Buying the land

So far, these blog posts are still historical as I try to get you caught up to where we are now.  They also tend to be long because of how much time I am cramming into each story (this one is the summer of 2009).  Things might get shorter later ;^)

This part of the story goes back to the summer of 2009.  We had decided that it was time to buy some land.  We had some money set aside (plus a loan pre-approval from GreenStone Farmer Credit Services) and were ready to go.  This was where the rubber would meet the road.   We knew (still know) this whole thing was a little bit crazy, but it was time to take a serious step and put some money in the game.

The land requirements for an earth sheltered home design can actually be quite flexible.  They can be built on flat ground or rolling hills, or pretty much anywhere. But you should try to avoid areas where you find either water or solid rock just below the surface.    I have seen cases (on TV) where the owners of a very narrow urban lots were refused permits for above ground homes due to setback restrictions.  By going below ground, they got around (or under) the setbacks and were able to build to the full width of the lots.  Keeping most of the lots as green space was a bonus.

I wanted a passive solar design, so that added a requirement for solar access (clear southern exposure).  We wanted a ranch style home, which requires more land because it is spread out on one level.  Actually, since it would be passive solar ranch, we needed that land to be wide enough in the east-west direction.    I also wanted to try passive earth tubes which require some area as well as some slope (so they could operate passively (buoyancy) and not require fans, and also so they could drain to open air without needing a pump).   I also wanted the home to look natural, like part of the rolling landscape…

So, adding all this up and I was looking for a few acres, at least a few hundred feet from east to west, with good southern exposure,  “rolling hills” with a decent gradient between the house site and where I would put the airtube intakes, plus some natural water and trees.   Oh yea, and all for a great price and in a good area.  I work from home most of the time, but my office is in Ann Arbor, which is in the middle of Washtenaw County, so we limited our search to that county…  By then, I had been living in the area for nearly a decade and had a pretty good idea of where the good places were, as well as the bad places.   Looking at topological maps, it became very clear that the hills are all west of “Stony Creek Road”, so that cut out the South East corner of Washtenaw that had flat clay soil.   Ann Arbor (and the area to the North East ) was very nice, but much too expensive.   The further away from Ann Arbor, to the West or South West, the more available and affordable the land became.   Saline, Chelsea and Dexter were all nice areas with quaint downtowns and good schools, so that was where we started.

One of the first places we looked was in a great location, just off Trinkle Road, just north of I94 and about half way between Dexter and Chelsea.  This lot was 11 acres, of which, at least 6 acres, was part of a very large pond.  There were large boulders everywhere, which actually got me quite exited.   It was in a nice small neighborhood of unique homes.  The price was great too, only $28,000, because the current owners were in some stage of divorce proceedings and had both left Michigan…   But…  The pond was very grown over with weeds (you can see deer trails thru it in the satellite photo), the north shore of the pond was very steep and thickly wooded which would have caused problems for solar access.  The lot was also strangely narrow where we would most like to build…   And in the end, for no apparent reason, the owners pulled it off the market anyway.  Next!

 

 

This next lot was terribly impractical, but also very tempting…    It was an 18.7 acre plot on Pleasant Lake.  Pleasant lake was a large “all sports” lake and the lot included hundreds of feet of waterfront, as well as a small stream meandering thru the property, along the east side and into the lake.  The southern half of the lot was wooded.  I also noticed a legal posting that indicated that the lot may be auctioned to to make up for $6487.22  back taxes… or so I interpreted the sign.  Its list price was considerably higher, something like $120,000, which was certainly outside my budget… but it was such a nice lot on such a nice lake…   So I looked into it and discovered that its owner, Charles Beck, was a real-estate developer who had created many developments in the area, but had recently moved to Maryland because his wife took a job in DC.  In this case, the property was considered too wet and low and close to the lake to qualify for a septic permit and the south half was protected marsh land…   So now I knew why its owner was dumping it, but why did I still want it?  It was on the south side of the lake (northern exposure, its water table was too high to build a regular home, never mind an earth sheltered one, and it was either out of my price range or would require waiting for an unpredictable auction…   On the other hand, it was so pretty and I imagined myself showing up at the auction and picking it up for such a tiny amount.  I spoke to one county clerk who told me that they would probably put a sewer system in soon, so it didn’t matter if the land wouldn’t perk because I wouldn’t need a septic system.   Anyway, I entertained the idea longer than I should have.  In the end, Chuck some how got someone to sign a perk certificate and then quickly sold the land for well over $200k.  I later discovered that this notice didn’t mean much and that it was just part of how Chuck expertly played the real-estate game.   Next!

This lot was very close to Chelsea, an adorable and active little town, close to the high way, and relatively close to my office.  It was 3.8 acres for about $32k, it had a little river, plenty of trees, and good, well-drained SnC soil to build on.   The biggest downside was that, like many of the properties we looked at, it was flag shaped.  The skinny portion connecting us to the road was nearly 1000 feet long and 60 feet wide, and the driveway would need to cross a creek (added expense) and climb a hill on the other side.  Actually, there were some long wide barn beams set across the creek as a temporary bridge.  It looked like cars or tractors had actually driven across these in the past and we ourselves crossed it several times without incident…  But I guess one of the beams was actually quite rotten inside and broke in half  as Sherri was half way across… Fortunately, she wasn’t injured, just wet.  good times…   The slope of the property was more East facing with much of the wider part lost to the gully.  This moved the potential building site further west so that the Southern exposure felt somewhat limited by the very tall trees up to the property line on the western side (there would be no sunsets here).   I measured and found that our our house plan would barely fit with less than 10 feet to spare…  I imagined it would be difficult to work in the area.   I decided the lot would work, but wanted to factor the cost of the distance from the main road into the plan.  I got quotes on the driveway and utilities.  The driveway quote came back as $14,231 for just the gravel base an a concrete culvert.  The electricity quote came back as pretty high because they were going to need to put in some poles, etc.  Unfortunately, I lost that document, but I recall it was enough that the true cost of developing this property made it much less attractive to me.  NEXT!

We looked at many other interesting properties that summer…  For most of that hot summer, exploring these required arduous treks across sweltering and buggy land covered in tall grass and thornbushes.  Generally, we were carrying our children on our shoulders while swatting bugs.  We made up for the exercise with fast food and Slurpees.  Many of the available and affordable lots were very thin and long, barely wide enough for a traditional 2 story home, probably not suitable for an earth sheltered home.   Many of these could be skipped with some time spent on google maps or GIS software (see the tools).   Although realestate agents like to write “rolling hills” down for all but the flattest lots, available lots with actual hills, especially south facing hills with good solar exposure, were very rare indeed.  We kept an eye out for terms like “suitable for a walkout basement” as a clue that there was at least 8 ft change in elevation, but you really had to drive out  to the lots to really tell if they had potential.  The few actual hills that I found were very expensive, even in 2009 (a bad year for selling real-estate).   Many lots had access easements or other strange situations.  One low-priced picaresque lot turned out to be next to a prison for juvenile delinquents, we had the Google map printed out in the car with us and discovered the prison while checking it on site, its too bad we hadn’t taken the time to check it before wasting our time driving out there.  One of the prettiest lots (2.51 Acres on Noggles Rd for $54k) had a gorgeous valley across it and some of the most beautifully shaped trees…  But we soon realized that building would take out some of the prettiest trees anyway, it was also the furthest lot from Ann Arbor, on a dirt road, and my cell phone had no signal.   The cell phone test was just one of a variety of tools I used to evaluate and compare each lot with the others and I will document my process and list the tools as a separate Tech Notes.   Next! Next! Next!  We put a lot of miles on our car and used up pretty much every weekend that summer.

Eventually, we were evaluating a 7.7 acre plot in a rural subdivision that happened to be developed by Chuck Beck (the same tricky developer who owned the Pleasant Lake property).  The lot turned out to be too flat and wet to work for us, but while exploring the area, we found that we really liked the 8.9 acre lot with the big hill and plenty of solar access next door. (I suppose there weren’t actually any doors yet ;))  The aspect ratio was reasonable with lots of room to stretch out.  We loved the view from the hill and cool breezed blowing across it.  It also had about an acre of water and a few acres of oak  and black cherry forest.  Will all the other lots, the woods near the water were pretty low and swampy… but in these woods, we found a large sunny hill.  GIS showed soil types on the property were very well suited to earth sheltering.   The distance to work was longer than we would like (half an hour), but doable, and the “neighborhood” was pretty nice and included electrical and phone service at the road.

Unfortunately, no lot is perfect.   One “problem” with this lot was that the best views and the majority of the slope was to the North and East.  However, we decided that it may actually be an advantage to be able to sit and enjoy the views from our shady sheltered back yard.  Another problem was that the lot was bounded by a road that wrapped around the North, West and part of the South side, this would keep us on display for those driving by.  There would also be the neighborhood association to deal with, a serious concern for any “alternative” builder.  We kept looking for other lots, but this one had become the one that all others were compared to.

We visited the site a number of times.  We observed the local wind patterns (from the South West) and even stood on the hill thru heavy rain, happy that the sandy loam soil (SnC) was managing the water very well with no puddling or runoff problems.

The Architectural Committee was definitly a potential show stopper.  Unfortuneatly, the architectural guidelines were very vague and simply stated that the home needed to be “harmonious” with the neighborhood before plans would be approved.  Since the neighborhood already included a large brick home, a log cabin and some colonials with white siding, “harmony” was hard to define.  I figured my plans would at least be “harmonious” with the field that was there currently and would disrupt my neighbors view less than any McMansion I could build.   At the time, the “Architectural Committee” was actually just Chuck Beck, so I called him to see if he considered my earth sheltered home to be harmonious enough.  He was a little surprised by what I wanted to do, but desperate to sell (he thought I wanted his last remaining lot), so he said “as long as it is not a geodesic dome…”   I had him send me a tentative approval letter in writing before I would buy.   Eventually, Chuck would be gone and the neighbors would form the committee, so I decided we needed to be very open with all the neighbors about our plans to see how they would react.  Everyone was a little cautious, but none objected.   I also called the building inspector.  Areas like this only have one building inspector, so if he hated the idea, I would need to shop elsewhere.   The inspector was quite open to the idea and said he didn’t care what type of home I built, but would insist that the builders follow the approved/engineered plans.

As for the plans, the orientation of the lot was such that the best views were too the North and East, and the most direct driveway access was from the South.  This was opposite of what I had be planning for and would require a considerable redesign.

The roads of the new development were already crumbling.  The neighbors all blamed the developer, but were split over what to do about it.  Since it was a private road, repaving would cost a lot of money from each home owner (handled as a municipal assessment added to the land taxes over 12 years), but even reducing it to gravel would cost a small fortune.    The pending road expense had actually lead to a number of the properties going up for sale at reduced prices.   We eventually decided to toss out a low ball offer.  We bid less than half of what the owners had paid several years before, and $25k less than they were asking.  We assumed they would counter our offer, but they went for it instead…  The date was set, we met, signed some papers and owned the land!

I had imagined that I would head out there often.  I thought we would build a tree house for the kids to play while I maintained the path thru the woods.  I anticipated camping trips, etc.   Well, that didn’t happen.  The lot was too far and without any really infrastructure.  For instance, there was no where to store a mower or for my wife to use the toilet (there were many “urinals” for me and my boys).   We did have a “No-open-house party”, but that was kind of a disaster with most of the kids screaming about the thistles and bugs.   I have spent two separate nights out there in 3 years and have occasionally cut wood or mowed a path.   The biggest thing I have done with the lot is conduct my soil temperature experiment.   In the mean time, we have paid 3 years worth of taxes on the lot.

I would say that purchasing a lot is a lot of work, but it is something you should definitely do before you complete your plans.  Owning the lot does have some associated expense, but it is important to give yourself time to finalize the plans and get to know the lot.  Distance is painful (my wife often jokes about the distance to the nearest Target store), but it is a compromise we made to save a lot of money and get to a better school district.

In the time since I purchased, I kept my MLS emails coming and have kept an eye on every available lot in the county, comparing each to the one we purchased.  So far, I am pretty happy that we bought at the right time.  I have not seen any lots so well suited for such a good price.