So I may have found my first motivated seller today. We got to talking, and she inherited the house she grew up in. She currently is renting it out, but HATES being a landlord. She’d love to sell the house, but her brother is involved and doesn’t want to sell. That’s another matter, and I believe it’s something I can work through.
The issue I see for the immediate future is that the house is in the middle of a farm. I haven’t seen the house yet, so I don’t know exactly how “in the middle” it is, but my question is, to sell just the house, not the entire farm, we’d have to basically sub-divide and create a “lot” on which the house sits, and then I’d purchase that lot and house. Correct?
So, what would be involved in that process? If I can convince both parties to sell, what would be my first step, and how much am I looking at it costing?
First the farm currently exists as a whole entity, farm house, barns, chicken coops, pig pens, cows, horses and crops.
Your post was specific to the farm house however the farm is much more valuable as a whole rather than two parts as without the farm house the balance is only land and out buildings. You will have zoning issues, right of way issues, easement issues and environmental issues?
Then your potentially going to have water and sewer issues along with other utilities as this property may have a well currently used to provide water to the house and to provide water for farm animals, then more than likely (Depends on farm age) the sewer system is provided by a septic tank and leach field which may be shared by the house and barn bathrooms / out building bathrooms so what would happen to separate shared utilities?
Then if the farm were to operate separately then how do you separate and provide power, gas, cable and phone service to both operations. If someone bought the farm house is the farm prevented from making noise or going to work before 8:00 AM to comply to a noise ordinance?
All of these things would have to be worked out and paid for by the current owners and could cost in excess of $100k dollars by the time you apply for and get zoning approvals, easement and right of way problems and subdivide engineered and worked out then separate all the utilities and create a legal home surrounded by a farm operation.
It is likely the farm is not currently zoned residential but zoned as rural / agricultural land with a grandfathered home!
Getting a house from a farmer is going to be extremely difficult. Most farmers want more property. I have seen many good old farm houses fit for a rehab simply get torn down because the farmer was sick of being asked to sell or rent. Keep looking!
I’ve got a little rental house on a farm. I want the ground, not the house. I need to plant more trees so people can’t see the house from the road anymore.
If the brother doesn’t want to sell the house what more about the whole farm? That would really take a lot of your efforts to convince the brother to agree with the sister.
