Hot Springs & Paradise
Yesterday, we headed out to Hot Springs, MT to check out a 7-acre piece of land for sale (see pics above). Looking at it online, a red flag went up for us straight away. It’s listed at $95k and it’s been on the market for over 200-days. Now, that likely means little to nothing to you unless you’ve been waist deep in all things land for the past 3-months but from what we’ve discovered: nothing is for sale for under $100k without a reason. And usually that reason has to do with access. Translation: you’ll have to do some serious work to get there. I can’t tell you how many pieces of land we’ve gone off in search of only to find ourselves met with a super rugged long stretch of dirt road that takes an hour to traverse. So for this tract to be under $100k AND still on the market after 200-days? Something wasn’t adding up.
Whelp. We got there and the access was really good. The terrain was easy to walk and had good spots for building and there was a nice mix of open sage brush land and treed areas. Nice views up top; decent sun access (we’re always considering the position of each piece of land in relation with the sun in terms of what our long Montana winters will be like; some parcels would be super socked in with darkness in the wintertime); a fair amount of privacy. It seemed pretty nice! Soooo, why is this so inexpensive? Hmm.
The mystery was solved once I heard back from our realtor, after I reached out to him requesting more info about this property. This parcel is zoned as agricultural. Now, that doesn’t mean one can’t approach the county to have it re-zoned as residential but not only will that re-zoning process take an additional $8,000 to do, my understanding is that it’s not a for sure deal they’d agree. So it’s a gamble. I guess if we wanted to buy this piece of land, we’d have to do it and then hope to goodness that the county would agree to re-zone it so we could live on it.
It never ceases to amaze me: every single piece of land truly has it’s own unique set of traits & differences, possibilities & pitfalls. No two pieces of land are the same. It’s really quite something how many variables exist when it comes to buying land.
En route back home, we went and checked out a property for sale in Paradise, MT (see pics above). It’s not often we look at land that has a home-type structure on it but this one comes with an off-grid dwelling. It’s situated at a slightly higher price point than we’d be able to manage but who knows - sometimes lower offers are a thing that can work out.
The structure is on 40-acres off a really nice, well surfaced dirt road and there is also a small creek that runs through a portion of the property (which is always a great bonus). Most of the acreage is quite steep but there are two walking/atv trails cut in that skirt both sides of the property, both of which take you to the top of the mountain behind the structure (another bonus). So: access is good, privacy is good, and there are a good amount of trees on site (all three of which top my list in terms of importance). The price point is too high for us, so there’s that. And the structure on the property is pretty close to something both Mike and I would consider to be more of a liability than an asset, so that’s another possible strike against it. There’s room to give the dwelling some TLC for sure but it’s one of those situations where it might make more sense just to tear it down, based on how it was constructed, and build something closer to what we’re looking for.
In the online write up for this property, I love that it says: “No Covenants! No Zoning! No Building Permits Required!” We always appreciate when listings tell us up front about the covenants - strangely, it does not happen often, usually I have to reach out to our realtor for more info in order to learn about the covenants situation. We’ve pretty much ascertained that if a property comes with covenants attached, it’s likely not going to work for what we’re looking to do. And the fact that there are no building permits required, well, that works in our favor for sure, based on the fact that Mike wants to build more rustic, primitive type structures. And even I, a non-builder, can tell that whoever built the current structure on this piece of land also appreciated that they were not bound to codes & permits - it’s definitely a homeowners special.
What now? you may wonder. Well. We’re still considering whether to make a much lower offer on the promising piece of Polson land we saw a few weeks ago. We’re still searching online every day for new land to check out and getting boots on the ground 1-2X a week. And we’re following leads and ideas that are coming in based on the bat signal I sent out on social media a few days ago. We were maybe going to head out to Helmville to look at land for sale today but after Mike looked up the exact location on his OnX map (which is an app that has been vitally important for us), we decided to pull the plug on that idea. The land in those parts is well-priced but it’s well-priced for a reason - and the reason, as usual (but not always!) is access.
Okay. So here’s what I’m thinking. In order to get ourselves on some good ground that’s in our price range, we just need to be able to fly AND fly all our friends in who want to come and practice with us at Empty Mountain! (I think I’m onto something.)
On the way to Hot Springs, we stopped by the Dixon Mercantile for scones - so, as far as this gal is concerned: best day of ever!