It’s been a while since I posted to this blog. I missed a week of work due to illness, and during that time I didn’t feel much like working on the computer. I’m back now, and here is a recap and update of our Colorado Dream, owning a piece of land in the mountains.
We had started by looking at land near Woodland Park and Divide, both located west of Colorado Springs and Pike’s Peak on Highway 24. We found that lots in our price range were very steep. We are in good health, but could not see us hiking up and down any of these lots in our later years.
Pam looks over a potential lot.
The nicest lots, those that met our criteria, were way out of our price range. $25K per acre was not uncommon, with lot sizes running 4 to 5 acres. We began to expand our search further west of the Divide area in hopes of finding some lower-priced property.
We started to include lots with houses on them, in theory a better value due to homes prices dropping as people sold 2nd homes or places they could no longer afford. These places might offer us a place to stay when we visited, already had wells and septic systems in place, and may be easier to finance and improve. The place below is one example of this type of property.
Pam checks out house at 899 Badger Road
The lot behind the house is quite steep. Where would I put a workshop?
Another house we checked on, whose price had been dropping on the listings, was this place on Deer View Lane:
Deer on Deer View Lane property.
Pam and dogs check out house on Deer View Lane.
We saw the doe as we drove up to the house. Unfortunately, the lot is too steep for our liking. Can you see us at 70+ years old hauling groceries up those steps?
Looking at houses did not work out, as the places in our price range all seemed to have many compromises. Either the lots were steep and unusable, no views, poor access, or would need a lot of work to bring up to our middle-class standards.
This led to some interesting discussions about how much of our dream we are willing to sacrifice, and the answer turns out to be “not much.” We would rather find our dream lot and put something on it rather than give up our core requirements: A mix of pine and aspen, level enough to walk around in comfort and to make building easier, and a view of a hill or mountains. A larger lot, which would guarantee separation from neighbors, is highly desirable.
The only way we would be able to avoid compromising our dream was to re-define what we were looking for, and the answer changed our outlook: No longer would we be searching for a “commuting” location, but would concentrate on the “recreational” aspects of a place. Both of us agree that we will probably have to work after retirement to make ends meet, and we should be looking for a get-away property rather than a commuting location. Given this less restraining criteria, we decided to look in areas a little more off the beaten path.
This brings us to the last few weeks, where we have come closer to finding what we want, although we have not found our ideal yet.
We began looking in a new area south of Lake George, Colorado. The area between Lake George and the next town to the east, Florissant, has some sub-divisions with roads in them. Situated between Pike’s Peak to the east and South Park to the west, some of the lots appear to have most of what we are looking for, although the acreages are generally smaller.
Rustic road south of Lake George.
Lot at end of cul-de-sac may be a possibility.
This lot has much of what we want, but is small, only about 1.3 acres. The lots on either side are flatter and would be better to build on, so we will contact our realtor and see if he can find out if either owner might be willing to sell. Coming across this lot gave us hope that we might yet find what we are looking for.
Later that day we walked another lot. A drive way had been put in, it was pretty level and had quite a few trees, but no views of anything. Lot size was about 1.2 acres. Pleasant, but not really what we want.
A 3rd place has a double-wide on it, not ideal, but has 4 acres and a well and septic installed. A repo, asking price is about 70K. We would not be wild about the trailer, but the lot meets most of our requirements, and has a view to boot. At this point Pam is not in favor of exploring this further, but Jerry is still interested if a low-ball offer would secure the property. It is a corner lot, and there would be some traffic noise, but the road is well-maintained summer and winter and offers easier access to civilization than some of the other properties we have looked at.
Spruce Creek lot looking SW.
Trailer on Spruce Creek lot.
Pam walks dogs west of Pike's Peak.
Really, life should not be this hard. We go over with high hopes, armed with print-outs of land listings and maps, and return a bit depressed that we did not find our dream land. And it takes time…each trip is in the 550 mile range, takes a full day, and gets tiring. We have made 9 “land looking” trips so far. We feel we are getting closer to finding what we want, narrowing our search to specific areas, and have looked at some pleasant, if small, lots. We still have a fairly high level of confidence that we will find what we are looking for, but it may take longer than we thought!
What’s next? We will continue to search the listings for lots in the Florissant – Lake George area, and take a trip to view them once or twice a month, depending on how many potential lots turn up.
As you can tell, we have reached the stage where the initial excitement of looking for land has worn off, and now it becomes a question of searching, evaluating, and day trips to the area we have targeted. We do enjoy getting into the mountains, and the dogs enjoy the outings, so none of the trips has been a waste of time. Quite the contrary…we always find new roads and things to look at, and that is part of the enjoyment of the search. One of these times we will “discover” our dream lot. When we do, you will hear about it here.
Moving on to other topics, we will be traveling to Wisconsin the first week in October. Pam’s side of the family is planning a memorial service for her Uncle John and Aunt Angela, both of whom have died in the last year or so. Uncle John and Aunt Angela had visited us in Arizona when we lived there, and also visited us here in western Colorado. They were good people and will be missed.
Our daughter, Felicity, did land the 2nd part-time job I mentioned in my last post. She will be doing web and social media development for an organization in the Portland, Oregon area. This job will make her finances a bit more stable as she continues to develop her Affordable Writing Solutions company. While she is attracting customers, the income is a bit hit-and-miss as she does not normally get paid until the end of a project, which can span a few weeks or more. While we applaud her entrepreneurial spirit, as parents it is nice to know there is a base income on which to establish a budget.
Pam and I celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary this past week. I’m so glad she has put up with me for so long!
Our foster kittens are now old enough to get their operations and shots. You can view photos of them at our Foster Cats page.
That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!
