Houses with lots of land
Lucid
Posts: 387
Hi everyone,
I live in the South of England (near the coast) - one of the most expensive places for property. Me and my partner have a dream of being able to buy land one day to build our own house with plenty of land around for growing food etc - maybe even keeping some animals. But realistically it seems that this could be very expensive to buy the land in the first place and not something we could ever achieve while remaining in the South - or possibly anywhere else. Secondary to that we'd love to buy a house that is isolated from lots of other houses with enough land for growing food and a nice garden space. Again though this seems like an impossible dream as if you're lucky to find anywhere like that in this area it is a very high price and not very common.
I know there are some users on here who have quite large spaces of land attached to their houses and I guess I'm really wondering if there are any tips for finding those kind of properties? I know some will have been purchased before the housing boom caused prices to increase so much, but I'm keen to find out what methods people went to or considered for finding their house with lots of land? Did you completely relocate or take on a house that needed a complete overhaul etc? We wouldn't be planning on a massive house but we would like land.
Although it is both of our dreams my partner wants nothing more from a house than to be isolated from neighbours and surrounded with land and trees and nature etc. He does have a well paid job compared to average but I'm afraid I let things down as I'm a self employed musician so we would never afford a highly expensive place.
I'd just be interested in hearing from anyone who doesn't mind sharing in case there's options we haven't thought of.
Lucid 
Posts
When I was younger we had a 9 acre smallholding in Suffolk - it was an old mill house with mill buildings and three meadows (formerly orchards). The house needed a lot of renovation and the buildings were in an even worse condition, but my then OH was a builder so things got done on our place when his work was slack. We found it because we already lived in the area and knew the owners who were selling up.
Nowadays places like that in Suffolk fetch a lot of money because improved rail links mean that people are prepared to commute from Suffolk to work in London.
To find cheaper places with land you need to look at areas where property is cheaper - I think prices in Wales are low compared to other places - then tell the local estate agents exactly what you're looking for - they'll send you the information.
Places like that are often sold by auction, so you need to have sorted out your finances and know exactly how much you can borrow and what conditions the mortgage provider will impose if you're buying a place that needs renovation.
Good luck
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Brexit may well scupper that sort of adventure
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thanks darren636, I should have added we're trying not to move away too far from families etc. I know someone from Norway who sounds like they had a lovely place to grow up - on a farm with land and the forest around them.
It's funny because in the area we're in (town but not too far from the sea) we're considered to have a large garden, especially considering we're an end of terrace. On the forum settings though my garden size is considered small out of the 3 options!
We've not quite got the space for lots of food production though - unless we forfeited the other beds, but our priority for now was making a garden for wildlife.
I know it will probably be a case that we have to admit defeat unless we did make a drastic change to where we live, but I was just curious to see if anyone else achieved such a thing over the last few years when house prices have remained high.
Lucid
I occasionally fantasise about having a property in the Pyrenees, and here's what I do.
Use Google Earth to find potential areas, then use Rightmove to find properties in those areas and if I like the look of them use Google Earth to have a virtual drive round.
It's a good starting point.
Kent may offer possibilities - and it is The Garden of England after all!
Best of luck
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Thanks Dovefromabove - that smallholding sounds amazing. I just found an old farmhouse in Ireland with 8 acres that wasn't too much - in fact possibly the same as our current house is worth - but the house is very rundown. I was only looking our of curiosity as it is the same area my nan grew up in. 8 acres would be far too much for us to manage - although I could imagine you could do all sorts of good for wildlife with that kind of land. I guess we'd be looking at between 1 and 2 acres - obviously a bit more if we were seriously considering animals.
I guess it's the balance of do we want it enough to move away from our families. We've already lived away once and got fed up with not seeing them so much. I know we're seeing this for now as very much a retirement plan so perhaps we'll feel differently then about how close we are to everyone. If we could do it before I would love to though as it'd be great to be able to do all the hard work now and then enjoy it more in retirement.
Thanks for the tip on the auctions Dovefromabove, I hadn't thought of that. For some reason I thought property auctions were reserved for repossessed houses.
Lucid
2 acres here. They came with a leaking wooden shack, non-working drains and septic tank, jungle of nettles and blackthorn suckers, rats and mice in the roof, bees with honeycomb in the dormers and years of dumped rubbish.. House sorted, 2 acre garden is never sorted, things grow.
I hope we can continue till we go out in a box but it gets harder as time goes by.
***p broadband as mentioned in another thread
Go for it
In the sticks near Peterborough
If you want to build your own place, look for semi-isolated rural properties with totally derelict house/bungalow on them. The sort of place where you'd never normally get planning permission, but if there is the remains of a house there then you should normally get planning permission to build on its 'footprint',
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
We bought our 2nd house with an acre and a half of land in 1987 for £18000
Those were the days ......... We found it in a local paper advertised by estate agents - a repossession ......
Pete8 - I have a habit of doing that too ....... only in Tuscany ...... even got as far as ringing an agent once ......
I have a lot of land but I live in SW France, 64 acres, but most of that is scrubby woodland. Bought the house in a run down state, uninhabited for 6 years, for £140,00 in 1985. Did a lot of work on it and I made the garden. But I didn't want to live in France! My first, late, husband's idea.
Houses and land in France are still a lot cheaper than in England. My daughter is buying a house with 5 bedrooms and over an acre in SW France for about £170,000. But the agent and the notaire (solicitor) are quite expensive.
But I don't suppose that is much help if you want to be in England.