posted 6 years ago
But for you specifically, trying to sell Homesteads and Permaculture Farms Only, you will have a real difficult time figuring out pricing, and this is my most frustrating part about real estate.
An outbuilding is an outbuilding, is an outbuilding. It does not really matter if it is a super nice insulated barn, or a lean too…they are assigned the same square footage price because it is “non-living space”. And items such as fences. My Real Estate Agent calls our 48 inch woven wire fence “convenient to a buyer”. Really? It took me three weeks to put up and cost $47,000…and it is merely “convenient?”
It just seems to me that there is just this huge injustice. A home is based up price, and so I have no issue with the price of my home, because it is what it is, but I think how ALL properties are valued is really messed up! I mean really messed up.
And I do not think buyers are to blame on that. Sure, they want a good deal, but many understand how much time and effort it takes to build houses, build barns, clear forest into field, build fences, and increase flock sizes. But I know many sellers, and buyers too, have had their dreams dashed when a Farm or Homestead appraisal comes back low because none of the things that really truly matter to a homesteader, farmer or permiculturist are given a value…not given a proper value mind you…but even assigned a value. Most times it is considered a negative reflection in value!
That all boils down to a great travesty. Whomever invested in these unique elements in sweat equity or financial investment, are glossed over. I mean $47,000 in sheep fencing…a person could buy a new vehicle in what I have invested in wire and fence posts, and it is not even reflected in the homes price! Yet because it is not given a value, it is unfinanceable.
What often happens is, a buyer loves a place because it has nice soil, fencing and a barn where they will spend 70% of their time, but because a place might not have a modernized kitchen or bathroom, what really matters like the barn, fencing and soil, is devalued, and what does not really matter like the kitchen further devalues the place, so that no financing can be obtained. The seller and buyer thus lose to a rather stupid system of evaluation.
If the financing world can get beyond that, a new system would start where people would be moving into houses they want to go to, and not merely accepting the places they can currently get funded for. You can never beat passion, NEVER! So not only would communities be stronger, but more food would be produced, and people would be happier over all instead of being stuck in places a bank determines they must live at.