Things to Consider when Evaluating a Property Part 2:
Axis, Excess , or Access?
- Axis?
- Excess?
or
- Access?
You guessed it!
Access!
I will be continuing the series I started with Things to Consider when Evaluating a Property Part 1: The Background Story in this post.
Mucky Mountain, our not so affectionately called first piece of land in the Ozarks of Arkansas, was a raw piece of land. It sat on top of a hill with and easement through the eastern fence line to access it.
That means:
There were no roads to get to this land!
No gravel road, no logging trail, not even a deer trail! There literally was no access.
That didn't deter me, however. After all, I knew how to chop down trees with my chainsaw and scrape dirt with my skid-steer.
I could put a dirt road in with just a little sweat equity!
And I did.
I came down several times over the next 8 months to work on making a road to the entrance of our land.
I chopped down trees, ripped out stumps and grabbed dirt to build up over some pretty large rock shelves.
By Thanksgiving of that year, I was able to drive my Suburban through the easement and onto a landing spot at the southeast corner of our land. I did this with my family in tow. Oh, the excitement of progress on the new Homestead!
It felt so good accomplishing this feet!
We had done it!
Little did I know that a dry dirt trail in the fall...
Does not in the spring an accessible road make...
I came to find out a couple of hard lessons.
When you remove trees and disturb the soil, it makes that soil really loose.
Never put a path where natural springs pop up! It tends to make things a bit, um, MUCKY!
I underestimated the need for a dry and solid surface to access my property. I hadn't yet heard the tip that Access is one of the three major factors to consider when evaluating a potential property to homestead on.
I made a path, but I came to find out that a true road would cost me over $10,000.00 to have properly graded, sloped and rocked. This news came from several contractors and it made the "steal of a deal" that we thought we had in buying Mucky Mountain not such a steal after all.
There are 2 more factors to consider when evaluating land. I will chronicle how I discovered what they were the hard way in upcoming posts.
Stay tuned for the Rest of the Story!
Thanks for Reading!
We learned from others before us and thank God we listened to the lessons. It saved us thousands of dollars. Not that we didn't make some whooper mistakes all one our own. And yes we have been stuck to the axle and have had to get a boat to get off the property!
So, one SBD in about 10 years. ;)
Perspective. There was no Steemit at the time.
I can sympathize to the axle!
Oh nooooo......
Wow that is terrible!
Can't wait to find out how you resolve this issue!
Well as my father in law says "you bought some experience". It looks sweet though. I saw your suburban axle deep and nearly peed. I can't wait to see more!
why build a road?
I wonder why they call it Mucky Mountain?
I guess you found out the hard way.
Don’t feel bad, you are not alone. Have mad my fair share of fumbles trying to fix things only to make it worse. Just keep on keepin on. 🐓🐓
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