Tag Archives: rural living

Rural Relations with Josh: Lessons Learned, Part III – Is Rural Living Right For You?

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When considering the purchase of a rural home it’s important to look at how much it will change your life. It’s convenient living in, or near, the city where stores, jobs, and services are nearby. There is also internet access and utilities that may not be available in a more rural area. Unless you have a steady income from retirement, or disability, or you’re independently wealthy, you need to have gainful employment. If you can handle these possible down-sides, living in a rural environment has a lot of up-sides that, I believe, more than make up for the negatives. It’s great to see wild life, enjoy the silence, and have room to raise animals and plants for personal and/or financial gain.

One of the challenges of moving to a rural area is commuting to the city for work, or finding a way to transfer a career to a more rural area. Other options include telecommuting or home-based jobs that provide the needed flexibility. I have an occupation which allows me to work from home 95% of the time. One of the greatest challenges that I have faced is finding good internet service. I rely on high-speed internet for work to join conference/video calls, solve customer problems, and generally enjoy the benefits the internet has to offer. Other challenges include commute time, gas expenses, and shopping availability. Since we often have to travel a lot further to shop we have to plan accordingly and stock-up.

Shortly after moving into our new house, about 30 miles from Seattle, I called around trying to find high-speed internet service. I was dismayed to discover that the options were limited to satellite, mobile hot spot, or a land line. I tried both satellite and a mobile hot spot with mixed results. Satellite internet provided sufficient bandwidth but with high latency it felt pretty sluggish. The mobile hot spot worked, most of the time, and was fast enough, most of the time, and had low latency, most of the time. In my line of work, quality/reliable high-speed internet is a requirement. I ended up signing up for a $435/month T1 connection that would provide 1.5Mb with unlimited usage each month. This type of connection is extremely low latency and no shared bandwidth which provides a consistent connection at a very high cost (relative to consumer prices). I remain shocked that living this close to Seattle I struggle to find quality affordable high-speed internet.

Another problem I face is commuting to various locations around the greater Seattle area. Even though downtown Seattle is only 40 miles away, it takes me up to an hour and a half to get there. Any time I have to drive to a job it’s a road trip. I pressure all of my clients to let me work remotely and work harder because of it. Working from home has saved me around $400/month in gas expenses.

Living this way also encourages personal preparation and self-reliance as help/resources are much further away, the power typically goes out more often, you are more likely to get snowed in, or have a tree fall across the driveway, law enforcement/EMS takes longer to respond, etc., etc.. But in the end, living in a more rural area is well worth it to our family. Raising our kids in an area where they can run out and play in the woods and explore and adventure is a big deal, that’s how I grew up.

 

Rural Relations with Josh: Lessons Learned, An Introduction

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(Josh is our newest regular Guest Contributor and will be posting, Rural Relations with Josh, the first Wednesday of every month.)

Three years ago, this December, I stumbled across a real estate listing on Craigslist; it described a heavily treed 5-acre lot with a distressed rambler, built in ’88, in need of a new owner at a fantastic price. The current family had taken out a second mortgage and was in the foreclosure process with a trustee sale a mere three days away. A quick call to the listing agent and we had an appointment the following day to view the house.

Our first impression of the property was of a cosmetic fixer, on a dead-end road, two foot tall field grass in the yard, various junk strewn in and around the house, and tree branches behind the house attempting to reach inside as nature made a valiant attempt to overtake this small piece of civilization before humans could reign it in. Trees had fallen all over the property during snow and wind storms, blocking all trails and access except by foot beyond the driveway. The list of tasks to make it livable was relatively short as the structure and foundation were solid: remove and replace all flooring and trim, repaint floors, ceilings, and walls, and replace a few doors. Except for those projects, this place had some serious potential and was perfect for a young family with three kids and a dog.

Beyond the first impression there were two issues to consider, 1) the neighborhood is controlled by an HOA (home owners association), and 2) there is an easement through the south end of the property to a single home at the end of the road. After careful review and talking with the HOA president and a few neighbors, it was determined (and repeatedly stated) that the only reason for the HOA was to maintain the two miles of asphalt road that wound through the development. (The fee for this maintenance was $45 a month, for each property.) Review of the HOA documents revealed that excessive control was possible, although nothing else appeared to be enforced or in place. The easement, we decided, was something we could work with and would not be an issue.

Outside those two issues the home and property were great for a prepper! It is one mile from the nearest county road, six miles from the nearest small town, and 20 miles from the nearest mid-size city. It is heavily treed with wood heat; and there is a 160 acre wood lot to the north and a few acres of nature preserve on the east boundary. The only downside is there is no pasture or cleared land other than the yard and house area.

Six months later, through the trustee sale deferral and short sale process, we were first time home and property owners on an adventure with no idea how much we were going to learn.

Please join me in this multi-part series as I write about lessons we’ve learned from our first “homestead” property purchase; lessons that we will apply when we buy our next one.

Josh’s Bio:
Josh is a small business owner, in the greater Seattle area, focused on implementing open source software solutions (think Linux).  He grew up in Eastern Washington living several different places with a mother who moved around quite a bit. At 19 years old, Josh joined the Navy; he spent four years on a fast attack submarine stationed at Pearl Harbor, with visits across the Pacific Ocean. He now lives with his wife and three young kids in a rural development, where they have a garden, two dogs and 12 chickens.

(Friday: What We Did This Week To Prep)