sheep fencing recommendations

[Pippin's person]

We also bought during the downturn. Torture is probably overblown but it seemed a mild description at the time. The minus was what we had to sell for. The plus was what we bought for. And the priceless was how much better life got because of it. Even makes grading papers not so onerous.....

[Alchemist]

We looked into mid-Atlantic Farm Credit when we were getting our pre-authorization - they said that they wouldn't be able to get us the best rates. We're hoping not to hold a mortgage very long (we'll pay off a big chunk of it when we sell the current house, which we've owned long enough that it's currently paid off, though maybe we'll finance more than we absolutely need to in order to pay for first-year necessaries like part of the fencing plus a farm truck/stock trailer).

 

Fifty-odd pages of "stuff" as part of the offer (going through everything required two full hours in the realtor's office this evening). But the offer has now been made!!! (And now the waiting game begins...).

 

Robin, thanks for the tip about grading papers becoming less onerous. "My" study (which I'd share with my spouse) looks out over the pastures. I can see how grading papers could actually become peaceful....

 

We're at risk of "buying high, selling low" - interest rates are probably on their way up, which means our house will depreciate in value between now and the spring (which is when we'd put it on the market). And the bottom could always fall out of the housing market between now and then. Ah well. Such are the risks of life. (And the rewards? Incalculable). There are times when you just have to jump in, embrace the risks in life.

 

David came home from our stint with the realtor and said 'we should have offered $5K more'. I think he wants this place as much as I do. That's cool, because I've worried it's been *my* dream - but this is telling me he shares it as well, as much as he speaks of "condo".

[Alchemist]

On my second glass of wine for the evening even as we "speak". The process of putting in an offer has been stressful!

 

The bain of academia...not that I'm advocating drinking, but I seem to remember that the thought of a (several) large glass(es) of wiine at the end of the day helped

[gcv-border]

Good Luck with your offer. Don't worry about offering $5K too low. That is what counter-offers are for. Even if the sellers are so cantankerous that they reject your offer out of hand, you can still come back with another offer.

 

Bottom falling out of the market in the spring? Oh no, don't tell me that. We hope to put our house on the market then. We sold our last house about 6 months too late too and had to accept less. We never did have very good timing.

[gcv-border]

Dear Lynn,

Farm Credit rates are competitive and its a coop (you get a check from them every year), they didn't climb on the subprime bandwagon and our loan officer has pretty nice Border Collies. Also, if something goes wrong, you know who has your mortgage.

 

Donald

Yes, this is one major difference with Farm Credit and why they will finance farm purchases. They keep your mortgage whereas almost every conventional mortgage lender will sell your mortgage on the secondary market - which doesn't like the 'unconventional' properties (i.e. farms vs. the 'conventional' suburban or urban properties).

[Alchemist]

Good news: the boys are not at risk of being forced into an internet desert in the near future

 

Bad news: the sellers were insulted by our offer (the only one they've had in the 15 months the place has been on the market), and didn't even come back with a counteroffer.

 

We shall wait this one out for a while. In the meanwhile, we'll continue to deal with the clutter in our own house, and try to get it ready to sell this spring

[gcv-border]

I am sorry to hear that. Maybe another winter in a house that is too much for them to take care of will soften their resolve.

[Alchemist]

I sure hope so, Jovi! C'mon, polar vortex!!!! (as long as no lambs are injured....)

[TEC]

As you may know, take those dramatic "insulted" type remarks in stride, knowing that realtors who often want to be your pal, in fact have only one client -- the seller. They might not have been as affronted as he/she wants you to believe.-- TEC

[Maxi]

Oh, the joy of 'house buying poker'

 

I hope the house decluttering is suitably therapeutic while you wait to see who blinks first...

[Mark Billadeau]

Sorry to hear about that, Lynn.

[Donald McCaig]

Persist patiently.

 

Donald McCaig

[emilyfalk]

Not the news I was hoping for. Hugs and hang in there!

[Alchemist]

Thanks, all! I can't claim it wasn't disappointing. But it's also a bit of a relief not to be worrying about carrying a mortgage before putting our house on the market. Now I can focus on grading (BLECCH!) and getting ready for the holidays.

 

I hope they'll have had a chance to reconsider by the spring. In the meanwhile, we'll continue to look, though there's not much around at the moment (though this will change in a couple of months).

[Smalahundur]

Well, over a year ago we brought out a bid on a farm (very) near us, the counter bid was pretty high, and we got the impression they did not want to go low enough for us to be able to buy, so we decided to wait and see..

 

In the mean time it was "sold" but the buyer did not get a loan to finance it. That selling price was rather near our idea of reasonable, we started negotiations again a couple of weeks ago, got them to lower a bit more, and guess what is being signed today?

 

So my point is, if there is not a lot of interest in the property you intend to buy, time is your friend, just wait it out. If someone comes along and pays a price way over what you can (or are willing to) pay, no loss there.

But they want to sell, so as previous posters remarked, not unlikely they will soften up given time. Good luck with it.

[TEC]

Congrats Smalahundur. And you still know your neighbors.

 

Bide your time, Alchemist, and hopefully everything will fall into place. If you are dealing through a realtor, play it cool, showing only the right amount of interest, as IME, every show of emotion is conveyed directly to the seller. Good luck.

 

Has anybody had the devilish professor who, wearing a rogue's smile, tells the class that term papers will be held in a stack at the top of a flight of stairs and tossed toward the bottom? This character claims they will then be graded in accordance with the step each paper ultimately rests upon. As I recall, the ones at the bottom got the best grade, and so forth. Was this to encourage lengthy papers that could be flinged a good distance? Even as a student, I did not believe that nonsense, and also never understood the purpose of the tale. Later, after reading a few particularly uninteresting/poorly written papers late at night, I was tempted to give that grading technique a try.

 

Until grad school, I lived by the admonition, "Excess verbiage is excess garbage", but found that some professors (or their graduate assistants) liked to read the same idea stated in multiple ways, so I obliged them. WTH? I sympathize, Alchemist, and somewhat understand your feelings. -- Best wishes, TEC

[gcv-border]

... tells the class that term papers will be held in a stack at the top of a flight of stairs and tossed toward the bottom? This character claims they will then be graded in accordance with the step each paper ultimately rests upon.....

 

 

Until grad school, I lived by the admonition, "Excess verbiage is excess garbage", but found that some professors (or their graduate assistants) liked to read the same idea stated in multiple ways, so I obliged them. WTH? I sympathize, Alchemist, and somewhat understand your feelings. -- Best wishes, TEC

My high school English teacher used to threaten us with the 'throw the papers down the stairs" grading technique.

 

With regard to grad school:

BS = Bullsh*t

MS = More sh*t

PhD = Pile it Higher and Deeper

 

And I did go to grad school which I admit did train me to use excess verbiage.

[GentleLake]

I'm sorry, too, that they didn't consider your offer.

 

But hoping as others are, either that they'll reconsider or that something better will come along.

[DeltaBluez Tess]

One door opens when one door closes...either they will reconsider or it wasn't meant to be. We had a reject on one offer and we passed and it turned out the house had severe mold issues. If they haven't had an offer in months and only got one offer that was close, then rejected it, they will be there for a while longer. Hang on, something will pop up

[Alchemist]

Smalahundur, what exciting news! Warmest congratulations!! And what an inspiring story!!! We will need PHOTOS!

 

Thanks, all. I've actually quite liked the realtor we've been working with - he's been quick to point out flaws in various properties we've been looking at (something that a lot of realtors don't seem to do). He also seems to learn from what we like and don't care for in each place we've toured with him. (Of course he took FOREVER to provide the comparative market analysis on our house, and the price he gave us was probably ~$70-80K too low, which is more money than I can afford to throw away!!! So he won't be listing our house).

 

I told a friend at a trial the other week that if we didn't get this place, well, it wasn't meant to be, echoing what Diane is saying here. I know there have been some really nice places that have been offered for sale of late for what are much more reasonable prices. (We JUST missed one such, due in part to my having told a realtor that a master bedroom on the ground floor was a requirement - turns out it's not). It's possible that these sellers will come down if we wait until April or May or so, and with luck our own place will be sold by then, saving us several months' worth of mortgage payments that we could apply to upping our offer if need be. And it's possible that a new place will come on the market that we like even better. Wish we had enough $$ to build our own place, but in looking at the cost of land, I can't see that happening.

 

LOL at the "excess verbiage" comments. Strict word limits in manuscripts for submission helped me learn to curb my tendencies in that arena. (And I'm old enough that I still consider Strunk and White a bible on writing, including their admonitions for being concise). Conservation of verbiage, though, it pops out in emails or in my posts on the BC Boards.

 

 

Well, over a year ago we brought out a bid on a farm (very) near us, the counter bid was pretty high, and we got the impression they did not want to go low enough for us to be able to buy, so we decided to wait and see..

 

In the mean time it was "sold" but the buyer did not get a loan to finance it. That selling price was rather near our idea of reasonable, we started negotiations again a couple of weeks ago, got them to lower a bit more, and guess what is being signed today?

 

So my point is, if there is not a lot of interest in the property you intend to buy, time is your friend, just wait it out. If someone comes along and pays a price way over what you can (or are willing to) pay, no loss there.

But they want to sell, so as previous posters remarked, not unlikely they will soften up given time. Good luck with it.

[DeltaBluez Tess]

Here is how we bought our place.....getting ready to go out for fancy dinner so I just had to check the farm listing just one more time.....farm came up....we called agent, never went to dinner, went out the next day to look at it and put offer down.......this is after we had spent tons of time looking at other places and decided we needed a non-real estate night......we had to carry two mortgages for a while but it was worth it. Glad we did as the extra couple of month, house prices rose and we got a higher offer that we listed the house for.....