Let's Make a Deal

So many questions!  So many decisions!  

First of all the four of us kept saying to each other...do you really want to move way out there?  It's so far from our families.  In reality, it's only about 20 minutes from Eagle and 30 minutes from Boise to the property, but it seems like another country in some ways.  It would be a long commute for the guys to get to work every day.   At the same time, the idea of a slower paced, more down to earth, less crowded life was so appealing.   We went back and forth, trying to weigh out all the pros and cons.  

We finally decided that we didn't want to move out there by ourselves, so unless P and D wanted to move out there too, it would be a deal breaker.   We've lived by each other several times and really like being neighbors.  I know that may seem strange to some people, but we are so blessed to be best friends with our relatives. We really didn't think it would be much fun for us to move out there without them to share the adventure with us.  And, luckily, they came to the same conclusion!

Showing my dad the property

The next step was to find out if we could even build houses where we wanted to in relation to the river and the flood plain.  The realtor said you could build at the high water mark, but exactly where was that, officially?  The guys tried to get information but it was very confusing and there are several different maps that the different offices use.  It became pretty clear that we were going to have to have a surveyor come out and map this all out for us.  A big fear was that we would get pretty far into this process and then find that we would have all sorts of regulations and legalities that would restrict us from building our vision.

We also started adding up the cost of developing the land.  It's completely undeveloped!  We would have to bring in utilities, put in a well and septic system and put in a road..a long road from the main street.  In the picture at the right, the guys are standing near the east end of the property by the main road and behind them, way in the distance you can see a line of trees near the river.  That's a long road to put in and a long way to string in power.

 We were beginning to see why this parcel of land had never sold.  It was bare ground and had so much work to do just to make it ready to build houses on.  The news we got back from the power company wasn't good.  They would have to bring a lot of line in and the cost was hard to swallow. 

 Mike had really hoped to go almost completely solar and we still hope to do some solar power, but the more he looked into it and the fact that his brother wasn't too interested in it, meant extra expense since we had made a joint decision to split the cost of bringing power from the main road to the potential building sites. 

After much discussion, the decision was made to go forward with making an offer on the two 12 acre parcels.  We wanted the two side by side, 12.5 acre parcels that are shaped like long, narrow rectangles, stretching down through pasture land to the river.  

The offer went in and we waited on pins and needles.  Would this actually happen?  I absolutely hate that waiting time!   Well the time listed in the offer for them to respond by came...and went.   No counter offer...nothing.  Silence.  

After a couple of days, Mike called the realtor back to see what the story was and was told that the offer was not close enough to what the owner wanted and so he didn't even want to counter back.  Ouch!  SO disappointing.  It looked like the river house dream was not to be. I'll admit I shed a few tears at this point.

A week later the boys got to talking and thanks to Pat's connections and friendly, good ole boy charm, they were able to have a better idea of how to make another offer that would be better received.  There was still hope!  

Two days later, a new offer was submitted with a few conditions on our part.  One condition was that a surveyor would need come out to the property and determine if we could build exactly where we wanted to.  


Carl, the surveyor came and marked the corners and told us we were out of the 500 year flood plain, so we could build basically anywhere on the property.  The other parcel was a little lower and it would take a little more paperwork to get that approved to build anywhere, but it was doable or they could build a little further back.

Discussing the corner pins and flood plain map with the surveyor.

 The offer was accepted and we should close on it in March. 

And that's how we ended up with two side by side parcels of river front land on a beautiful little river in Idaho.  

Follow along as we build the little river house of our dreams...it should be quite an adventure!

Next up: Making plans...house plans!