Gobble gobble

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

At the top of Matt’s list of animals he most wants to see at the farm is wild turkeys. Well, we still haven’t seen any actual birds on our property, but over the Christmas holidays we found definitive proof that turkeys come to visit.

(The larger tracks walking diagonally in from the left side of the picture are Matt-tracks).

In the deep snow, I have to look pretty closely to identify the tracks as turkey. They walk one foot in front of the other, and, if they plant their foot properly, I’m sometimes able to pick out their distinctive three-toed print.

According to the tracks, 11 birds came through our farm. In some spots, you can see where their wings dragged as they were walking along.

While lefty has to deal with droopy wing syndrome, the guy to her right obviously has his own problems. My diagnosis is likely too much Christmas cheer.

Back in the marsh, where the ice was covered with only a thin dusting of snow, the tracks were unmistakably avian.

I wish I had thought to put something beside the tracks to show their scale. These are some big birds.

Since the thaw last weekend, we no longer have snow to help us with tracking. Matt’s fingers are crossed that the turkeys weren’t just passing through and instead are ready to become permanent residents. We’ll keep our eyes and ears open for signs.

The farm we almost bought 1

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

The thing you should probably know about our farm search was that when we started looking, I wasn’t ready. My plan was to wait until we had paid off the mortgage on our starter house. But about five months before that, Matt started spending time on MLS and soon enough he was making appointments with real estate agents.

About a month into our premature farm search, Matt and I drove out to see a property. We were about 20 minutes early for the appointment, and as we circled the rural country roads peering out the car window at the farm I said to Matt, “How did you do it? How did you find the perfect place?”

A long gravel driveway bordered on one side by tall pines and on the other by a manicured meadow led to a small house perched on the top of a rise. Undersized dormers poked out of the roof and the weathered wood of a big barn towered over the ridge line.

The original farm house had been added to over the years becoming a hodge podge of traditional tiny rooms connected to larger open spaces including a big eat-in kitchen and a generous family room with windows on three sides. Bathrooms were classic 1980s: a vintage six-piece complete with pink jacuzzi tub and matching bidet and an avocado three-piece.

In terms of potential, it ticked the box. My vision for the reno included digging out the basement, building a full second story–complete with properly proportioned dormers, reconfiguring the main floor and adding on a garage.

Outside, acres and acres of manicured grass beckoned family barbecues. Rolling hills hearkened of winter sledding parties. A small creek winding around the house and barn, 10 acres of forest and more than 50 acres of corn fields (of the property’s total 94 acres) were exactly the atmosphere we were looking for. And of course, the big barn with its own fabulous dormer drew us in.

But they only drew us so far. Though the price tag on this first farm was less than what we would ultimately end up paying, it was so early in our search that it still seemed very expensive. My sticker shock combined with my renovation ambitions–plus some electrical issues, no proper well (cistern only) and baseboard heat instead of a furnace–made us hesitate to put in an offer.

We visited the farm a few times. Talked about it a lot. Thought about it almost constantly. And then we watched the listing expire at the end of the fall.

That whole winter, every night as I walked home from work, I thought about the farm. We decided that if the listing came back up in the spring, we would put in an offer.

We watched MLS, and sure enough a few months later the farm came back on the market. We went and saw it again. The issues were the same, but so was the appeal. We put in an offer.

When our agent called me to say that there were three other offers and we were all being sent back, I was completely stunned. How could this farm that no one wanted to buy four months ago now be selling in competition?

We upped our offer.

And that night as I climbed into bed I felt like we were making a mistake. After about six months of dreaming about this property, it didn’t feel right.

The next day, we found out we’d been outbid. The amount the farm sold for surprised me and was more than we’d have paid. Between the price tag and my misgivings, the loss didn’t hurt too much. Apparently, I still wasn’t ready.

January thaw

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

A thick fog on Friday night made for a hazardous drive home, and heralded the arrival of warm weather. Saturday afternoon found us outside without jackets. Saturday evening as we walked down the driveway in the dark we could hear water flowing in the creek.

Where the creek enters the pond, the ice has nearly disappeared.

In the rest of the pond, the thin layer of ice that had formed on the surface has receded.

We’ll have to put off skating for another while yet.

To do: Relax

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

As sad as it may seem, I put “hike” on my holiday to-do list.

Yes, I have to actually make plans to relax.

However, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be.

Beginning on Christmas Eve, Matt and I ended up taking near daily walks across the fields and through the forest.

I snapped this shot back in the woods late one afternoon.

This is exactly why I wanted a large property.

I hope that you have a relaxing weekend.

Financing the farm

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

It’s been a year since we bought the farm, and this month I’m revisiting some of our experiences from the purchase.

When we last left our heroes, they were standing in the snow next to a sold sign smiling giddily because they had just bought a farm.

In reality, they had a conditional sales agreement on a farm. In order to actually close the deal, they had to pay for the farm, which meant a mortgage.

Finding a lender for the farm was a bit like finding the perfect property–frustrating, trying, drawn out, complicated… although [spoiler alert] ultimately successful.

Matt and I had gone to our bank and been pre-approved before we ever started looking at farms. However, now that we had found our farm, we had to convert our pre-approval into an actual approval. And according to our conditional offer, we had eight days to firm up financing.

What we discovered was that in the case of a rural property a pre-approval is mostly hypothetical. Turning it into reality is another matter entirely.

Banks, and really most lenders, like cookie cutter. They have forms and check boxes and mathematical formulas. A 129-acre farm with a modest house, a massive barn, a semi-rickety driveshed, a bunch of hay fields and a few acres of forest doesn’t fit their molds.

Posted interest rates don’t apply. Nor do minimum down payments. Hoops and hurdles are placed in your path. Acrobatics–and lots and lots of paperwork–are required.

Signed offer in hand, we headed to our bank. To cover all of our bases, we also visited a credit union where Matt’s Dad is a member and connected with a mortgage broker recommended by our real estate agent.

Here’s what our options were:

The bank: Throughout our dealings with our bank, we felt like they were trying to make things as difficult as possible so that Matt and I would just go away. Even though we weren’t planning on working the farm, they wouldn’t give us a residential mortgage. Everything had to go through their small business line of products. And the interest rate was a full percent higher than what other residential customers were getting.
The credit union: Service was great, and we really felt like our staff person was working with us to make the mortgage happen. They would do a residential mortgage, but the interest rate wasn’t any better than at the bank.
The mortgage broker: For the most part the broker struck out. Even though Matt and I were a good credit risk and the farm had no big issues, lenders didn’t want to step outside of their little boxes. He did manage to find one major bank willing to give us a residential mortgage. The snag was that the bank saw the “needs TLC” description in the real estate listing and wanted to hold back a portion of our loan conditional on us installing a new heating system and new roof within 120 days of taking possession.

So there was no clear front runner among our three options.

The biggest hurdle in securing financing was that every single lender wanted an appraisal. A real live person had to visit the farm, walk around and say how much it was worth. Except he’d only look at the house plus 5 acres. Maybe 10 if we were lucky.

A big part of the appraisal was looking online for comparable properties, which meant that since the appraiser was only evaluating 5-10 acres, he was looking for anything in the 1 and 15 acre range. Now maybe I place more value on land than other people do, but somehow in my mind 5 acres doesn’t compare to 129 acres.

It was important to us that the whole property be valued properly. All of the lenders would only give us a mortgage for up to 80% of the appraised amount, so if the appraisal came back too low, we could be in the situation where we might not be able to afford the farm.

Aside: The 80% loan speaks to my earlier comment about minimum down payments not applying to farm purchases. While in Canada people are able to purchase houses with as little as 5% down, if you buy a farm, your lender is going to want 20% minimum.

Anyways, the other huge frustration with the whole appraisal process is that the lender ordered it, required us to do it, kept the report and wouldn’t show us a copy, but required us to pay for it. I managed to speak with the appraiser our bank wanted to send out to the property and when I asked him how much the appraisal was going to cost he refused to tell me!

The appraisal ended up being the tipping point for us.

I managed to get the credit union to agree to appraise the full 129 acres–at a cost to us of $762.75. Given the urgent deadline of firming up our financing within a week, we gave their appraiser the green light to head out to the property.

The day our conditions expired, the appraiser’s report showed up at the credit union. Even though we hadn’t signed the final paperwork, we went ahead and waived the conditions on our offer. And by the way, the appraisal came out more than $60,000 higher than we had paid for the farm. Phew!

The day after we waived the conditions, a bank contacted by our mortgage broker came forward with a firm commitment for a residential mortgage at a half percent less than the credit union was offering.

Though he had no obligation to do so, our broker gave us the paperwork from the bank, so that we were able to take it to the credit union and use it to negotiate a better interest rate. The great service from our broker and our mortgage specialist at the credit union made what was an extremely frustrating process slightly less painful.

Some lessons learned for securing a mortgage for a rural property:

Give yourself as much time as you can to finalize your financing. We had had lots of conversations with the bank throughout our property search, well before we ever placed our offer on the farm. We had some idea of what would be required to secure the mortgage. However, the financing was much more complicated than we could have ever dreamed. We squeaked in just under the deadline to waive our conditions.
Have all of your financial information documented in detail and carry it with you at all times–extra hard copies as well as electronic files you can email. All of the lenders required three years of tax statements for both of us. In addition, we each supplied pay stubs and personal statements detailing our assets and income. Having all of our numbers on hand ensured we didn’t add any extra delays to the process.
Consider working with a mortgage broker. Our broker’s contacts and experience were invaluable. He was a fabulous advocate for us and it was very helpful to have someone who was willing to explain the intricacies of mortgage conditions and vet any documents we received.
Shop around. Don’t settle for the first offer you receive and consider alternatives to traditional banks. Even when you receive an offer, go back to the lender and ask for exactly what you want. You might not get everything, but you may be able to do a little better. Ask lots of questions and make sure you understand exactly what you’re getting.
Be prepared for some extra expenses just because you want a rural property: you’ll likely face a bigger down payment, higher interest rate and appraisal fees.

For Matt and me, the extra expenses were worth it because we got the farm of our dreams. I can’t say the frustration was necessary, but we made it through.

Home Goals 2013

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I’ve never been big on new year’s resolutions, but there is a list that’s been building in my head for some time now. It is the Home Goals 2013 list.

After having most of last year sucked up by the basement-renovation-that-never-ends, my plan for this year is to avoid any other massive all-consuming projects. However, as you can probably imagine, there are a few to-dos I’d like to accomplish.

1. Landscaping. This is going to be the big one this year. As I’ve noted, we didn’t do any landscaping in 2012, so there is a huge need to get on top of the situation outside. However, with 129 acres of property, we will have to prioritize where we spend our energy.

Reestablish the flowerbeds around the house. Some will have to be rebuilt. Some will be extended. Everything will have to be weeded.
Level old fire pits at the top of the driveway and plant grass seed.
Build new fire pit close to the pond.
Tidy the east shore of the pond. The brush grew so thick over the past year that I can only access about ten feet of shoreline. Chainsaws and perhaps a bush hog will be required.
Put in a garden on the turnaround. This pile of dirt and rubble and weeds is approximately the size of a suburban backyard. A big lush flowerbed sounds like a better plan than mowing any additional grass.

I’m going with inspirational photos for this post, rather than reality. A lush garden with a brick path winding through it would be perfect for the turnaround. Source.

2. Painting.

Living room
Dining room
Kitchen
Main floor hallway

3. Living room fireplace. A wood burning fireplace was high on my wish list when we bought the house. We have one, but it needs a little work to make it exactly what I want.

Replace the woodstove-esque insert with an open hearth one.
Reface with fieldstone.
Put up a new rustic wood mantle.

Design by Burlington Architect Smith & Vansant Architects PC. Source.

4. Laundry room. The final section of the basement needs to be brought up to our new and improved standard.

Fix the leaky foundation wall.
Paint.
DIY a fun light fixture.
Build a drying rack.

A few other things will sneak in there, I’m sure, but here’s hoping 2013 brings slightly more time for enjoying rather than always working the farm.

How do you feel about resolutions? Do you have any home goals for 2013? The nester, the champion of annual home goals, published her list last week. It’s a bit more philosophical than mine. I think I’m still at the stage of working on the underlying form for our house and property. Once I have that established, I’ll build in a bit more philosophy.

One year ago

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

A year ago today we saw the farm for the first time.

We’d been searching for our dream rural property for nearly a year and a half. After a very frustrating fall with nothing new coming on market, it had been more than a month since we’d actually visited a property.

Then on Jan. 2 sitting in the living room in our little house in the city, Matt hopped on MLS.

A new farm had been listed.

It was in our preferred area. It wasn’t the type of house we usually looked at, but it had a barn and was a good acreage. It was also over our price range. Matt called our agent, and he made an appointment for us to see it the next day.

Our viewing at the farm was different than the viewings when we first started. The rose coloured glasses had come off.

Which was unfortunate, because we really could have used them the first time we stepped into the house.

The good news is the garbage bags turned out to not actually be full of garbage. The bad news was that we ended up buying everything you see when we bought the farm.

No one had lived in the house for a few months, but it was far from empty. Previous owners had left stuff and lots of it. Beyond all of the detritus it was obvious that the house met one of my major criteria. It had potential. Buckets of it.

We toured the barn and fell in love with the historic post and beam construction. We peaked into the driveshed. And that was about all we saw of the 129 acres… because I was so freezing cold.

It was an absolutely frigid day, and standing outside chatting with our agent all I wanted to do was get in the car and turn on the heat. Our agent’s final words as we turned on the ignition were, “I think you could get it for about $100,000 less [than they’re asking].”

And that became the topic of the afternoon. A hundred thousand less than list put it into our price range, but still at the top.

During our frustrating fall we’d had conversations about how we were likely going to have to compromise on something: location, property (meaning acreage, outbuildings, ponds and forests) or price. If we chose to buy this property–which had everything we wanted and was close to where we grew up and where our families still lived–it was clear that our compromise point was going to be the budget.

Matt was ready to go for it. The farm ticked all our boxes… except for price. That night was a sleepless one for me.

The morning of Jan. 4, we called our agent and to his surprise told him to put together an offer. At his office later that day we found out that the buyers had already received other offers. Bad news, we were about to enter our third bidding war. Good news, the buyers were waiting for our offer.

We signed the offer and crossed our fingers. Our agent said he expected we’d hear something back that evening. That night we sat up until midnight, but the phone was silent.

When we finally headed to bed, I slept with no trouble. We’d made our decision and it felt right. We’d done all we could, and it was up to other people now.

First thing the next morning, the phone finally rang. It was our agent. Our offer had been accepted.

Finally farm owners.

As I hung up the phone and told Matt the good news, I burst into tears–happy tears. After a year and a half of searching, we had found our perfect place and it felt exactly right.

Now a year later having owned the farm for ten months, it feels even more right.

Merry Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season. I will be back in the new year with more adventures in renovating and country living.

Thank you for reading. Merry Christmas.

Ready for hibernation… pretty much

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Nearly three months ago I published the list of fall chores that we needed to complete to be ready for winter. Well, winter officially arrives today. Are we ready?

~~Winterize exterior waterlines~~. Done.
~~Take off the window screens for cleaning and patching. — I have no excuse why this, one of the simplest tasks on the list, isn’t done. Maybe this weekend?~~
Update: Done! Closing early at work for the holidays meant I was home in the daylight. Popping off all of the screens, labeling them and carrying them down to the basement took all of 15 minutes.
~~Fix up some winter beds for the cats~~. Done.
Fix leak in basement foundation. — Matt adjusted the downspouts and put a sheet of plywood under the window to run water away from foundation, which seem to be working for now, but we will have to give this job some proper attention next year.

From the light above the window and the retaining wall half buried in the garden, you can see that this used to be a door, so we’re pretty sure this is the source of the water we see once in awhile in the laundry room.

~~Get rid of scrap metal~~. Done.
Organize driveshed so that we can ~~find the snow shovels~~ and park at least one car inside. — Matt has dug out the shovels, but the driveshed is still mostly in shambles.
Get rid of the woodstove and old chimney, which are also in the driveshed. — We thought we had a buyer, but he never showed to pick up the stove. Anyone want it?

This beauty is still for sale. Send offers to homeon129acres@hotmail.com.

Fit out the mudroom and ~~front hall closet~~. — Halfway done. The front hall closet is super functional now, but the only progress we made in the mudroom so far is adding two boot trays and moving the coats to the inside closet. I’m hoping to finish off this project over the Christmas break and will of course share posts in the new year.
~~Remove stakes from established trees~~ and stake the new trees that we planted this spring. — Halfway done.
~~Install the flag pole~~. Done.
Pull the fallen tree out of the pond. — A project for next year. If the pond does freeze this winter, we’ll still have plenty of room for skating and hockey. I guess a good thing about putting this job off for a few months is that I didn’t have to go swimming in November.
~~Buy snow tires for my car~~. Done.

Wiley got bling, and my poor little car lost hers. 😦

~~Put away the lawn furniture~~. Done.

Something else I should have put on the original list was learn how to count. I thought I had 14 tasks when I actually had only 13. Oops.

I also had two bonus “nice-to-dos,” one of which got some attention.

Install a bird feeder on the driveway turnaround. — Didn’t even try to do this.
~~Trim up some trees around the property~~. — We trimmed two trees, but we didn’t take down our sickly blue spruce or trim the very twisted willow tree at the pond.

Our other twisted willow before and after its haircut

Anyways, out of the original 13 and the two bonus, we can officially cross off 7 8… or 8 9 if you count the jobs that are half done. Not a great completion rate, I guess. But hey, the basement’s looking really good, and it will be a nice and cozy hang-out space this winter!

In addition, we did do a few extra tasks specifically for winter.

~~Winterize Wiley~~. Done.
~~Put the blanket on the bed~~. (Not really post or picture worthy.)
~~Get the outside lights working~~. Done.
~~Dig out the snow fence~~, although we haven’t decided if we actually need to put it up yet.

A few rolls of snow fence were buried in the long grass of the field behind the barn, and Wiley helped us dig them out.

I met our local councilor a few weeks ago, and he told me that I’m not a true rural resident until I’ve made it through a winter. I like winter, so I’m actually looking forward to a snowy season of hiking and skating and staying cozy in the house. My fingers are crossed that we’re prepared enough to be able to enjoy it without too much hardship.

My Christmas cold may have knocked me out, but at least my tile are grouted

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

For the second year in a row I have been struck down by a doozy of a Christmas cold.

The fatigue, fever, headache and muscle aches are not conducive to writing… or thought, so for today’s post, all I have for you is a low quality picture of our grouted tile.