Three is the number of years, the number of realtors and the number of family members who told us finding and buying land to build a custom home was impossible in our desired location. We were determined and pregnant with our second child. Coming up on our eighth year in a small condo where we had utilized every inch of space possible. We knew we couldn't give up. This was our dream. This would be the forever house where our children would grow and we would make our most important memories.
So we got creative. We asked how do builders find and buy land? We learned of an online assessors database. The database allowed us to look up the assessed value and property information (owners name, address, sq footage, lot size, and assessed home value) by town and street name. Every weekend for months we drove around our top towns. We drove down streets and neighborhoods we admired and took down street names and numbers.
Then we took that information and spent many hours looking up addresses in the database. Any house with a lot size of 5 acres or more was documented in a spreadsheet. I was not sleeping well at the time so I did most of this analysis in the early morning hours. I spent every lunch break typing, printing and mailing letters to home owners. The letter introduced us and what we were looking for...land. The letter asked the homeowner if they were interested in subdividing? Did they know of anyone who owned land and would be interested in a private sale?
Many people responded even if they couldn't subdivide their land they offered us well wishes, applauded our clever effort and gushed about why their town was a wonderful place to live. This went on for months right up to my seventh month of pregnancy. When we had sent hundred of letters and worried we may get served with a cease and desist. Someone from the town building and planning board called me. They had received one of our letters and knew of a recently retired planning board member who owned land and was looking to sell it privately.
We didn't want to get our hopes up. We reached out to the owner and within 2 months we were signing a purchase and sales agreement in our lawyers office. The land was ours! We were one step closer to reaching our dream!
Looking back now 5 months into the building of our dream home we realize that finding and buying the land was the easy part!
“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”
-Theodore Roosevelt
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