We Close Thursday, the 15th, on our Retirement house/home. A little history. About a year and a half ago our son-in-law bought 10 acres (Cleared Land) with a stocked pond, he would take the Scout troop out to camp and fish there. He decided to build a house, they just did the walk through yesterday. In talking to him during the build he said he pulled out of the stock market to invest in this second home/property. In this year and a half his land value has almost doubled. The property has a Livestock/AG exemption, his taxes was $11 last year. The ranch was a 1600 acre ranch that sold to a developer who chopped it up in lots for sale, what is making the land value rise is many people bought the lots (all sold in less than a year) and are reselling for profit. Lastly, the ranch property has a County Road that runs through it which supplies Water, Electric and Fiber Internet to the lots. All that is needed is Septic and Propane (If you want Gas).
So we have been watching our neighborhood/area head downward like our old house/neighborhood area did. We moved here 10 years ago, we were hoping for 20-30 years here. We even had a Pool built here. Anyway, there are Apartments popping up everywhere, more than a dozen different complexes in these last 10 years. In a 3-4 mile stretch of our main road from the freeway we counted 6 Smoke Shops, 4 Tattoo Shops, 2 Pawn Shops, etc. Just about every house sold in our area turns into a Rental bringing renters who don't care about the properties. Presently we are still ok, but we know it will only get worse over time.
This brings us to our Closing, we started looking out in the area our son-in-law bought but we were not real keen on building a new house, mainly due to our retirement age. We watched our son-in-law add many more gray hairs during his build. Well a few weeks ago we found a property with a house (built 2010) and pool (built 2012) for sale that sits on 10 acres of Wooded Land and has a 1/2 area pond. 10 acres or more in Texas you can hunt on. Since buying houses these days move much, much quicker now, we jumped on this one. There were several full price bids but we got the property for less with our cash offer. We are not invested in the stock market but did have to sell one of our CD's, was not bad, we loss about $500 total in the sell of the CD after the interest we made on it (Since most CDs are above 5% now). The rest of the money we had in Money Market at 4 3/4 percent. We do not want a Mortgage so this worked out. A house of our same floor plan listed in one day and sold the next day. Houses in our area are still selling fast so we should be good on the sell of our house. Guessing an Investor will snatch up our house and it too will turn into Rental property. We are hoping to get our house ready to sale in a month. Our sell money will just go back to the Money Market.
Investment? Well we had to add about a 1/3 more than what our present house is worth from our savings. As property values go up, guessing it will be a good investment on our money. Really at our age, any money we make will just be more money for our kids
I know this is a bit backwards, most older folks sell their country land and move to the city 
Sorry for Long Post...
So we have been watching our neighborhood/area head downward like our old house/neighborhood area did. We moved here 10 years ago, we were hoping for 20-30 years here. We even had a Pool built here. Anyway, there are Apartments popping up everywhere, more than a dozen different complexes in these last 10 years. In a 3-4 mile stretch of our main road from the freeway we counted 6 Smoke Shops, 4 Tattoo Shops, 2 Pawn Shops, etc. Just about every house sold in our area turns into a Rental bringing renters who don't care about the properties. Presently we are still ok, but we know it will only get worse over time.
This brings us to our Closing, we started looking out in the area our son-in-law bought but we were not real keen on building a new house, mainly due to our retirement age. We watched our son-in-law add many more gray hairs during his build. Well a few weeks ago we found a property with a house (built 2010) and pool (built 2012) for sale that sits on 10 acres of Wooded Land and has a 1/2 area pond. 10 acres or more in Texas you can hunt on. Since buying houses these days move much, much quicker now, we jumped on this one. There were several full price bids but we got the property for less with our cash offer. We are not invested in the stock market but did have to sell one of our CD's, was not bad, we loss about $500 total in the sell of the CD after the interest we made on it (Since most CDs are above 5% now). The rest of the money we had in Money Market at 4 3/4 percent. We do not want a Mortgage so this worked out. A house of our same floor plan listed in one day and sold the next day. Houses in our area are still selling fast so we should be good on the sell of our house. Guessing an Investor will snatch up our house and it too will turn into Rental property. We are hoping to get our house ready to sale in a month. Our sell money will just go back to the Money Market.
Investment? Well we had to add about a 1/3 more than what our present house is worth from our savings. As property values go up, guessing it will be a good investment on our money. Really at our age, any money we make will just be more money for our kids
I know this is a bit backwards, most older folks sell their country land and move to the city Sorry for Long Post...
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