Making Lists: Part 1 – This is a CRITICAL step!

So, as my first project looking for the best property for me, I spent not months, but years with my wife discussing what we wanted and needed on a property. Those elements are very subjective and personal to each purchaser. So I wanted to give a quick rundown of what our process of thinking was. You'll find some lists of ideas and tools here that really helped us decide on our future, a VERY important decision.

First, we had to think of what we WANTED and what we really NEEDED. Do not allow yourself to confuse the two meanings. Those lines start to blur very quickly when you're excitement starts to ramp up when you really get into the possibilities of what land could mean for you. All of the examples given here are things that were for us personally, and chances are they will not be exactly what you want, which is why I can't stress enough, this is completely subjective, so only use this to help inspire further thought into what YOU may want or need.

We decided to create a list of what we wanted first off and compared our notes. Those items that we both individually had that matched each others or that we felt strongly about we kept on the list and started to narrow down our wants. Remember, the wants list is where your imagination goes wild, think big! It's the perfect world list. But, that narrowed list eventually becomes your "needs" list. While I don't have our exact notes any longer, this is the list that I can remember for wants.

WHAT WE WANTED:

1. 20 or more acres of land
2. Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S.A.
3. To be close to the ocean and mountains
4. Water source on the property (Creek, river, stream, etc.)
5. Access off of a main road
6. Public water/sewer/electrical (or at very least septic and water well installed)
7. Old wooded area
8. Historical area
9. Old building or structure that we could renovate
10. Under $85,000 budget
11. Weather, not too hot and not too cold

The above list is what I can really remember, and a lot of these fell into one of the last lists we created for our wants. This started to translate into our "needs" list, but as you'll see, the "needs" begin to get fine tuned as well.

After many hard looks and re-writes of our lists, we narrowed it down. And I would say more than half of our "wants" on the list above would never become a reality. Please remember, that you can have everything you want if your budget is high enough, but our budget was one of the biggest things we had to seriously consider and that one change, changed much of what we ended up with on our "needs" list.

NEEDS (Rough Final)

1. Budget: Less than $50,000 for vacant land, or more depending on if it was with a structure.
2. Wooded area
3. 10 or less acres of land
4. Access to a main road

So there you have it. A rough idea of what our final list would look like for our absolute NEED to have property list. For a breakdown of what we were thinking in the narrowing of our wants to needs, keep on reading!

Some product links are Amazon Affiliate links. Thank you for your support!