Acreage - what would you worry about?

[Brent.ff]

We're looking at a BIG maybe at looking at an acreage move... however, zero actual life experience with acreages other then friends growing up. Would have an existing house on it.

Assuming these are the things i would need to worry about in the initial stages before an actual inspection

- Water. Well or otherwise
- septic?


What else would someone be on the lookout for in an initial viewing as a huge red-flag?

[bjstare]

Those are the biggest ones. You have to be a little more considerate of maintenance and upkeep costs, depending on the age of a house. A "normal" size acreage house (at least where we were looking) was ~2x the size of a "normal" house in the city. So e.g., if the windows are nearing end of life, it can easily be a $100k+ bill to replace them since there's twice as many, and a higher likelihood they are oddball sizes/configurations.

Also, budget for a nice lawn tractor.

[firebane]

Look at possible restrictions in the county you are interested in for things building and land restrictions and animal restrictions as well.

Some countys are pretty strict about stuff.

[killramos]

Don’t buy somewhere likely to be annexed in the next 10 years or you end up with worst of both worlds ( inconvenience and taxes ).

I feel like most of elbow valley and springbank are in for a world of hurt in that regard one day

Plowing and mowing can be a bitch. Buy a cool toy to help.

[Brent.ff]

ya this is 5-10 min north of cochrane. figure internet is also probably a question.

[killramos]

Starlink fixes that so a lot less of an issue than it used to be.

North of Cochrane you have legacy O&G development, I’d scope out nearby wells as they can be annoying to have too close.

My wife has a cousin who lives around there and really likes it.

[firebane]

Don't forget about garbage as well. Some companies you can rent a bin. Others take a run to the dump. Others burn it.

[tirebob]

So many variables that depend on the situation... Are you talking a rural acreage? Neighbourhood type acreage? Developed or undeveloped? Is it a wooded acreage or more of a pasture/giant lawn? Is the access good, ie does it have county maintained roads or do you have 1000 feet of driveway to plow? Hilly? Flat? On water? The list goes on...

Break it down and it is a lot easier to address specific areas of concern...

[ExtraSlow]

Buy it and yolo

[mr2mike]

Budget for 5x the gasoline purchases especially if your kids are in activities and sports.

Your weekends are spent doing yard work for a lot of the spring.
A lot of $ getting setup for tools etc.

[birdman86]

Buy a good commercial mower with a 5-6' deck if its a large yard. Front mount if you need to get under trees. The dinky little John Deere from HD is trash. I paid $7K for a used Toro Z-Master Pro from the county auction and it crushes my yard in no time. Commercial units will run forever if you take care of them. Pay attention to fuel type, diesel are more powerful units but then you need to have diesel on hand in addition to the gas for your quad or SXS or whatever.

Quad or SXS mounted yard sprayer. Weeds will manifest out of thin air. Driveway will have weeds everywhere that the tires don't rub every day.

Look at the irrigation setup. Dealing with an inefficient pump setup is a HUGE pain in the ass (low GPM or low pressure, or unreliable/undersized pump). What is the water source? Do you have a riser with positive head pressure that just needs a little booster pump? Or do you have to lift from a dugout or well? Does he use a gas powered pump that'll need topping up every couple hours or is there a decent electric pump? Is the pump big enough? A 3 hp electric can easily be $2-3k.

Rent a dumpster.

If you're really motivated maybe buy a 500 gal gas tank for the yard equipment. Ideally you get everything on one fuel so you only need one tank, but if you have gas and diesel both..tanks aren't cheap. Get one of Max Boosts UFA cards and get them to fill your yard tank.

Crackheads suck so be smart about where you put the fuel tank, or come up with a way to lock it out. You'll probably be fine just somewhere you can see from the house and or out of sight from the road.

[ZenOps]

If its an open field, rake up all the rocks first and put it in a pile. Then you can use for any path or foundation you want. Will also encourage better growth of anything you plant.

[Darkane]

Prepare to pay $10,000 in residential insurance.

[2Legit2Quit]

Depending on the seller they might offer a well report or the well ID on request so it can check the flow rate. Depending on how old the property is anyway.

Is there already a water softener or additional filtration setup? Depending on your lender they will/may ask for a water test, just for bacteria so it's a bit of a w/e point. But Berta has hard water so if there's not already any kind of setup then that will most likely be an investment.

Septic is pretty straight forward, where's the tank, where's the septic field, when was it last sucked out, what's the tank made out of. You can definitely pay someone to come out and inspect the tank, camera goes in to take a look, can pull the pump and check electrical.

Home insurance as noted will be more, prepare to have any insurer complain about how far away the nearest fire hall is and charge you something stupid.

Starlink for internet is great, check in their site if the address doesn't have a wait list. It's $147 a month so about triple what you may pay Shaw.

Is it a fakerage where the property is in a cluster of parcels or is it gravel road you're down a lane? Ask about snow removal during winter. And yeah having a good mower and something to deal with snow yourself goes a long way.

[ThePenIsMightier]

Wooden. Foundation.
Just say NO.

[gwill]

Having moved to the country a year ago the only real surprise we ran into was the area I moved to had one specific gas provider i have to use. They only use a floating rate and are significantly higher than any other floating rates you'll see. This never came up once with anyone while we were looking at places.

A zero turn lawn mower is a must.
Chickens ducks and goats are great but lots of work.
Star link should alleviate your internet concerns.

Lots of mortgage lenders have all sorts of limitations on acreages. Probably a non issue but might be worth looking into if your porting a mortgage.

[corsvette]

Make absolute certain the septic gets checked over by someone knowledgeable. We had a “home inspector” say ours looked good. Well, it wasn’t. The field was leeched and the entire system needed replacement. Close to $20k all said and done (okanagan prices). As mentioned, yard work will be your new hobby, plowing show in the winter is only fun the first year. Learn that chickens lead to ducks, which leads to turkeys, which lead to goats, and ends at a horse (which is a whole new level of pain in the ass).

But I must say it’s taken my kids into a entire new direction. They love the animals and have taken well to life in the sticks. They no longer have the bad influences they had wandering the neighborhoods in the city. We like it, but almost 4 years in I can also see why people give up their acreages and also why banks have a hard time lending on them without a substantial down.

[birdman86]

^^ That reminded me, mice can be a huge issue in the country, especially if its an older house. I've had them build nests inside my daily driven truck that was parked outside in the driveway.

Having a few barn cats running around fixed that issue, but kids might not appreciate that barn cats have a way of disappearing.

I understand chickens are also great for mouse control.

[Jeeper1986]

I bought an acreage about a year and a half ago, 4 acre with 1800 sqft house with a walk out basement.

Co-op water theres 2 wells feed the acreages around me, I do have a septic tank no issues with it so far, the road is also a bus route so plowing is not an issue at all as they keep it cleared very fast, I got a 2 car attached garage and a fairly nice size drive way which I use a 21 inch snow blower to clean the snow takes me about an hour to do.

I got a small 3 bladed ride along john deer takes me about 4 hrs to cut all the grass from the font and back of the house.

I pay 52.50 a month for garbage and blue bin pick up they come every week and don't charge extra for extra garbage bags

I'm in Rocky view/ Delacour close to sky view ranch. Every thing is also close for stores and gas stations

I have TELUS for internet not the fastest like in the city but it handles x box on line and pc work pretty good

As for gas and electricity take your pick between ADCO or ENMAX

cell service is also not bad depending where I am in the house I'm always around 3 bars

listing the house this week as I'm moving overseas