergency button. He had mentioned it to her and she hesitantly said she might consider it. She is 91 and lives alone. I told him I would go along with whatever she/everybody decided in helping pay for it, but that she had alexa in her house, in more than one room and that I had showed her how if she fell and couldn't get up (or any other issue), she could just yell out to alexa to call me or him or either one of my sisters and she would do it. I will soon put another one in her garage, I just wasn't sure if the cold would ruin it. I don't care if it's ruined, but, just not sure if it would work a long time out there.
I have them in my house too, not for that reason, but I know I could still use it that way if I needed too.
When I was young, here in Florida, nobody wanted to live near the beach. Now it is wall to wall houses, and only the very rich live there. I would love to live on 100 acres, but it would need to be in a warm climate.
In the last 20 years, any property in Fl is very expensive, even renting is ridiculous. You can not rent a decent house for under 2K. My sister in law lives in an old very small two bedroom trailer on a small lot and pays close to 1,400 a month in rent. People are renting rooms in the house for 500 to 900 a month.
I say if you have a chance to buy a house or land, do it. It will only increase in value.
We'll see.
I could rent a small mansion in this town for $2000 a month. A very large and nice house, the one I now live in infact, for $1400.
Our little town is no longer our little town.