Things to Check Out Before Buying Your Dream Country Property
As a custom home builder in Calgary, we know that buying an Acreage Property can be a joyful experience. There are however plenty of considerations before your pack and leave urban life.
If you’re still in the planning stages of moving to a rural property, or just simply dreaming of country living, with wildlife just outside your window, you should first think about some urban city living niceties that you might be giving-up such as the Internet access, power disruptions, and garbage pick-up, just to mention a few! Especially if you plan to work from your country living home, or if you plan to set up an “acreage business”! Then there are a few things to think about.
Make sure that you can get access to high-speed internet
Check out the monthly cost of rural Internet when buying an acreage property.
If you don’t do some homework up-front you may find that getting internet service in the “middle of nowhere” might be a bigger deal than you think.
In most cases you can get “some type” of internet, However, certain providers only have very limited download/speed capability, or can only provide internet through a landline (VERY SLOOOOW), or you may need to hook-up with a satellite dish type internet which can really add up! Not having a “good connection” might make your ability to work from home difficult if you didn’t do your homework first!
You need to call local internet service providers as soon as you fall in love with the acreage site of your dreams and find out what packages are available, and what they cost. , BEFORE you sign on the dotted line of a land purchase agreement. Many rural areas, especially here in Alberta can have very limited internet services.
Power Outage Research
My wife and I have been living the acreage dream for some 20 years now, so we have kind of learned to live with the issue of power outages once in a while. At the present time, we are with FORTIS, and they have been great to deal with. Even though candlelight dinners with a wood-burning fire sounds romantic, your freezer and fridge may not like it when the power goes out!
However, if you’re running a business from home, power outages can ruin your day, especially if you get a power surge, and it fries your electronics. This is where a small investment into power surge protectors is real cheap insurance!
Before you decide to close on a country property, check with your local electrical utility, also with the new neighbours, about the history of power outages in the area. Not only can power outages interrupt your work at home ideas, but you can also suffer from power “sags”, meaning your electronics may be getting “some power” not getting enough power. it’s the power sags, not the power spikes, that can take out electrical equipment, these power sags can be caused by a number of things, but the most common is trees and their branches that get too close to power lines.
Bottom line – if the power in the area is super unreliable, and you plan to be working from home, you’ll need to either reconsider the property or spend some time and money ensuring you have stable back-up power systems. We’ll talk about that later on. Even if the electrical outage history in your area is pretty good, get yourself a high-quality surge/sag protector.
Once you do have your place built make sure you keep the meter number handy along with the electrical provider’s phone number, preferably keep this information a place you can easily find in limited candlelight, this meter number is how your electrical supplier knows where the power is out, and how to find you to get your power restored
Check out alternate home office solutions for when the power goes out For all the reasons above, you’ll want to find another place to work from on those days the power isn’t restored within a short period of time. If you’re planning for back-up power, or your new property will be running on solar power or some other system, you might not need this option as much. However, an alternate “office” option could be critical to your work-at-home revenue.
Before you buy your new property, check around the nearest town to see if there are any coffee shops, or small business hubs with wireless internet, or a local library that will most likely have internet hook-up. To avoid the possibility that if the power is out at your house, it may also be out in the town, check to see if the power grid in your area is set up in such a way that everything doesn’t all go out at once. That’s something you can ask the power company.
Does Your Dream Property Pass the minimum smell Test?
The following list is a few more things to consider after you have checked off the first few items listed above. These should also be checked off your ‘to-do’ list before you decide on a property so that your planned acreage lifestyle and or work at home country office adventure will all roll out with fewer unpredicted problems than you had originally planned for! Some of the toughest adjustment?”
- Many more mice get in your home than in an urban area.”
- “No pizza delivery!”
- Trip to the grocery store can be much farther away, and you need to do more bulk buying (which can save you money)
- Blocked in by snow, especially if you end up with a long Rural Driveway
- “No high-speed DSL.”
- In the country- the friendships are just “different.”
- “Not having your next-door neighbour living right next to you.”
- “Living with the fact that when the power goes out… so does the water from the well.
- “Learning how to fix things. Tradespeople are few and far between, and not many want to come out in the boonies and if they do they tend to charge you a premium.
- Most people underestimate the extra drive time if you need to just pick up some small thing at the store.”
- Emergency response time can be considerably longer, if you have health problems and the nearest hospital ___ ?___ Kilometres away, it could end up being a life or death situation with limited to no access to immediate transportation. This is where getting to know the local emergency personnel and who the neighbours are who can help!
- Cell phone reception can be an issue! Check with the providers in the area
- “Garbage pick-up” can be an issue, you might have to hail your own trash to the dump
yourself. - “Not having “take-out” as an option when you just don’t want to cook at home
- “Small towns roll up the sidewalks at dark” however, you probably wanted the piece an quiet and need to learn to adjust and slow down.
- “Not being able to just “run to the store”, whether for a missing ingredient or when a the fix-it project hits a snag.”
- Access to the Fire Department can add substantially to your home insurance if the Fire Hall is conserved too far away for your insurance company, you should check first with your insurer to see what they cover off!
