If you are still choosing the lot where you are planning to build your log cabin style home, or any other home for that matter, here is a list of what I consider the top 10 things to look out for and take into consideration when making that choice.
Having built many homes, especially vacation homes, I will tell you that there are things that you need to consider that might not be obvious when looking at a potential building site. Vacation style homes that are intended to be a "get-a-way" location are not always built in carefully planned subdivisions. Very often, because of the search for privacy and beautiful views of nature, locations that are not as well suited as simple old flat farm ground are being considered. What kinds of hidden pitfalls could potentially pop up and ruin your building experience, add sometimes very large extra costs to the project, or create problems down the road after the build is complete? This is a list of some of the most common, and usually not readily apparent booby traps to consider.
This list is by no means a complete and fully comprehensive list and is in no particular order of importance. Simply beware of these things.
Let's start off with a big one!
Tip #1 - Legal Accessibility!
This one can be deceptive! It might appear that you have access to this wonderful piece of ground. There might even be a dirt road leading right to it or right along the boundary of it, but be absolutely sure before you drop your money on it that you have full legal access to not only drive to your property, but to make improvements to the road as needed or desired. That sounds really simple and obvious but it isn't always so.
Maybe that nice dirt trail that you used seems to be a great starting point for driveway, but do you have a legal easement to use it and build a better road there if you want. Does it cross someone else's private property? Is there a canal or water course that will require you to build a bridge that has to meet someone else's expensive specifications? Does someone else have a prior easement that trumps yours? Does the county or other governing body have cumbersome and expensive regulations about entering a public right of way?
There are many possible pitfalls to trip you up on this step. If the seller will not or cannot provide you with legal access in your deed, do not buy the property! No matter how beautiful the building site may be, if you can't legally drive up to it, what's the point in buying it?
Always have full legal access assured before you complete your purchase. Someone's word that they are working on it and will provide it at a later date is not good enough in today's legal climate. Be sure!
Tip #2 - Easements, Setbacks and Right of Ways
Closely related to tip #1 is beware of Easements, Setbacks and Right of Ways that impact the use of and buildable space on the lot you are considering.
Easements are used to grant legal access across a piece of property to some other entity, such as a utility company, so that they can have unobstructed access across the property for whatever reason they deem necessary. They could also be given for a pipeline, power line, phone line or other such utility that may even be buried across the property. That means that not only can you not build anything on that piece of your property, but they can, at any time, without your permission, use that section of your property in any way they choose, to access their own property or utilities.
You might wake up one morning to a bulldozer plowing right through your nicely landscaped front yard or maybe even find a giant crane parked there to service some overhead power lines. You get the picture!
Setbacks are "No Build Zones" around the edges of any piece of property designated by the city, county or other entities, to prevent neighbors from building too closely to each other or to a street. They are designed to create uniformity and prevent other problems.
You need to make yourself aware of what these setback dimensions are and account for them in your building plans. Occasionally you will find that for some reason the governing entity has established a setback that is way larger than would seem immediately necessary and generally they are not negotiable.
On a very small lot, setbacks and other regulations related to them could potentially make a lot unbuildable or at least severely restrictive.
Right of Ways are legally protected areas across one piece of property to allow another property owner to have access to their property, usually for a driveway or road. They cannot be built upon or blocked in any way and therefore could significantly effect how you use your property. You want to be aware of these if any of them cross your potential piece of property and also be sure that you have full right of way access to your own property from a public road.
All of these types of legal encroachments should be on file in your city or county records department. They should be part of the full disclosure with a property listing. The realtors involved should be aware of them. The title company who gives you title insurance when you purchase the property should find and disclose them. However, with all of these "shoulds" in place, these types of things often get missed. So be sure for your own protection, that you follow through yourself and find out for certain.
When you have discovered if any of these issues exist, draw them all out on a map of the lot and see if it still allows you room to do what you want with it.
Tip #3 - Water, Sewer, Electric and Other Utilities
Even if, in the most extreme situation, you want to live completely "Off Grid", you need to make yourself aware of any laws, regulations and availability issues that may impact your ability to have the basic utility services at your new home.
For instance, if you are intending to live off the grid and have your own private well and a septic system, be aware that sometimes this is not possible due to some strange regulation that might exist. As an example, many of the larger cities in the Desert Southwest have purchased the water rights from under many large tracts of land such as ranches that are located hundreds of miles away. So while you may be able to purchase the land very inexpensively and even build any home you want on it, you will be required to haul water from a remote source. Does that fit into your plans?
Septic systems, even in very remote areas are often highly regulated to prevent contamination of the aquifer beneath them. So you might think that you are going to build completely off of and free of "the grid" out in the middle of your 1000 acres of wilderness or ranch land only to find out that you cannot effectively dispose of your sewage or simply drill a well to put your hand pump in.
Another issue to be aware of and check out fully is this. Even if there are public utilities such as electricity, water, gas and sewer supposedly available to your lot, are they ACTUALLY readily available and useable on YOUR lot?
In an extreme case, I once built on a lot in an older plotted subdivision in the mountains that had utility company power within the subdivision and supposedly available to each lot. It also had a community water system owned and operated by a private entity that supposedly provided water to each lot. In fact the neighboring lots on three of the four sides of ours, each had an existing home on them.
When we contacted the power company to hook us up, which was usually about a $400.00 cost at the time, we found out that all of their transformers in that subdivision were already maxed out to their full capacity. It required us to dig about 2000 feet of trench and install large conduit and main trunk line to get our power hooked up. It took our costs up to around $4000.00 instead.
Shortly after that, after doing battle with the extremely inefficient private water company, we found out that the water line which ran immediately in front of our lot was already too small to service even the homes that were already using it as well as being in very poor condition on top of that and they would not allow us to hook up to it at all and were unwilling to provide us water in any way, shape or form. We ended up having to have a new well drilled on our property. Our costs went from an expected $300.00 to almost $25,000.00. That was a bit of a shock to the budget!
It is a very good idea, especially on a vacation property, to actually speak to the individual utility companies about the availability and specifics of their services on YOUR potential lot before you purchase it. While often the advertised utilities are "available" as with our electrical issue, you need to find out specifics before you get trapped into an expensive or untenable situation.
Another utility issue that can present a massive problem is a clause about "shared wells". I have come across several lots where the regulations, either government or private, prohibit drilling a well on each lot, for various different reasons, usually lot size. However they usually have made some provision for "shared wells", wherein 2 or 3 different lots can share the same well, thereby eliminating the problem with spacing from neighboring wells and septic systems.
On the surface that seems like a logical and easy solution to this problem. However, it is not necessarily as logical and simple as it may seem!
Does another well exist on a nearby lot? Is the owner even willing to allow you to use it? They are not legally required to. Who is going to pay for the legal "well share agreement"? Etc.
Tip #4 - Is The Lot Actually Big Enough?
Included with and as a result of all of the above factors, is the lot you are considering actually big enough to build the home you desire along with all of the necessities that are actually required for it to function?
This question is not as simple as it seems on the surface.
When you take a map of your proposed lot and draw in all of the setbacks, easements, right of ways, etc., is there actually room left for you to build a house in the setting that you want, facing the direction that you want, with the views that you want, with the outbuildings that you may want later, etc.?
Here is a sneaky one that can really foul up the useability of a lot, that most people never consider until too late. If you are going to drill a private well and use a septic system on your lot be aware that they must be a minimum distance apart so as not to contaminate each other. Not only that but they must maintain that same distance from the well and septic on any neighboring properties. In the area that I was building, I think that distance was 100 feet or so. It might have been more.
Several times I had situations where, because of all of the neighboring lots and their utilities, we were barely able to fit the well and the septic onto the lot, even without the house! On a very small lot, let's say 1/4 acre, if your minimum separation is 100', your well and septic are already going to have to be on opposite corners of your lot. What happens if the neighbors have already drilled their wells and installed their septics so that it is impossible to fit yours onto your lot?
You don't want to find this out after you have your house nearly done! The remedy, if one exists, could be very expensive!
Normally our thinking and lack of awareness of these issues is formed from living in a suburban setting. In such a setting the norm is that homes are built in platted subdivisions where all of the utilities are simply available to hook up to at the front of the lot. All of the planning and considering of these potential utility conflicts has already been taken care of by the developer. The new lot owner never even has to be aware that these requirements exist.
Although as a word of caution here, anytime you purchase a new home or lot anywhere, for your own protection, please follow up on these sorts of things before your purchase!
Tip #5 - Geology and Soil Types
This is an area where all too often, an unsuspecting home owner can find themselves in a compromised, if not dangerous, and often very expensive situation!
Most of us are familiar with the old song about the wise man building his house upon a rock and the foolish man building his house upon the sand, right?
Well the reality is, when building a house in today's world, it's not quite that simple.
When building a modern home, you actually want to build your own rock (i.e. the foundation), to set your house on. If you actually try to build on the natural rock, you can have all sorts of expensive problems with wells, water lines, septic systems, power and gas lines, etc.
Where I live, in the western United States, we are in a basically desert environment full of mountains and valleys. That might sound like a generally stable location to build a home. However, let me share a few of the geological pitfalls that I have seen which have created expensive problems for some homeowners.
The first is bedrock or underlying old lava flows. While it might seem very desirable to build your house on solid rock, and in some ways it is, there are many more expensive drawbacks that make it much less desirable. Let's consider some of them. Do you need a basement? Imagine the expense of having to blast one out of solid rock! How about a septic system? Do you have room to dig the necessary several hundred feet of trenches, while also making them deep enough to actually function as a drainage system? Can you actually find a large enough area of flat bedrock to build a foundation on without any blasting? Or at even the most basic level, will you have to be content to have unsightly power poles bringing your electricity in because you can't dig a trench for underground power for a reasonable cost?
All of these situations and several others can cause expensive additions to your building costs if unforeseen. So be sure to take into consideration if there are any large masses of rock on your proposed building sight, or hidden under it.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, let's consider building your house upon the sand. With today's engineering and technology, building a house on a sandy lot is not a particularly big problem. Foundations are designed to create an artificial "bedrock" type base that will be stable enough to keep your home from washing away in the proverbial flood. However sand can still be a bad idea if it is not on flat ground or if there is significant flowing water anywhere near it.
Sand, gravel and many other soil types can present a very significant chance of sliding downhill if they become sufficiently saturated with water after a particularly wet year or two. This is radically increased if you happen to live in an area that is prone to experience earthquakes.
While many of us dream of living on a hill or mountainside because the views are much better, it is a really good idea to consult a geologist to see what they might think about the potential building site.
We know of at least one multi-million dollar home in our area that became completely unlivable and had to be condemned for structural safety reasons shortly after it was built. The seemingly ultra-stable mountainside that it was built on turned out to be an alluvial fan of gravel that was fairly stable until it was disturbed by excavations for driveways and foundations. When combined with heavy rains and melting snow, the entire house literally began to slide down the hill. There was no reasonable engineering solution to stop it from happening and so it had to be abandoned. Can you imagine what a shock that would be to your budget?
In the town that we currently live in, there exists a completely invisible soil condition that was not discovered until hundreds of homes had been built and then lived in for 20-50 years. Most of the the town is underlain by a type of soil that they call "blue clay". One of the unique properties of this particular type of soil, is that when it gets wet, it absorbs the water and in doing so expands in actual size significantly. When this happens around or under a foundation, bad things begin to happen. No matter how strong a concrete foundation is, it cannot resist the tremendous forces exerted on it by this expanding blue clay.
It can push the side walls inward and crack them, but more commonly, it gets under one area of a foundation and when it swells, it lifts that portion of the foundation or floor and breaks it leaving the floor or the entire house sitting crookedly or prone to leaks. In the house we currently live in which was built back in the 1970's, the basement floor in the center of the house is at least 6 inches higher than around the perimeter. That has caused the interior wooden walls to move upward also causing the floors in the upper two stories to be raised too. So the entire center of the house is significantly higher than the perimeter. When we moved in, not a single door in the whole house would open and close properly.
In some cases like ours, you can continue to live in the house, but the value of the home and its livability have been significantly impacted. Some geological problems can be remedied, but almost never cheaply. If you learn these things before hand, you can either make appropriate plans to deal with them or avoid them altogether.
So be aware of the geology of your potential building lot!
Tip #6 - Water Courses and Water Tables
Closely related to Tip #5 is the issue of water courses and water tables. They are actually part of the geology of your lot but deserve separate mention. When we bring this up we are not discussing the availability of well water, although that should definitely be considered. What we are talking about here is, how does the movement and flow of water, both on the surface and underneath it impact the buildability of a lot?
As far as surface water goes, you obviously don't want to build too close to a river, stream or lake because of potential flooding issues. Be aware that the potential flood level of any body of water may not be immediately obvious on a given piece of land.
Also you need to take into consideration any potential bodies of water that do not actually exist for most of the year. Are there low lying areas that may actually collect water in times of more than normal rain or snow melt? Think about gullies, washes and flood plains. Also there are often seemingly flat areas of ground that have significant water flow but have not formed into geological features like a wash yet.
Then we get into the issue of underground water or water that sometimes emerges in wetter seasons as springs and sloughs or bogs. These are not always obvious in the dryer times of the year but may develop in the wetter seasons. You don't want one showing up in your new basement or crawl space!
We were once looking at a potential lot in a beautiful mountain meadow but fortunately a very knowledgeable realtor was able to warn us that in the spring, as the snow was melting the lot as almost always covered with a thin sheet of surface water that would have completely prevented us from building anywhere on that lot. Worse yet, and this was not readily obvious, the water problem would have not have allowed us to build a functioning septic system anywhere on the lot!
Sometimes the water problems may not be surface problems, but instead be caused by an underground water table that is so close to the surface that digging your foundation or basement may literally expose running or standing water in the wetter seasons. Or worse yet, it might not show up until after your house is built.
We lived in one neighborhood where the homes had been built over 50 years ago. But suddenly something had change farther up hill from the subdivision or maybe even downhill from it, causing an underground stream to rise up into many of the basements in the area. This had not been a problem at all for 50 years, but suddenly many of the homes began experiencing flooded basements and were having to install sump pumps and other protective measures to permanently deal with it.
Tip #7 - Home Owners Associations
Here's a good one! It's also one that can cut both ways, depending upon your personal preferences.
Home Owners Associations are designed to legally protect a specified group of homes from certain things determined by the body who formed the Association. Once you purchase a lot or an existing home in that area, you legally agree to abide by those regulations. In the event that you violate one of them you you can be forced, by law, to bring your property back in to compliance.
Depending on your personal preferences, this can be either a good thing or a bad thing.
Also, the Home Owners Association agrees to provide certain services or to enforce their rules. What if they are lax about doing this? Do you want the extra expense and hassle of trying to legally get them to fulfill their end of the contract.
We've seen it go both ways!
You need to ask yourself, how much control over my own property am I willing to give up in order to receive the benefits that I desire from this agreement? Am I willing to pay for it? Am I willing to abide by someone else's rules on my own piece of property? Do the benefits outweigh the costs?
Many people are wired so that they don't mind or actually enjoy the perks of living within this kind of agreement. Other people do not appreciate any outside body determining what they can and can't do with their own piece of property. Which category do you fall into? Make sure that you are fully aware of any HOA's and the restrictions that they will be imposing on your potential property. If not it could be very costly or at least create a lot of hassle.
Tip #8 - Snow Removal and Year Round Access
Investigate whether you will have year round access to your new property. Who plows the snow off of the roads? What costs are incurred to you for that service? Snow is the main concern here in our area of the country, but could there be other similar issues that will prevent you from using your potential property whenever you want to? If you arrive at your cabin only to find four feet of snow covering the entire quarter mile of driveway into it, no amount of shoveling that you can stand is going to get you into it!
Tip #9 - Views
This one is kind of a "no brainer" but we're going to mention it anyway. What are the views like from the actual spot where you can build your log cabin style home? Maybe the views from elsewhere on the property are excellent, but can you build where you can see them? Also are there other obstructions or eyesores on neighboring lots that you can't orient your house so that you don't have to look at them all of the time? It might be as simple as the neighbor's home. If you are trying to build a get-a-way, you might not want to have to look at your neighbor's home everyday, no matter how beautiful it is.
Just something to think about!
Tip #10 - Quality of the Neighbors
In today's politically correct climate this might not be the best thing to talk about, but it can be a real issue.
Are your neighbors neat and clean should be the obvious question. Do they make your get-a-way cabin actually an enjoyable experience? Or do the neighbors make it a mental workout just to go on vacation?
Will they object to the types of activities that you intend to use your property for? Maybe you like to ride atv's and motorcycles and they are bird watchers and conservationists and will frequently complain about your noise. Maybe it's exactly the other way around? Either way, we all have the right to enjoy our vacation property the way that we want to. Just be aware that obnoxious neighbors of any kind can ruin a perfectly good piece of property!
Also be aware of other types of neighbor problems. Are there industrial or mining activities too close by? Are there smelly farming or other types of activities nearby? Does your neighbor have their very own meth lab, pot farm, drug depot or whiskey still running on their property? You get the picture. These things are your responsibility to find out before you purchase your dream property!
Closing Thoughts
Remember, choosing the correct piece of property is your personal responsibility. Trying to change any of these things that we have mentioned in this article can be very expensive and time consuming if it is even possible at all.
Take your time to investigate before hand!
Above all, don't be the "new guy" who comes in and messes up the experience for everyone else who is already enjoying their property the way that they want to. If you don't like the circumstances in a particular neighborhood, then go look elsewhere. You will be much happier and will make a much better neighbor yourself!
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