Buying Land

I am in the final stages of making a land purchase in PA. Just waiting on the bank to do the appraisal. I have already signed the sales agreement and paid a security deposit. I have wanted this property ever since I was a kid. It is 91 acres and is next door to the house that belonged to my parents when I was growing up and that now belongs to one of my sisters and her husband. I have hunted on this land ever since I was in high school and now it looks like it will soon be mine. It includes a ten year old three-bedroom ranch with a full basement and three car attached garage. There is a natural gas well on the property with free gas to a four year old gas furnace. The house also has an oil furnace, wood burning fireplace and central air. The property is mostly wooded with one open field of about five acres with a small orchard at one end. The forest consists mostly of wild cherry, maple, oak and eastern hemlock. There is one decent sized stream that runs the length of the property and eventually flows into a stocked trout stream that is within walking distance of the house. The land consists of two nice ridges with a gradually sloping valley down the middle. The house sits atop one of those ridges. I killed my first turkey on this property years ago along with several other turkeys, deer and small game during the years since. The current owner took a nice gobbler there on the first day of the 2012 PA spring turkey season.

sounds like a nice place to live..good luck!

Congratulations. Its nice to see someone have their dream come true! Pa has so much to offer, I'm sure you'll be quite happy. Whens the B-B-Q? Bob

Sounds like a great place, and unique opportunity. Congratulations!

Bob, since the current owner will have 90 days before he has to move out and summer will be nearly over by then, the BBQ will have to wait 'till next year. Remind me then. :grin:



In the meantime, here's a pic of the house:



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Sounds like my dream. In Georgia, though. Congratulations and good luck through the rest of the process!

Got the call this morning that the loan has been approved. I should definitely be in before the fall hunting season. :fire:

Closing is on June 29th! Almost done. :supercool:



Overall I am a little surprised that it has taken this long to finish the deal. I think I first talked to the current owner and looked at the house on March 31st. It was a few weeks before I found a bank that was even willing to talk about it let alone work out a deal. Ever since the financial meltdown the banks are under pretty tight rules and they are not interested in taking chances anymore. Even my bank where I had the mortgage on my Ohio home (which is now paid for) wasn't interested.



Fortunately one of the loan officers at the bank in PA that was finally willing to work with me turned out to be a friend of mine that I have known for about fifteen years. I didn't even realize he worked at that bank until we had talked over the phone for a few minutes. I live in Ohio and had not talked to him for a couple of years. It was by pure coincidence that we even talked and a great stroke of luck for me. Once the bank checked out my financial situation it was smooth sailing as far as the loan was concerned but it was still weeks before it was finally approved.



The next big hurdle was getting my insurance agent here in Ohio to insure a house in another state. Fortunately they are licensed in both PA and OH. This will be listed as a secondary residence until I retire and move there permanently. But you can bet I will spending most of my weekends there until then.



Amazingly everything has gone as though it was meant to be that I would end up owning my childhood stomping grounds. I still have an older brother and sister and two of her sons that all live in separate homes but right next door to this property.

:supercool:

The closing went through on Friday the 29th without any problems. Everything is done now except for the seller finding a new place in SC. He is there now to look at houses. Once he moves out I will be able to move in most of the furniture and other stuff I have in another house over there.

Congratulations!:haveabeer:

The seller emailed me after closing and said he wants to show me where all the tree stands are. From what I recall most of those are metal ladder stands. I guess he is leaving those behind too. I wasn't expecting that either. :grin:

I added a bunch more pics in my library in the New Property folder.



There are seven steel ladder stands scattered around the property. I saw two deer and a flock of wild turkeys while driving out the lane last Saturday evening.



The previous owner is also leaving two dehumidifiers and an extra working fridge in the basement. He bought another house the first week of July and will be moving mid August. :grin:



I alsio mailed my first mortgage payment today. :cry:

Moved in over the Labor Day weekend. Had help from my family. We had our first cookout on Sunday afternoon. I cannot believe how quiet it is there. A real dream come true. I can't wait for archery seaon to open on the 29th of this month. The neighbor has soybeans in his field right next door and guess whose property the deer cross to get there? :grin:

Awesome! I like how you wasted no time with a cookout. I moved to similar property last year and couldn't love it more coming from suburban Atlanta. As a matter of fact, here's a picture I sent to my dad this morning after having a deer run across the driveway in front of me.



<a href="http://s1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa332/hughdarnley/Hunting/?action=view&amp;current=2012-09-08_09-30-05_580.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa332/hughdarnley/Hunting/2012-09-08_09-30-05_580.jpg" border="0" alt="Uploaded from the Photobucket Android App"></a>



Archery started today but of course I had to work. No worries, I can get 'em any day. I watch scenes like this most morning with my coffee.



<a href="http://s1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa332/hughdarnley/Hunting/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_3571.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa332/hughdarnley/Hunting/IMG_3571.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>



Congratulations on a home that most men can only dream of. Good luck this season adding venison to your cookouts.



PS: Thank you, thank you, thank you for calling it a cookout and not a barbecue like my PA family who doesn't know that barbecue is a noun, not a verb, lol.

Thanks Hugh. Great pictures! Have you planted any food plots? Any recommendations?



I couldn't make it back again this weekend and I am already suffering from withdrawal.



I know what you mean about seeing wildlife on your own land. There was a doe eating acorns in the new back yard last Sunday morning. I see them in my yard here in OH too from time to time but it's just not the same when its only on a half acre lot.

I've never done any food plots. The land I actually hunt is an old family farm that hasn't been in use in over 30 years; about 350+ acres (a guesstimate, nobody seems to really know the actual amount and haven't cared enough to look it up) surrounded by other family land (thousands of acres) with dairy cattle and another farmer on another side separated by powerlines. Since none of that land is hunted except me a couple times a year there's really no pressure and the deer are plenty. Just don't see the advantage to going through all that work to attract deer that are already there. My favorite stand is in a bunch of oak trees where the acorns are abundant.



I only bow hunt deer on the land I live on since it's only about 50 acres and there are homes in all 4 directions; none really close but within a bullet's range. Good for turkey and dove, though.



I don't know what grows well during y'alls hunting season (especially as short as it is), but down here soy bean, clover, peanuts and corn are pretty popular. The closest thing I've done to food plots is when I was growing up my dad and I would plant muscadines on public land we hunted because it didn't really take any work and it does grow naturally in our area, so we couldn't easily be accused of planting on public land.



At home, my draw is a perfectly legal salt lick. We have a salt water pool that when you flush the filter or lower the water level, it leaves a nice big puddle of salt in the middle of one of the fields. The deer have dug that thing into a 8'x4'x1' pit.:grin:

Speaking of deer, I just had a doe and a button buck eating wild cherries in my back yard here in Ohio. My yard is littered with freshly fallen cherries. There are also a few acorns and hickory nuts but the squirrels have cleaned up most of those already. I also have an apple tree in front that is loaded this year but it is too close to the street for the deer to be out there before dark.



As I mentioned before, the neighbor has soy beans in his fields and the deer that bed on my wooded ridges are currently feeding in his fields so I don't really need to plant food plots on the new property in PA this year. However, I would like to do whatever I can to keep deer and turkeys on my property in years when that food source is not available. There seems to be a decent acorn crop this year which should be good for the beginning of bow season and that doesn't start in PA and OH until Sept 29th. I just hope the does don't move elsewhere looking for other food sources by the time the rut kicks in in early Nov. The older, bigger bucks have no reason to come around if there are no does and the best time to have a chance of even seeing those boys is during the first two weeks of Nov when they are chasing does and acting really stupid. :grin:

If there is not a driveway there already, don't put one in if at all possible. Or a mailbox.



Once you do put in a driveway and or a mailbox, the county normally looks at the property differently and assess a higher tax rate on the property.

Joe, it's already too late. There is also a house. I plan to retire there in a few years. But the taxes on that 91 acres with a 10 year old house in rural PA are actually about the same as I pay for a half acre with a 52 year old house in suburban OH. Total injustice I tell you. :sad: :grin: