Are you contemplating a move to the country?

Maybe you are thinking about buying land now to build your country estate for the future. Maybe you are starting to consider getting out of the city or suburbs once you retire...or maybe you are looking for a country vacation property to use now during holidays and move to permanently in the future.

Considering the state of the economy at the moment, you either can't afford to move or, can't afford not to. This is not an ideal situation.

"To market, to market...."

However, if you are in the market for a country property and do have the funds available, there may never be a better time to start some serious research. Country property can quite often be, because of size alone, expensive to maintain. Many people who bought country property in the past have potentially had to change jobs and relocate and may not be able to keep their weekend cottage any longer. This can be the ideal moment for a buyer like yourself to enter the picture.

These properties will be viewed as "disposable" to owners who may be forced to make rapid changes to relocate or even maintain their primary residence. It is not taking advantage of the situation if you are helping someone solve their problem - and finding a good value for yourself at the same time.

There can be many reasons for beginning research on country real estate as varied as those doing the looking.

A little story...once upon a time...

My search started because I was tired of hearing neighbors - their stereos, their leaf blowers, their kids, their dogs...

No matter how I tried to reconfigure my landscaping to get a little privacy on three-quarters acre of property, I could not get the peace and quiet I really needed and wanted. Other "homebodies" will appreciate these sentiments...since we appreciate and actually enjoy being at home and would prefer to spend time there more than anywhere else.

Since I was working a full-time job in the nearest city of Raleigh, North Carolina - which was already a 25-mile each way commute, I figured I would start by circling outward of the city and estimated how far I could get from my home in an hour or less. Worst case scenario would at least give me a chance to get to any property on the occasional weekend for the time being, and a potential move to the country later would be relatively easy. Let the games (and the research), begin...

The selection process

I first identified, using the highly recommended City-Data.com, local county information and zip codes for the towns I had decided were within my selected distance parameter. This research gave me five possible counties and about 40 zip codes. I did some further culling and decided on two counties and about 10 potential areas by zip code. I had also decided I wanted a minumum of 5 acres and in a perfect real estate world, a small pond or a stream on the property.

Realtor.com was my first attempt at finding country property

The site has a enormous amount of property listings with pictures and, more important to my, the ability to select desired property size and type. Unfortunately, the majority of the properties in the areas I was researching where too "in-town" or in subdivisions or developments - not what the search for peace and quiet is looking for....

I spent a lot of spare-time hours on the site and did not find what I was looking for, but was referred to some realtors and other web sites which advertised the type of property I wanted...one of which was LandWatch.com

This is the motherlode of web sites for country and rural properties. Undeveloped land, commercial properties, land with homes, waterfront, lakes, beaches...you name it.

You can narrow your search by country - and I mean BY country, by price, by parcel size and type, and even by suggested activity such as hunting or fishing or whether or not you need room for a private jet runway! You can also find properties up for auction along with properties for sale.

Below is a partial screenshot of one of the LandWatch recent featured properties:

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Greater Access to Real Estate Information - Worldwide

In the last 5 to 10 years, there have been a lot of new additions on the Internet that make this kind of research much easier to do. One of the latest is HomeExchange, where you can make yourself at home anywhere in the world, live like a local, and and stay for FREE. They currently offer over 28,000+ Worldwide in 120 countries and have over 50,000 members.

This provides a good opportunity to live in a country house, in the country - no matter WHICH country - as if you were living there full time. Give yourself a chance to experience the local ambiance as the locals do.

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There are many other resourceful web sites including United Country where you can search via State, Farm, Ranch and Agricultural property or even Historic or Lakefront. The possibilities are endless, but there are a few other important things to know about buying country property such as zoning concerns and usage permits, well and septic issues, internet access or even availability - all of which are soon to be discussed on this web site.

There is a good bit of information already available about country living in general via Rose Cottage Ltd.

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Still think you prefer a country vacation more than a country residence? Then head back to things that may prove useful when planning your country vacation including a quiz to test your vacation personality, a handy starter list of things to consider about where you want to go and what you want to do, along with some luggage options and suggestions, and a thought or two about securing your main home-base property so things will remain secure there while you are on your country vacation.

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Questions? Comments? Please email us here.

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