Building Your Home on Land in Southern Oregon

Full Video Transcript Below

Alice's Analysis - Creating Your Country Paradise! 3 Things To Consider Before Buying or Building

Well, good afternoon, Southern Oregon, Alice Lema here, broker John L. Scott, with another episode of our podcast. And today we're talking about building your country paradise on raw land. So this is super fun to talk about because it happens a lot in Southern Oregon.

[00:00:26] We're surrounded by just acres and acres of rural residential farm land, forest and people do often come here to live in that, in that environment. And I just want to name three things to keep in mind if you're going to do this.

[00:00:43] Okay. So the first thing is try to find a lot that already has a well and a septic on it, even if they're a little not perfect, at least they're there.

[00:00:54] And that also means that there was a home site approval. Now each one of these things is a podcast unto itself, but if you just write down you want a well and a septic. Because then there's a home site. The home site means that the county at one point said, yes, you can have a dwelling there. And they show that by giving it a street address.

[00:01:17] So when you see zero street name or you see TL tax law, that means there's no home site approval. It's going to be a much longer process. And that's okay. As long as you're going in eyes open. It's also okay. If you buy something without a septic or a well, but you need a budget for that.

[00:01:33] And you also need a budget for the possibility of having to do it more than once in case you like, especially with the water, if it doesn't work the first time, or if it's not deep enough or it doesn't taste the way you eat, it's just plant. So again, I always look for an existing, well, first. Septic is great, but septics are less complicated to put in especially if it's not near the water, like the river or something like that.

[00:02:00] So number one, try to find a lot that already has a street address, which means it has a home approval or it did and has a well and a septic. That's my first choice.

[00:02:11] Secondly, I want to talk about different kinds of construction because I get a lot of phone calls. People want to move here and they say, I want to build a log cabin. I want to build a geodesic dome. I want a straw bale. I want off-grid. And it's like, that's fine. But let me tell you, what's going to be like when somebody has to deal with that asset later and it might be you, you might have to sell this.

[00:02:32] Those are really hard to finance in the open market with regular mortgage people. So if you go to sell it and your buyers cannot get regular financing, then it brings your resell price way, way down, because then you have to sell it to a cash buyer.

[00:02:46] So just go in eyes open and understand that log cabins or even log houses, I shouldn't say cabins, but even cause I've seen some absolutely beautiful, huge 3000 square feet log, log houses. And you know, maybe we couldn't get financing on them. And then the same with the geodesic domes and the off grid, which means you, you don't have electricity, you know, wired in. You don't have, you know, all that stuff that makes a house, a house. But, off-grid would be your own water, system with no electricity. So it'd be out of a spring or something like that.

[00:03:26] And those are not financeable easily either. And then there's also insurance questions. So if you have a straw bale house you want to check, or you want to build that you want to check with your insurance company and the mainstream mortgage lenders, just to find out what they're going to think about all that before you, you know, spend all that money, creating that. So you, again, eyes open.

[00:03:49] And then lastly, I want to talk about manufactured housing because double wides and triple wides are, are super great. And there's a lot of them in Southern Oregon. They're, they're just beautiful.

[00:04:00] They're easy to keep clean, but here's what you want to do. You want to make sure it's a newer one. So, you usually buy them right off the lot. That's best because if you buy one, that's been moved before. Like you buy out of a park or from another person and move it, that's hard to finance too.

[00:04:18] Now we do have two lenders in Southern Oregon that will finance what's called move twice. So it's not the kiss of death, but again, you want to go out on the open mortgage market at the time you're thinking of doing this and just make sure that that's the case.

[00:04:33] But I just want to make a pitch on behalf of manufactured housing, because it really is great. And it can be the difference of having that, that beautiful five acres or not, because sometimes we just either don't have the money to do a stick built, or we don't want to spend our money that way.

[00:04:48] You know, it, it causes us to be financially vulnerable to spend that much money or to have that big of a payment. So I just want to say that manufacturing housing is cool. I've lived in them. I love them. I don't live in one now, but I would, again, If I had the opportunity and, just want to you know, have people consider that because your appreciation still happens.

[00:05:09] In Southern Oregon at least we still have properties go up in value with a double-wide, a triple wide. They usually have shops and garages and see that's the other thing you could get a really nice triple wide and then still afford the shop. And you know how we like our shops here in Southern Oregon.

[00:05:27] So those are the three things I just wanted to mention about creating your own country paradise here in Southern Oregon.

[00:05:33] Okay. So this is Alice Lema broker John L. Scott. Give me a, like, give me a comment. Let me know how these podcasts are landing sharing with a friend they're educational. We want to get the word out so that people can be good consumers.

[00:05:47] And then if you want to talk about your specific situation, especially if you want to sell something right now, because even though the, the market is slowly changing. We're getting a few more listings every week. We still have a long list of buyers who are just really, really, really hankering to get a place.

[00:06:03] So let me know if you want to sell, give me a call. If you need some advice. My number is (541) 301-7980 that's (541) 301-7980.

[00:06:16] Have a beautiful week. Folks, talk to you again next week. Bye now.