Country Property and Acreage Homesites
All About Wells
by John Price on 07/07/10
All About Wells
I have had several types of water in my lifetime. When I was a kid, we had a cistern and carried water from a spring. I had public water in my last home, and I have a well now. I would not recommend getting water from a spring or cistern (both common sources of drinking water in rural areas 60 years ago), but both public water and a well have advantages.
First, you should know that much of our public water comes from big wells and that the St. Louis area has some of the best public water in the nation. If you live in Arnold, Imperial, Barnhart or other parts of northern Jefferson County, your water comes from one of two sources. One is local wells. The other is treated water from the Mississippi River. The water sources are mixed up, treated with chemicals and piped to your door. You pay a hookup fee and have to take it from the water main to your home. It might cost $1000 or more to hook up and run the line to your home, and then you get a water bill of $30 to $50 per month. Professionals test your water for safety and add chemicals. You have water outages when there is a major line break or something happens to a water district pumping station or well. All in all, it is a great and dependable source of water, yet much of it comes from wells. Some water districts rely totally on wells.
If you have a private well, you are on your own. A professional well driller will have drilled it and tested for safety and purity. No chemicals added and I believe it tastes better. No water bills, but maybe $3 to $4 per month in extra electricity bills. If your power goes out, you lose your water after a short time.
Private well versus public water? Both have their advantages. Both are generally safe supplies of drinking water. Both are dependable, yet either can fail. And both depend on wells.
So what is a well?
A well is a hole in the ground that goes to an underground water supply. Public wells go deeper than private wells as the various aquifers (underground supplies of water) are generally set aside for public versus private use. Steel casing goes in the hole for a prescribed number of feet by regulation for both public and private wells. It is to insure purity and to protect against pollutants. Pumps are placed in the ground. You turn on your faucet and water comes out.
I have had lots of questions about wells through the years. The big one is, "If I drill a well, will I get safe water?" The answer in this part of the country is nearly always a very strong "YES". We are blessed with a good water supply that is well mapped, given a very few exceptions. Any competent well driller can estimate within a couple of hundred dollars what a complete system will cost you. They have records of their own work. Records are now required to be registered with the state. The risk is mostly gone.
There are two basic components of the cost of a well. One is the drilling and it is on a per foot basis. The other is the casing, pump, etc. and that cost is pretty much fixed depending on how much water you need. My point is that a 400 feet deep well does not cost twice as much as a 200 feet deep well. Maybe it costs 20% more.
A well and pump system needs to be designed by a competent well driller. This is not an advertising piece, so I am not naming names; but a competent driller I have worked with for years told me that over sizing unused supply cuts the life of the pump. I did it anyway, knowing what I was getting into. On my personal home, it is only my wife and I. But it is designed so that if 4 kids, 3 kids in law, 4 grandkids, and my wife and I all decide to take a shower at the same time with laundry in the washing machine and dishes in the dishwasher, we have plenty of water. Supply is not an issue with a properly designed well in this part of the country.
Suppose you are looking a two pieces of land. One has public water and the other requires a private well. You like them both. Should public water versus a well be an issue to you on your purchase decision, all other things being equal? I personally feel it is not an issue, or at the most an extremely minor issue.
It is a matter of economics and personal preference. I have studied this in the past and I have test marketed based on my assumptions. My conclusions are anecdotal, but have been pretty consistent. Suppose the water hookup is about $1000 for public water and well costs about $7000. That is a $6000 difference in upfront costs for water. I personally believe that the land with public water is worth about $3000 more (or half the cost of the well versus public hookup) than the land that requires a well. That is the balance between upfront costs versus monthly savings. Market price generally accounts for the difference. The land without public water will be just a little cheaper.
With a well you have the greater upfront costs, but you do not have a water bill. From there it can be just personal preference. I like the taste of the water from my private well much better than drinking public water. Dependability is about the same. Both sources are “hard” water as they have some calcium in the water. If you like “soft” water, you have to buy a water softener either way.
We are very fortunate in this part of the Ozarks that private wells are a great option versus public water. In other parts of Missouri or in other states, private wells may not be such a good option.
Here, wells are a great option and the availability of public water should not be a major factor in your land purchase decision. But just to be safe, give a reputable well driller a call as part of your due diligence on purchasing that perfect piece of property.
Check out my country properties on this website. Some have public water and some require wells.
All are great values.
Financing is Readily Available for Home Sites for Custom Homes
by John Price on 07/07/10
Financing is Readily Available for Home Sites for Custom Homes
Financing on small acreages and lots is readily available. I cannot remember more than one or two customers being rejected in the last 4 or 5 years by banks I routinely deal with. You just have to know where to look.
If you call a big bank and say you want to buy 2 or 3 acres from me for a custom home, you might get a cold shoulder. If you call the right bank you will get a warm welcome. I cannot name names, but the big nationwide and regional banks do not understand the local product or the local customer.
My product is an oversized lot or a small acreage sold to the end user for a custom home. I cannot remember the last loan turn down when a customer went to a bank I recommended. I have at least 3 banks I deal with locally that know my product and my customer. Down payment requirements vary from 10% to 20% down. Amortizations can be stretched out to 20 years or more, but there will be a balloon payment or interest adjustment in 3 to 10 years. The initial rate will vary depending on how long you want the rate fixed.
Feedback from customers tells me that their ultimate decision on which bank was based some on rates and terms, and a lot on a personality match with the bank. Rates and terms of any bank I send you to will be very competitive. Personality is personality.
The banks don’t really make much money on the land purchase loans. But they recognize that a land purchase customer is likely to be a good long term customer and they hope to make your home construction loan. They want your long term business, they trust my product; and the combination of those two facts makes it work.
If you have good credit, you can get a good loan from a good local bank to buy that special piece of property for your dream home.
John Price
All About Land Surveys!
by John Price on 07/07/10
The general purpose of a land survey is so that both the property owner and the public know where property boundaries are. They are marked on the ground. It sounds pretty simple, but very quickly gets complicated.
Imagine a survey on a typical subdivision lot. Maybe it is 100 feet wide and 120 feet deep. Put in 4 corner markers and you have the corners clearly marked. (We call them pins and they are actually steel rods 1/2 inch in diameter. In older surveys, it might be a pile of rocks, a fencepost, a flat rock with an "X" on it, or some other marker.)
Now imagine 5 acres. 5 acres is approximately 330 feet by 660 feet. (Just round numbers, as shapes may vary.) Pop in 4 pins and you have a legal survey. But wait a minute. There is no way you can see 660 feet through heavy woods and up and down hills from one corner to the next. One type of survey just puts in the 4 corners, and that is perfectly legal as it can be recreated by the next surveyor. We, in our business, put in intermediate points on a straight line and chop through the brush so that the owner can actually see where the line is. It costs us more, but it lets our customer know where his property lines are.
Sometimes improvements to the property such as utilities or buildings may need to be located. I recently sold a lot of about 13 acres that had a pipe line going through it. Now 13 acres is a lot of land, and a pipeline is pretty small unless it is in the wrong place. My customer wanted a large garage way back from his house, yet accessible. The pipeline was an issue. Because it was clearly marked on the survey, it raised questions from our customer on whether or not the land would work for him. Because it was clearly marked, our customer looked on the ground and said it was not an issue; and he bought the land. This kind of detail will take the surveyor more time and a fee will be charged to do this, but it could be beneficial to the land owner.
Surveys are very important, but you must always ask yourself what information you personally need from the survey. An existing survey does not mean you have the information you need.
In our business we pride ourselves in making the survey useful and meaningful to the customer; versus saying "Surveyed."
I do know that it is very beneficial to a land owner to have the lines marked, versus just having points on all the corners.
Surveying technology has dramatically changed over the last few years. They used to use a transit (An expensive and very accurate compass.) and a tape. (Literally a long tape measure.) There was a great deal of skill involved in measuring as surveys measure horizontal distances versus slopes up and down a hill. Imagine holding a 100 foot tape level while you are standing halfway up a hill and the other guy is 5 feet below you. It was a real skill and is rapidly becoming a lost art.
Now imagine a 20 year old survey done with the tools described above. The north line of the 5 acres might be labeled 330.5 feet. A pin is set at each end of the measurement. Now imagine a new survey with GPS and laser measuring devices. That new measurement between pins might be 330.1 feet. It is only a few inches different and a tribute to the skill of the old surveyors. The new survey changes the measurement but not the pin location. You DO NOT move the pin. The corner is where the monument was placed 20 years ago.
I have bought land without a survey, but I have done it with great care. Aerial photos, fences, roads, and other land marks generally define a large piece of property, but not always. And I have been burned. Once a road moved and I had to buy a 10 feet wide strip at great cost to have legal road access. A survey would have been cheaper. (Roads move all the time over time. Especially the old gravel roads. The grader operator moved it a little every time he graded the road.)
If you are buying a platted lot in a newer subdivision, you have a survey. If it is still well marked, you are probably fine. But what if the neighbor's 10 year old fence cuts across the land you are buying and puts that important spring on the wrong side of the fence?
My advice is that you may not need a new survey every time. My advice is to ask a registered land surveyor and get good advice for the current set of facts. And use some common sense. Just remember it is an important issue.
Robert Frost in his classic poem "Mending Wall" wrote "Good fences make good neighbors." He could just as well have said "Good surveys make good neighbors."
