Big Changes 2020...Hunt for Home!

 You can read Part 1 and Part 2 of our Big Changes 2020 posts in those links!

It's really strange moving to an entirely different area. It was fun driving into our development...Suburb? I think they call it a "Deed Restricted Community" but it takes 30 minutes to drive across whatever this thing is, neighborhoods are different down here! I remember thinking, "This will all be familiar to me in a few weeks but right now I have no idea where I am or how to get anywhere, how strange!"

You have to use navigation to find your way to the grocery store. You don't know how roads connect or if there's a shorter route. You have no idea what direction your headed in relation to the nearest city or what the name of the highways are. Thanks to my hours and hours scouring Zillow and Trulia for a rental and housing options had gotten me fairly familiar with the different areas of the county. The search was on again for a place to settle. I don't want to give too much information about where we've landed on here but I will say it was just the general feel of the area that got us here. All of Ryan's family is in the Orlando area of Florida, we have some friends in Central Florida and I have some family in the Tampa area but none of those areas appealed. We came to this area and we just knew it was home. It's hilly (for Florida) there are pine forests everywhere and it's just gorgeous, it was very different from our palm tree, scrubby and flat Florida experiences of the past, it felt like home. The counties down here are quite big, it can take over an hour to drive across them and while we knew we wanted to be in this county, we didn't know where. 

 

Our dream list was at least 2 acres of land but Ryan really wanted trails to wander so upwards of 9 would be preferred. We were really hoping for water access (knowing that we could get water for the Berkey water filter something was wrong with the well was of interest). We wanted to be near the forest but have some open area for any animals we kept. We needed to have at least 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and the property couldn't be too far down a dirt road (we have a minivan and a small car and no desire to upgrade). That's a tall list. 

Once we were settled we started driving around to places listed that might work, most were miles down dirt roads! Some were obvious flood risks, others were too far from any family (we really wanted to be within  2 hours of Ryan's folks). I had come across this listing so many times since February. It's nestled in a vast forest near several large lakes but the top view shown on the listing was this bizarre property line.

3 acres with access to a 14 acre lake...but look at the odd shape!

 

I couldn't make heads or tails of the strange lot and it just didn't seem like it would work, it was only 3 acres and it says that it has an electrical easement on the border of the property, if there are giant power lines, no thanks!

But we drove out to see it. We walked the property lines and thought, this is odd. But the more we walked it the more we loved it. The power lines are very small (just a line and a telephone line) and the property is surrounded by national forest and the power just runs to the few properties near by, really the easement is only on a very small corner part of the property. It is on a dirt road but the driveway is only .2 miles down the road.

We went back to visit again the next day. We liked it even more! It has an area down by the lake, an open area for animals to graze, a foresty area and a HUGE (hundreds of acres) of pine forest across the dirt road. As we were leaving a little 2 door coup came puttering down the dirt road! The neighbor down the way (a retired couple) said that they've lived there for years and have had no problems with the road...a neighbor further back has a tractor and he levels and rakes the road every few months to keep it nice and smooth. 

We went back the next day with Ryan's parents and had them take a look. The neighbor (with the pool you can see pictured, they are actually the sellers) was outside and we chatted with her. They are retired and had 5 kids (she loved seeing that we had 5 kids too), the property has been in his family for over 50 years and our lot was the original site of the cabin (which burnt down some years ago) that his family kept there for when this was their hunting and fishing land. They were originally from up north and would come down for family trips when he as growing up. The little lake is spring fed, has small gators that usually stay to the other side of the lake, it has bass and cat fish and they enjoy taking a row boat out and fishing in all their years they've never had a problem with alligators or snakes.

The property is situated out in what looks like the middle of nowhere but it's 5 minutes from a little shopping center and only 25 minutes from downtown! And it's only an hour from the beach and an hour from Ryan's family! His parents were extremely impressed with the entire property.

We put in an offer the next day. 

The public forest bordering the property goes on for a few miles and ends in a series of large lakes

 

The little lake next to the property, it's lower in these pictures though we've gotten quite a bit of rain since then.

More forest

More lake views

Our offer was accepted and after 2 months of hoops and paperwork we sign closing papers next week!

Now for the house! We looked into so many housing options for this property, we priced out what we could afford, what we were willing to invest and what would actually work for our family. We are a one income family, we work and school from home. We looked into stick built homes and were unhappy with our options. The companies were not well reviewed and had issues with BBB. We looked into modular homes while they were better reviewed and we trusted the building process more, the savings was only a few thousand dollars and we simply could not get the amount of house we needed. We found a manufactured housing company that we researched thoroughly (rave reviews online and from every company we've talked to that works with them, no listings with BBB)and we decided that it was our best option.
There's a stigma with "living in a trailer" b the more we researched the more we realized that manufactured housing ahs come a long way in the last few decades. The model we found and the company that builds it seems amazing. You'd never know it wasn't stick built. We've decided to upgrade  the roof to reflective aluminum, raise the ceiling height 2 feet and upgraded the insulation to the highest density possible. We'll eventually add some really nice permanent brick skirting for the house. It's a 5 bedroom 3 bath house with two living spaces and enough space for us to continue to grow (not planning on more kids but I mean physically, these kids take up space!). It's not exactly what we planned but it seems like the most solid investment. We really don't want (nor can we afford) a half a million dollar mortgage. Our main focus is having a house that fits us and that we can start a little mini farm moving forward, come what may. We hope to put a great big deep front porch on the front of the ranch style home and focus on making it a welcoming place to visit. We'll have a guest bedroom/home office and an extra bathroom to accommodate visitors. We're really excited!

The Future!

I hope to kind of sit down and plan things out a little. I hope to create a food forest, we want to get chickens and maybe ducks and goats. Lots more blogging as a I learn and figure all that out over the next few months!

It's definitely going to be very different from the city life we enjoyed before...To the forest and life by a Florida lake (gators, snakes and all) to new adventures!

What our old walks looked like.