Do you want to be our neighbor?
This piece of land won't
put you right next door, but you'll be just over 2 hours away.
Everett and Missy have decided to move closer to town and are putting
their 15 acre farm (with house, barn, and several outbuildings) on the
market for $195,000. Visit their
blog to see contact
information and scads of pictures of the stuff most of you are probably
interested in --- they've fixed the place up so that it's beautiful and
energy efficient.
What
they don't tell you is that the farm is ready to grow all of your own
food. There's an ancient vineyard and two mature (and delicious)
apple trees leftover from previous owners. Everett and Missy have
the chicken coop in perfect repair, right beside a large pasture ready
for your goats, cows, or sheep. There's also a new no-till garden
patch already
planted --- how's that for immediate gratification?
The farm is located in a
slightly ritzier part of southwest Virginia than we're in, which means
more like-minded neighbors (but probably steeper taxes.) They're
also a bit higher in elevation than us, so figure on better apples and
worse peaches.
If you've got a bit of a
nest egg and are looking to move back to the land without starting from
square one, this farm might be just right for you.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
Thanks for posting this Anna
Price is relative when it comes to real estate. Something like this where we came from in Denver would run you closer to a million bucks. Seriously, any 15+ acre property with running water (as in a creek, not plumbing) would get that much just for the fact that the water is there. And that's probably without a house! We had a little 750 sq. foot bungalo-style home on a 1/8 acre city lot in a blue-collar neighborhood in Denver that we sold for about the same price as what we're selling this beautiful property for. You're right - that's one thing that is great about living in Appalachia. And there are so many other things too!
Even though we're not in Denver anymore, we feel the price is fair (we're actually just breaking even and that's not including the year of hard labor we put in) and hope the right people come along to love the place and take care of it.
De --- We live in Scott County, where the median income is about 10% less than Carroll County and where 16.8% of the population (vs. 12.5% in Carroll County) is beneath the poverty line. But I consider Scott County slightly on the rich side for real southwest Virginia since our neighboring counties to the west have poverty rates of 20.0% and 22.7%. Folks coming in from outside probably find Carroll County very down to earth compared to mainstream America, but I have to admit that I consider it a bit gentrified.
Everett --- No problem --- people have been drooling over the listing here and on facebook, so it's clearly up our readers' alleys. I think you're totally right that the price is fair. You've put a huge amount of work into the property and it's ready to hit the ground running. And, like you said, if you're not from around here, it's cheap.
Crystal --- That sounds like a tough nut to crack near Richmond, but you might find it if you're willing to choose an ugly duckling property like we did! I don't regret any of the tough parts about our land. In fact, if we'd tried to save for a property where we could drive to the front door (and if it had a front door), we'd probably still be saving instead of eating homegrown peaches and strawberries.