Happy New Year, everyone.
Jan. 2 is always a special day for us. Three years ago today, we finally found our farm.
It took us a long time to find our perfect farm. The search started about a year and a half before our forever farm even came up for sale.
I still remember the very first property we saw. Want to see it?
Ummm… yeah… it didn’t look like that when we saw it.
At the start of our farm search, we were looking for an empty piece of property. Our plan was to build our own house from scratch.
So when we went and looked at this farm, it was a rocky cow pasture. There were no buildings, there was little grass. As we stumbled through the rough field, I realized that building from scratch was going to be a lot of work. We’d have to put in a driveway and a well and hydro and never mind actually building the house!
Well, two years after we passed on the cow paddies, someone else built their dream home. I can’t say that this is anywhere close to my dream home, but I do have to give them a bit of credit. They built the barn first.
(And for scale, that’s a full-size barn behind the trees to the right of the house. This place is massive.)
Because our search went on for so long, we saw a lot of properties. Since we looked at them, a lot of them have gone through renovations or even complete rebuilds. It’s kind of neat to retrace our steps sometimes and see what people have done to build their own forever homes. Fortunately, we’ve found our own forever farm, and it’s so nice to start another year here.
Have you gone through a long real estate search? Or what about a really short one? Do you ever go back to your former houses, or houses you looked at and see what’s been done to them? Are you in your forever house yet?
Home on 129 Acres 
When I moved to NC I was in search of a place while I live in a hotel. It took me a year and I kept photos of all of them with notes about why I did not buy them or the fact that my offer was refused and I refused to bump it up past a certain point. I have followed a couple of my favorites and kicked my self in the butt over one particular one but I thought they were lying about someone putting in a higher offer than mine and I think I was right because it did not sell for a couple of years which I really am probably lucky I did not get. I have access to the MLS and placed alerts on them. I always wondered do you really live on 129 acres of land or is that just a cool title? Everytime I see your posts in my email that question goes through my mind and then I wonder what would I do with 129 acres LOL.
We do actually live on 129 acres. The secret is that you don’t actually have to do anything with all 129. You can just enjoy having the space… at least that’s what we do 🙂
I love the idea of your photos and notes. What a great chronicle of your search.
Happy new year!!
We bought our first house here in Victoria in one weekend. We had no choice, had to choose it while I was there, and had no other time to go see houses. It was pretty crazy! I saw some homes I absolutely loved, but due to needing a fairly central location, we had to go with one I didn’t love. Oh well, some things can’t be helped I guess. Now we’re in a two-bedroom suite, but hopefully one day we’ll buy another home that’s more tailored to us.
It sounds like a really challenging situation to be under that kind of pressure.
Congrats on the anniversary of your farm. I haven’t owned a house or land before, but I’m excited to someday do so. My husband and I plan to buy land in Montana (hopefully not too far off!) where we would like to live.
Sounds like that might be a good spot for your dream of country living.