Living in the country

I can't speak for myself but my folks moved to our lakehouse (on 6 acres) full time about 4 years ago. My wife and I have been a big part of helping them with the house and land for the last few years. The nearest town is about 20 miles and nearest "big" city is about 60 miles.

Once I have a little more time today I'll go through some of the stuff they and we have done to make life easier and fun down there for them. Lack of dependable utilities, water storage, gardening, wildlife, working/ commuting, all that fun stuff.

In the mean time here are some pictures:

Mom and Dad's retirement home...


The Original Cabin the Siblings and I share.. (Mom and Dad built it 24 years ago)

I don't have much light to shed on the modular houses first hand but I grew up in the cabin pictured during the summers and was there almost every weekend for the construction of the new one.

Wildlife: This will obviously depend on location and how far out you get but in the last quarter century we have had every manner of critter, bug, and thing living: around, under, and sometimes IN both houses. The log cabin was at a disadvantage from the start on keeping critters out but the stone house isn't exempt. You basically can't leave anything a varmint might want to eat uncovered. Even covered, they still seem to find a way in. Mom also can't keep any flowers around the house because the deer eat them right away. On the other hand, the love to have a heard of 15-20 whitetail eating at the feeder during breakfast. Makes for pretty good scenery with your coffee. On both houses we do tons of varmint prevention. Sealing every knook and cranny, traps, deterents, you name it. It keeps them to a minimum but I still get a dead mouse or mouse poo in the cabin very so often.

Plumbing:   Of course this part will be location and house specific but their house is in somewhat of a neighborhood and I use that term very loosely. About the only thing neighborhood about it is most of the homes and mini ranches share a large well and holding tank. It's old and doesn't have the greatest maintance so they have a tendency to loose all water pressure. I'm saving up to split a personal well with pops in the the next year or two. Since we are in centralish Texas it takes an act of god to get a hole deeper than 2 feet.

Plumbing on the house itself can be a whole nutha adventure depending on the construction of the house. Every 2-3 years I have to crawl under the cabin and replace my homemade pipe insulation. We've only had one pipe freeze/ burst in the last 2+ decades and got lucky that we were there when it happened. It doesn't get super cold down there but it's something to think about especially if you are well north of the Texas/OK border. And getting a plumber out to the country can be an adventure in itself. You generally can't get someone there in 24 hours and most of the time they aren't the kind of folk you really want in your house anyway.

Water Storage: We have water storage tanks on both houses. Each downspout on the stone house has a decorative 55 gal drum that helps immensely with keeping the yard alive in the summer. The cabin has two 375 gal water cubes that are hidden behind the deck. We use these for the veggie gardens and in case of emergency. In the last few years of drought these have been life and pocket book savers.


I'll get into commuting, electricity, and more stuff in a bit.

*mtrbtr* wrote: How far out in the country? I grew up 12 miles from the nearest paved road and 40 miles from the nearest town, population 3000. Some thoughts. Get a Costco card. Make sure you have lots of gas in your budget. Enjoy those quiet evenings!

We're talking about 20 miles outside of OKC. The area we prefer is a town of about 2000 with similar sized towns around a 20 mile radius. It would be what I would consider semi-rural and we'd have to go into OKC or surrounding cities for most major shopping, etc.

Well water taste? smell? how deep is the well?
will your gen set power the well?

Is the electricity reliable?

Septic system age ? how deep is the tank in the ground? drain field? gray water discharge?

Flood zone? soil? is the ground level? mowing grass? trees? types? surface roots?

That probably depends a lot on one's perspective. For someone that has lived mostly cities and suburbs, it feels like country to me. ;-)

Okie Boarder wrote: That probably depends a lot on one's perspective. For someone that has lived mostly cities and suburbs, it feels like country to me. ;-)

Agreed. The suburban sprawl on the north side of Atlanta is nuts, here on the south side civilization ends about 30 miles from the city. It just sounded like you were packing it up for Alaska or something. ..

Not sure I'd wanna live in a mobile home there in tornado alley.

Here's a video I found the other day with a multi-section modular showing a lot of the construction and installation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXUd-yUy0S0

Some of them, like the one we are looking at, can resemble mobile/trailer homes in that they are rectangular. But, modular seems to be built like the older homes through the early 1900's with floor joists and set above ground with a crawl space. It seems the common foundation design is kind of like a stem wall to support the various sections, that the home is strapped down to. That should fare about as well as standard on-site construction in a tornado. That being said, I prefer having a storm shelter, regardless of house style, especially being out more rural.

That's a lot nicer than what people typically think of when they think modular.

I'm sure you'd never regret having a full basement (a cellar as we say in Boston, we pronounce it cell-ah). It gives you a nice place for your heating, hot water etc. As well as a good place to store stuff. You hardly have a see a house without one around here. Of course, the upfront additional cost is more.

modular/mobile is still a category on the MLS, and the value is considerably less for those homes classified as such, especially if it looks like a mobile.   Mean house values for our area are in the 300k range, you can get a mobile/modular for less than 1/3 of that, but even in a bad neighborhood, you'd be really hard pressed to find a stick built house for under 120 that wasn't a complete teardown. Older/abused mobiles appear on craigslist from time to time here with a free sign on them, you just have pony up to have them moved. Having a real foundation helps, but there is still a perception of mobile/modular construction/quality, much like Brian was saying, that keeps the values from increasing in the same way a stick built home would.   

It may be the answer for Okie and his Family, I just would hate for him to go into the deal with his eyes closed.   Perception may be different in Oklahoma as well, different parts of this country operate very differently.

Does OK have a real estate law where the real estate agent has to state whether they represent the buyer or seller, or do all agents have to represent the seller? If they have to state who they represent, you should find a good buyer broker. Mobile and modular are not the same thing and you should know the difference before you buy. If you can't find a good agent that will represent you, find a good real estate appraiser.

It's fairly well documented drug abuse is a bigger problem in rural areas compared to urban development. Don't take it personal.

I was raised in the country... moved to town when we got married in 75 (it was only supposed to be for a few years-turned out to be 15... hated it!)

Moved back out in 1990. We have just under 3 acres. If I had my way I would stay there 24/7...except to go boating.

That didn't sound like your point and if it was there was no reason to call what 74wind said "ridiculous". Say you're sorry.

Steve-No you were raised in the what we called the sticks. That is defined by how much gas it took in your 396 Chevelle to make a Mc Donald's run. 2+ gallons = sticks,under 2 = country. Bike or walking distance who you kidding you weren't cruising McDonalds anyway

Exactly my point then---you had no Mc Donald's