My $5,000 Homestead - Picture Tour on Day 1
Yesterday I took possession of the property I purchased in Arkansas. Here's what it looked like when I arrived.
But first, a little background. I'm poor. I couldn't afford a big, fancy, clean, functional, finished homestead, I'm just lucky I got my 2.8 acres in Arkansas for $5,000. While 99% of the people in North America might find this place to be too awful for them to even consider, I'm thankful to have my own place instead of couch hopping and squatting.
So here we go. Fair warning, what you are about to see may give you nightmares. :)
Let's start off on a positive note with the view from the edge of my driveway.
That view and the gorgeous Blue Mountain Lake 2 miles down the road, make the rest of what you are about to see less anxiety inducing.
This next photo is also taken from the edge of my driveway in to my property. Anybody need a Ham Radio tower? Maybe I'll stick a wind turbine up there in the future.
Now here's a few pictures on the outside of the property before I scare the bejeezus out of you with the inside pics.
A little shed at the front of the property beyond repair. But it can be re-purposed.
A bigger shed next to the house. Haven't inspected it enough to know what's in it or its overall shape, but, again, it can always be re-purposed.
There are a couple clearings in my forest land that I will put to fruitful use.
This is an old structure as viewed from the front door. No clue what that thing is all about.
Are you ready for what the inside of the mobile home looked like when I took possession? It wasn't that bad when I toured it before the purchase as someone was living in it then, but they apparently just ransacked the place. That's alright though, some useful junk in there, and it was only $5k.
They did leave me some food, that was nice. (sarcasm)
The bathroom is gonna have to get a gut job if I decide to spend anything on that mobile home.
All of that looks really bad, but at least the mobile home will be dry storage if I'm not living in it. Still considering my options, but what I would really like to do is convert a small shed, like 12ft x 24ft, into a cabin. Maybe I can afford to do that a little sooner if Steemit keeps on being awesome to me. :) Just cleaning up the place will double the value of it, and its hard to beat the views coming and going from road.
With Blue Mountain Lake just 2 miles down the road, even with that mess, I think it was worth every penny.
All pictures taken by me on an old Kodak EasyShare M883, except the last one was taken by a relative.
If you are the type that enjoys video tours, I have one part of the tour up on YouTube and will be sharing the other parts of the tour in the coming days. Thanks for making it this far, but now I've got to get back to work. :)
I heard that you can now buy an entire house from IKEA to be built on your property. Have you heard of this? (I think it's like $90,000)
I have seen articles about that. A bit out of my price range, and seems a little extravagant for my taste.
That's understandable. $5,000 for that much land is a killer deal. Over time, I'm sure you will fix the place up. Congratulations on your purchase!
There is a lot of work to do :) upvoted
Thanks. I plan on taking breaks from the work to do plenty of fishing too.
Awesome Buy!! In Connecticut for $5,000 that will barely cover the taxes on a $150,000 house!! I think you hit a home run here - Hazmat Suits ($200) Oxygen Mask ($40) renting a 20' dumpster x4 fills ($200) and lumber for building a log cabin ($800) Basic Furnishing of the cabin ($1200) & paid labor ($1000) - in my eyes for approxiamately ($3440) plus some sweat, hard work, and then jumping in the lake to (shower/refresh) - I'd personally move to Arkansas -
Approxiamate investment total $5,000 + $3440 = $8440 and I think you could sell the property and cabin for $40,000 easily - if not $60,000 - Depending on how big/nice of a cabin you can build. Oh yeah - ($60) for some fruit bearing trees and ($500) for some high end Antler decor on the walls of the cabin and call it $9,000 total investment - I'll personally offer you $35,000 before the cabin is built and pay you 10% ($3500) up front to cover the remodel costs - so you could be looking at realistically only a $5,000 investment plus hard labor and the potential for catching some funky home-brew disease - and come out $31,500 ahead in a few months.. That's a 6,300% profit! Can we talk contractual agreement yet? I've already got a lawyer preparing the paperwork.
Full Disclosure (I'll live in the cabin for a year by myself - buy a few reads of paper and dust off the typewriter and write a book on how @bobbleheadstead changed my life - Then dissamble the cabin and build 6 mini 1 room cabins and rent them out for $500 a month - (Great Deal!) and come out ahead by $1,000, have the book published - take the $85-90,000 book royalties and build a replica White House cabin the size of the White House and enjoy the rest of my life on Blue Mountain Lake without a care in the world..
Please send me an address to mail the official contract and deed transition paperwork to you and I'll send you a 3000 STEEM to cover the $3,500 downpayment. Please Reply/Comment and tell me it's a deal or it can be one with tweaking some of the details -
If you decide to use my plan of "Mini Blue Cabin Resort" I'd appreciate 5% of your annual residual income from the proceeds of renting the cabins - roughly 100 STEEM to my account annually up front of 8.333 STEEM Monthly - Either way ya can't lose..
If you can keep Clue the board game from the 2nd indoor hoarding pic I'd appreciate it if you could mail it to me in Connecticut :)
MUCH LOVE AND AN AMAZING PURCHASE FOR $5,000
Whatever you do - Please make this post into a storyline so everyone can see the transition - That would be really cool!
LOVE,
@krytonika
Sounds interesting. A septic system would be required if you've got more than a couple people there, and the ground is full of large rocks. Its a river valley between mountain ranges, so digging would require heavy equipment. I haven't priced above ground septics that are emptied every so often, that would be another option.
I love the way you think and those are some great ideas. I haven't even spent the night on the property yet, or gotten the see the back half with the forest. So its a little premature for me to take you up on it, but I'm not saying no.
Having a few small cabins to rent out might be a good money maker with Blue Mountain Lake right there. Don't know if people would want to live that far out from everything, but spending a vacation week or weekend there would be ideal, and have a boat or jet skis to rent to them to enjoy the lake even more. That's definitely in my mind for the future.
Thanks for seeing all the opportunities a place like presents, and stay tuned, it'll be a few weeks before I'm back down there, but that's when the fun will really start.
Aha - I didn't even think about septic! That could be pricey indeed.. However if you did decide to make a small fee vacation homes on the property to rent out - even lowballing it at $500/month like I had suggested would turn you great profits - Look into AirBNB - The site that lets you rent out your home, spare room, or spare log cabin to people - Its highly successful and many people are always looking for deals just to get away to anywhere - many would love to get away from - just - LIFE. And the landscape alone would be your only needed selling point!
Can't wait to see what you do with the land :)
Yeah. First I will say congrats! You own land...most people cannot say that. Second...I would not spend much time looking at the stuff inside that house to reuse. At least not in a personal way. A cup used to scoop out dog food or chicken scratch maybe, but I don't think I would ever drink out of any of them. Good luck with the clean up and rebuild, and I pray you be blessed with your endeavors. I do love the Arkansas mountains.
Yes, I should be extra careful keeping stuff like that. Glass can be sanitized easy enough, but other than that, good idea to use as a feed scoop or something, I didn't think of that. Thank you for the input and encouragement. Growing up and spending most of my life among the corn and soybean fields of Illinois, those mountains are just awesome for me.
I know how you feel. I grew up outside of Houston for 31 years and have lived the last 8 here in the mountains of Idaho. Truly a blessing. I pray you do well there in the Ozarks.
Let's just say the guy who lived there wasn't a minimalist, lol! And I literally laughed out loud when I read this part: "They did leave me some food, that was nice. (sarcasm)". Great post. Loved the photo tour.
On 2nd thought, I think the guy just converted to minimalism and left me everything that wasn't necessary.
Haha, good point!
Hahahahahaha - nice! :D
No he was not, lol. Thank you.
dude, this is amazing, can't wait to see it get in shape. Let's sure hope you keep Steemin' towards this goal! Cheers
Thank you. I'm in no hurry and everything doesn't have to be done in a day, or even in a year.
lol - my thinking exactly.
The skies look nice, chemtrail free area?
I don't know, haven't spent enough time there yet to notice.
Thanks, I'm pretty pissed, pardon the language, was trying to find a way out...
you;ll have your work cut out for ya for sure - good luck!! :)
Yes I do, thank you for the well wishes.
looking forward to your progress! check out my blog if you're into hydroponics - could help with your new adventure ;)
I'm following. I dabbled with hydroponics, and coco coir, a little when I lived in California. It might be something for me someday. Thanks for the suggestion.
Land, roof and paid for. Sounds like a good start!
Agree 100%. Owning land debt free. A dream for most.
:) You're not wrong. It certainly is.
Good luck on the clean up. Be careful.
Will do, thanks for the support!