Offer In

About a week ago while our realtor was in a regular realtor's meeting she made a request on our behalf. She told the others what we were looking for and what our approximate price range was. 

After the meeting one of the realtors approached her and said he may have something we would be interested in. It was a 129 acre ranch that was being sold by the heirs (brother and sister). It has a very large pond, a big shop/hay storage, smaller shop/barn, and two homesites, one with an existing mobile, though that would be removed at the time of the sale as it did not belong to them. It is currently being leased to a cattle raising/hay operation. The asking price was $650,000.

Obviously that's way above our price range but he said they would be willing to divide the property, first come, first served.

We made an appointment to go take a look.

The good news is the ranch is in an area that I like, the land is not too steep, and while there are not a whole lot of trees, there are some. We actually didn't like the top half too much, where the mobile home and second home site were. And while the pond was very cool that just wasn't the area of the ranch we liked. It didn't help that there were high wire electrical lines running through that portion and the way the property was situated for that portion one has to utilize an easement and go through a series of gates. The whole idea of easements that other people have to use (other than utility companies) does not appeal to me. 

Then we went to the lower portion of the ranch. It looks like they had planned another homesite at one time because there is an unused well head there and standard electrical lines. We were told they had started a septic approval process but never followed through.

After a quick look in the beginning area we decided to go back on another day when we could take our time to walk that portion and take a closer look. 

Here are the pictures from our closer look.

This is the entry gate. If you look at the very last picture this is where the road curves at the lower left. I outlined the part we are interested in in orange. It amounts to approximately 42 acres.

From the bottom line towards the top. The gate would be to the right of this picture.

Looking in at the gate. The blue tarp is over a bunch of hay. The leasee won't be leaving any for us. Just to the left of the tarp is the well. It's not hooked up right now and we would have to do some testing to see if it would work or if we need to dig a new well.

From just past the hay looking back towards the main gate. The gate here is actually going into the main portion. The way I had it divided we would get a small part of that but the main part is to the right. 

From the tarp looking north. The trees border the east fence line before curving to the west. See the last picture.

This is from the tree line about in the middle, looking north.

Same as above, just a little more to the right.

From the same spot looking towards the gate. You can see the blue tarp on the left side.

If you look at the last picture you can see the tree line curves to the west as it follows a seasonal creek, making a couple of acres triangle in the top right of the property. This is right where the trees leave the fence line (looking north).

I've stepped through the trees and across the (now dry) creek here. The triangular portion actually curves around those trees on the left.

This is pretty much in the middle of the property from where we thought a potential homesite might be, looking north. While the property is mostly rather flat there are some ever so slight elevation changes. 

Same as above looking at the gate. See the blue in the middle?

Same but now looking east at the tree line along the creek.

Here's the aerial. The thin red lines encompass the entire ranch, the thicker orange line is the part we are interested in. Remember you can click on the pictures to enlarge.

We made an offer so we have a few days to wait.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!