While everyone else is busy decorating and doing their holiday shopping, we’ve been out perusing the real estate market and doing some homestead shopping. Being the frugal minded shopper, I realized that this time of year is a buyer’s market with some good real estate deals to be found.
The properties that are currently for sale in our area are ones that either have sat on the market for months not selling for one reason or another or the owners need to sell quickly due to reasons like foreclosure or divorce.
Our goal in looking for a different home is to find a new space that is better suited for full time homesteading and self-sufficient living. Our current home and small plot of land have allowed us to do some homesteading but we are limited in space. As we’ve embarked on this homestead shopping adventure, a few weeks ago I sat down and outlined the items on my homestead wish list to help us narrow our focus.
Homestead Wish List:
- More land with better sun exposure than our current home to grow more food
- Space for chickens and maybe one day a pig
- A root cellar for storing canning jars and produce we raise
- A pantry with adequate space to store all of our bulk food items
- A deep well to provide water for our gardens
- Space for several fruit trees
- Enough land to grow produce and raise animals but still have a fenced area for the dogs and a grassy yard for us to enjoy
- A nice sized kitchen with plenty of counter space since I spend so much time cooking and baking everyday
- Space for a small-medium sized greenhouse to help us expand our short growing season
- Must be located less than an hour from town since I will continue to work part time two days each week in town.
- Must be easily accessible year round. This may sound like an odd requirement, but this is Montana! Several of the off grid properties with land in our price range must be accessed by several miles on a snowmobile in winter!
Here are a few bonus items on our list, not a “must have” but things we would prefer:
- An old fixer upper house with lots of character and history so we can work on it and build good old sweat equity!
- A garage/shop for my husband’s wood working shop and wrenching on our old trucks (we’ll have to build one if the new property does not have one)
- Established berry bushes and perennial flowers are definitely a bonus!
- A roof with some south facing sun exposure so we can install solar panels on the roof instead of on a stand in the yard
What qualities and characteristics do you look for in your ideal homestead?
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Good luck on finding a home with everything you marked on your wishlist! I can’t wait until we are able to settle down, right now Hubby is in the service, so we have many more moves in our future.
I wanted to invite you to join our weekly Sunday and Monday Meet & Greet Blog hop if you get a chance this weekend.
Come link up and join the fun:
http://createdbylaurie.blogspot.com/2012/12/sunday-monday-meet-greet-blog-hop_22.html
Happy Holidays!
Hi Annie,
Have you decided to keep looking or to do some work to the current place? Best wishes with your homesteading journey!
Great question, we really aren’t sure what to do! One day we think we should move, the next day we think we should stay. We know at some point we definitely want more land but the land we can afford would mean an hour plus commute to town for my part time job and I’m just not sure I’m ready to do that!
Thats a great list! I wish our current property was a bit more like you described but we are managing.
See what we’re up to at: http://www.kshippee.blogspot.com
There is this really great place outside of Whitehall that sounds almost exactly like what you are talking about. She and her husband really need to move close to Bozeman due to her husbands health.
Orr, Milly
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Great list! I’m looking forward to the day when I can turn my dream home list into a wish list for a real home.
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