Reasons to NOT buy Property

We just made a major life decision, it’s scary I know. We actually decided to NOT follow through with our dream of buying a large rural homesteading property. I’ll share with you why, and quite frankly I don’t think you should either.

Just down the road a beautiful chunk of land with a perfect size family home filled with old 1030’s farmhouse country character and charm has come up for sale.

It’s at the end of a long curvy driveway off the road, situated on 42 acres. You can’t see the road from the house but you can see Mount Arrowsmith, a stunning local landmark. Amongst the wooded lot there’s a slow running creek and a little footpath that makes me think of Terrabithia and how the boys would love to play there.

If we played our cards right, we could get ourselves there and still owe what we do on our current mortgage.The boys would each have their own room. I could have my craft room and a separate bathroom from the boys.

We’d have a massive deck to entertain with family and friends and a cozy little studio we could rent out on air bnb. There would be more than enough room for our cows and chickens with a little work. I’d only have to paint to make it feel like ours.

Earlier I shared with you our dream property that recently came up for sale. BUT we aren’t buying it, we aren’t putting an offer in and I’m not a tad upset about it!

I’m not upset about this decision probably because we are currently on our little weekend getaway and I have a clearer mindset to think about this opportunity. We also have breathing room from chores to actually talk about big life decisions.

Here’s why we aren’t taking any further steps to buying our dream homesteading property

We discussed the answers to the questions we asked ourselves when buying our first homesteading property and there were just too many red flags. Here is why we aren’t buying our dream property and you shouldn’t either.

We are thirty.

Ewww! In our twenties we had incredible strength, time and the motivation needed to turn our current 10 acres into a good enough place to call home.

The boys are both under two.

So now is the time to live the life we’ve established for ourselves. It took us 11 years to get to this destination, I’m not going to get caught up in what everyone else has and just enjoy what we do.

Pay off the mortgage.

By staying put we are actually much closer to paying off our mortgage. We’d rather pay off our mortgage in our thirties and do more in our forties.

Gratitude.

It’s not worth the loss of what we do have. When we sold our first city rancher I mourned that home for three years. I could drive by it, I had dreams about waking up and being in it’s walls. I remember with great joy painting the walls inside and out and taking only a few steps to hang out in the shop and do our projects together.

Wherever you are, unless it’s a negative and dangerous place, If you’re happy stay there.

There seems to be such a trend in wanting more than what you have. The pull to have in all by the end of your twenties is painful.

Now that I’m on the verge of my thirties, I have a forget it attitude and am embracing that good enough is good enough and it’s a beautiful place to be.

Homestead Anywhere

If you dream of property solely to build a Homesteading lifestyle like me, I suggest learning to embrace simple living in your current home and determine what sustainable goals your family has and how you plan to meet them.

You can Homestead where ever you are,the ideas and tutorials are endless. You don’t need more space to do more.

Sure you can’t have cows on 1 acre but you can have chickens and goats.

if you want cows, you can always sponsor a Highland cow. It’s totally a thing, our friends at Happy Hens and Highlands offer this service!

you can’t have a large greenhouse in the do backyard of your apartment but you can have a container garden and grow just as much.

Do what you can and support others that do as well. Don’t have a goat to milk and make soap, buy goats milks soap from.

In the end, that property is still for sale but probably not for long.

I do want a super cool neighbour to share a cup of sugar with so if you are ready to take the dive, jump in and start really Homesteading then I dare you to look at Sonja’s listing. 

She is the most humble loyal and real real estate agent we worked with for 6 years with.

At 22, we knew long term we wanted acreage. But it wasn’t quite in our reach freshly out of university. So she helped us find our perfect rancher as we kept our eye out for the Ranch life Homestead we dreamt of

It was the hard work required project we were looking for. And it’s taken us the rest of our twenties to make it good enough for our thirties.

Whatever decision you choose to make, I wish you much joy in your Homesteading adventure. Tell me your thoughts below by commenting on this post. Is it worth buying your dream property?

Other posts you might enjoy:

What is Modern Homesteading?

10 Questions to ask when buying a homesteading property