Minimum Viable Cabin

People vector created by pch.vector - www.freepik.com The professional appraisal has arrived! It's significantly different than mine, but not outside the High-Low-Base bounds I arrived at during my DIY Appraisal exercise . A refresher on my figures: And where did the official appraisal come in? $60,000. Interestingly, the big ding on the appraisal was the fact the property is on a busy road. The appraiser noted specifically that this was the biggest factor in reducing the value. Not even something I even considered in my DIY appraisal exercise! It was, though, something I noticed when walking the property. In the front 1/3 of the property, I could hear traffic noise. It's not awful, but it's something I want to address in the Lot Plan. It seems like the solution would be a combination of building in the back half of the lot, preserving trees in the front, and creating noise barriers through landscaping or other means would solve this problem. My lesson taken from this is: a

There are a lot of way of determining the value of something. For property I'm specifically purchasing, I'm looking at a few different ways: whatever someone will pay for it, potential returns on it as an investment, the price people have paid in the past, opportunity cost - what could I do with this money that would bring more joy, professional appraisal While I'm waiting for the results of my professional appraisal , which should be available in a few days, I'm going to dig into some of the past property prices in the area to try to assemble a sum-of-parts appraisal of the property value. To keep myself honest, I'll publish this post now, 2 days before I get back my appraisal. It'll be fun to see how far off I am from the official value of the property. "A qualified appraiser creates a report based on a visual inspection, using recent sales of similar properties, current market trends, and aspects of the home (e.g., amenities, floor plan, square footage)

photo by wirestock - www.freepik.com It takes 30 or 40 years before a maple tree can be tapped for syrup, so as a person with some semblance of decency who is thinking of building on land in New England, I have of course called a Forester. Did you know that each county in New Hampshire has an assigned forester ? Not only that, but they will visit your property for free and " help you achieve your woodlot objectives including forestry, recreation, wildlife habitat, water resources, scenic beauty and income." I have contacted my county forester, and they have asked me to fill out a form stating my objectives. Obviously, "Maple Syrup in fewer than 40 years" is objective #1, but who knows what other options are out there?

Furthering my investigation of whether the lot is buildable, the steadfast septic designers walked the property yesterday and didn't see any obvious wetlands or problems, HOWEVER, they do have a record of a test pit dug (30 years ago) which shows that the water table is 36". A test pit is a hole in the ground. Okay, it's more than that. It's a hole in the ground you throw money into!  Okay, it's more than that. It's a hole in the ground that your septic designer or engineer digs to examine the strata of rock and soil and water level. This is very important not only for knowing what your septic will look like, but also your foundation, and whether you're even allowed to  have  a septic system. Now, you try and google whether 36" deep water table is terrible, or just fine. I'll wait. You can't find an answer? Me either. Nobody knows - or at least they're not saying. Maybe it's just not polite to give an opini on ab out whether someone'

  photo credit: Eversource How high over the horses are you going to hang your electrical lines? ...is a question you may not have asked yourself today. Another on the list of "things where your ignorance is a hidden cost line item" is electric. Not just wiring your house - we're not there yet - but actually bringing the power from the street to your home. I called the local electric company to talk it over, choosing the "Contractors and Builders" line since that was the direction of my questions. The guy who picked up (no automated menu!) was friendly and knowledgable. There are two prices for running electric from the street to the cabin - one for overground and the other for underground. Underground is cheaper - a little over $15/foot - or half the price of over-ground!  You're right to be suspicious. It's cheaper because with underground you pay digging the trench, running the conduit, the string (strong fishing line you run along the conduit and the

photo credit: Spreadsheet Stock photos by Vecteezy Q: What will it cost to build a cabin?  A: How long is a string? That's a pithy way of saying - it will cost as much as you make it cost. And to further expand on that, I know from running many other types of projects that if I go in ignorant of costs and options and make choices before I understand their impact, my ignorance will become a hidden line item in my budget. As much as I need a blueprint for the cabin, I need a blueprint for the costs and a plan for where the money will come from. My project needs a budget. There are some sample budgets out there, and they all look pretty overwhelming so I wanted to understand the steps first. I turned to my old PBS favorite, This Old House, and read  this Bob Vila article  outlining the timelines for major stages of construction. I am using this to create an outline for both my Project Plan and my Budget. My outline ends up being a lot longer than I originally imagined, and I tried to

I saved up over the last few years in a fund called optimistically, "House Fund." I knew I'd want a downpayment on a house at some point, and with real estate prices rising, it needed to be invested in the market to keep up with house prices and avoid losing value from inflation. It has gained about 25% in value over the time I have invested, but now that I'll need some of it for the Cabin project in the next year, it's time to cash out. My 1 & 80 rule: if you are within 1 year of the event (whether it's a home, wedding, car, or boob job) and you're 80% sure it's going to happen, you should get your cash in order. This means selling stocks (bonds and CDs are generally fine). I take a moderate view of when to sell stocks to fund a purchase. As the Motley Fool points out in this article , if you wait until closing day to sell, you risk the stocks declining in value and not being able to fund your home purchase. While Fool indicates that you should se

 If you like it then you'd better put a ring on it. And by that I mean you better ring your appraiser right quick. Like right when you put in an offer. And call five of 'em because only one is gonna call you back (if you're in a hot market). This is for someone out there: Your tea is getting cold and you should call potential appraisers. Joanna called me back (angel music) and can fit us in sometime in the next 3 weeks. Which is great, because that clock is ticking on my 30-days contingency where (9 days ago now - I'm counting) I blithely wrote "pending appraisal at or above offer, to be determined within 30 days" blah blah blah. Well, past Minimum Viable Cabiness, you get what you get. In case you're keeping track, a Unicorn costs $450.

So now we're trying to find a septic design. There's a letter from 1986 saying it was in progress, but nothing since then. Not that I really need the old ones, but it would make things easier and give me confidence a traditional septic system will work on the lot. I wish I could still get a type-written letter though, this looks so much more official than email.

It's actually really difficult to get someone to tell you how much an acre of land is worth. I'm not sure how hard the actual telling-what-it's-worth is, but getting an appraiser to pick up the phone? THAT is difficult. So, you want to have more work'n you can shake a stick at, go to appraiser school. I just looked up what it takes to become an appraiser - 3,000 hours of appraisal experience, at least half commercial real estate, and that's on top of your regular college degree. Wow, I guess this is why they're rare. Well, I've left messages with 5 so hopefully one of these unicorns will call me back.