{"id":8313,"date":"2022-06-16T18:16:12","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T23:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/?p=8313"},"modified":"2022-06-19T14:42:33","modified_gmt":"2022-06-19T19:42:33","slug":"i-want-to-buy-land-and-move-to-the-country-in-the-next-5-years-and-4-steps-im-taking-now-will-get-me-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/?p=8313","title":{"rendered":"I want to buy land and move to the country in the next 5 years, and 4 steps I&#8217;m taking now will get me there"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul><li>I lived in big cities all my life until finally buying a small-town home during the pandemic.<\/li><li>I love my slower pace of life and increased square footage, but I want more \u2014 I want land in the country.<\/li><li>To get there, I&#8217;m investing in my home and making a plan for my parents to move with me.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I grew up in a big city and have, until very recently, always lived in cities. I&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/personal-finance\/strategies-buy-first-home-start-my-business-2022-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">achieved my goal of buying my first home<\/a>&nbsp;by leaving the city for small-town life during the early days of the pandemic. I&#8217;d already been on the hunt for a location within commuting distance of the big city when the pandemic hit. I spent eight months, including one of the hottest summers I can remember, in isolation in my tiny one-bedroom apartment on a busy street, feeling like the walls were closing in on me. Those very same walls let in all the many sounds and smells of my neighbors&#8217; lives, constantly reminding me why I&#8217;d made the decision to finally leave the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>House hunting in a new location in an increasingly hot market \u2014 as a result of the mass exodus from the big city \u2014 was like taking on another full-time job. But, I did it. I made the move in October 2020 and have been enjoying the slower pace, overall lower cost of living, and increased square footage ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This taste of the good life has me feeling grateful. It also has me thinking about what my next steps might be. I came in search of quiet, and I got it. But now I want more. More peace, more privacy, and more green space around me than I can get living in town. Now, I dream of owning land, a rural property with space to spare. I suppose you could say I&#8217;ve moved the goal posts \u2014 and I&#8217;ve moved them out to the country.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My three-to-five year plan now includes the lofty financial goal of buying a remote property with more land and more freedom. Here&#8217;s how I&#8217;m working to make my dream a reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>I&#8217;m making lifestyle changes, like learning to drive and buying a car<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>My name is Allison and I&#8217;m a non-driver. But not for much longer. I&#8217;ve managed to make it this far without a driver&#8217;s license, but living in a small town without a car is a challenge. I still have neighbors welcoming me to the neighborhood after nearly two years living in my home; no car in the driveway = no people in the house. Lol. But seriously, having a car is going to be essential to my new life. To that end, I&#8217;m saving up to buy my first car and this summer you&#8217;ll find me in a driver&#8217;s ed classroom with a bunch of 16-year-olds learning the ways of the road.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I went fully freelance in the summer of 2021 and have been actively building my businesses and focusing on opportunities that give me total control of how and where I work. While I initially moved away from the city thinking I&#8217;d have to commute to work once or twice a week, I, like so many others, now firmly believe that remote work is the future.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a writer, I can do my work from anywhere with a good internet connection. In my career as a dance teacher I teach both in-person classes as well virtually. How will I make my teaching work once I make the move to the country? It&#8217;s always been a dream of mine to have a home studio, which I have now, albeit a modestly sized one. When I eventually begin the hunt for my rural home, I&#8217;ll be looking for a property that will allow me to either convert an existing out-building into a dance studio or build one from scratch. I&#8217;ll work out of my home studio, teaching both in-person and virtual lessons, with the income opportunity to host events, retreats, and artist residencies on-site.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>I&#8217;m investing in my home and building my savings<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In terms of how I&#8217;m getting my financial ducks in a row to make my new dream an eventual reality, I&#8217;m periodically and incrementally increasing my monthly contributions to my&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/personal-finance\/best-high-yield-savings-accounts-rates-right-now\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">savings<\/a>&nbsp;in relation to my fluctuating income. I&#8217;m making saving a priority.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I currently live in my biggest investment. It&#8217;s my home, and I love it. It&#8217;s also the key to my lofty financial goals. I regularly invest in improvements to my home, not just so that I can enjoy them, but also to increase the resale value of my home.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>I&#8217;m strategizing with my parents<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m a big advocate of multi-generational living. I lived abroad for most of my 20s and now that I&#8217;m in my 30s and living within a two-hour drive of my parents and sister, I can&#8217;t imagine living that far away again. Especially as my parents are getting older.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I first moved away from the city I casually started campaigning for my parents to sell their house in the big city and move to my new neck of the woods. Now, I&#8217;m hatching a plan to purchase my dream remote property with my parents. I would live in the existing building \u2014 in my dreams it&#8217;s an old red brick farmhouse \u2014 and we would convert a barn or another outbuilding or perhaps build a new sustainable, passive house all on one level for my parents to age in place in comfort and style.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We would each sell our houses, pool our money, and buy a rural property. Or start a hippy commune or kibbutz. We&#8217;ll see. The extra buying power the three of us would have by combining our resources could help us create something very special that might have otherwise been beyond our financial reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, much of the success of this plan hinges on the housing market. I have an idea of where I want to live, but I&#8217;m keeping my mind and my search area open. I&#8217;m keeping a close eye on the housing market in the surrounding areas and learning about up-and-coming locations. Having a clear sense of market patterns, pricing, and demand will help me ground my lofty financial goals in reality.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>I&#8217;m keeping in touch with my mortgage broker<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Lastly, I&#8217;m maintaining close ties with my phenomenal mortgage broker, the wise and wonderful&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lisaokun.com\/\">Lisa Okun<\/a>. She was instrumental in helping me navigate a very challenging market when buying my first home. I suspect she&#8217;ll be my secret weapon in the next house hunt. Up next: I&#8217;ll be reaching out to pick her very big brain about my plans and I trust that she&#8217;ll give me the real scoop on how to make things happen.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m happy where I am now. I have the space, the quiet, and the healthier pace of living I was looking for. And, I&#8217;m always looking forward, thinking about what&#8217;s next. For me, it&#8217;s more space, more quiet, more freedom and it looks like an open field in the rolling countryside.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I lived in big cities all my life until finally buying a small-town home during the pandemic. I love my<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[254,3421],"tags":[888,3429],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8313"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8314,"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8313\/revisions\/8314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.jlbn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}