A stale well

I spoke with our realtor today and he in turn has spoke with the seller's realtor. We are tentatively scheduled to visit the site in 9 days, not this coming weekend as I had hoped. Oh well, this gives our realtor time to do his job. He'll be better prepared which means we will be better prepared.

He told us that they had 8" of fresh snow today. And I was hoping for an early spring breakup.

One of the things we learned is that the well has been sitting unused for so long that it may be stale. Unusable. Which may mean digging a completely new well. We're guesstimating that this could cost anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000. I suppose this is our official initiation into possibly buying a rural property and the unexpected expenses that will arise. I also suppose this means that a water quality test will be one of our first steps. Is this an expense that the seller should pay? I don't know.

First steps

We are taking the first tentative steps in creating a cabin in the woods.

I stumbled on a real estate listing last week that sounds promising. A partially built house on 10 acres of property, in a rural location approximately fours hours from our home in the Vancouver suburbs. This location is off-the-grid so has no access to electricity. And no telephone although it may have cellphone coverage.

What the property does have is a (half) built house/cabin, a well and a huge generator. Also included are plans for a septic system, a building permit and potential rental income due to the nearby ski resort.

The property appears to have been on the market for several years. First the owner listed it by himself, and then it seems that he handed it to a professional realtor last fall. There have been atleast two price reductions that we can find via Google sleuthing. So perhaps we could get it at a good deal. I wonder if others are intimidated by the lack of creature comforts. Or having to finish the house. It's got a foundation, roof, doors, windows and studs in place. So a lot has to be finished including electrical, plumbing, drywall, bathroom, kitchen, wood stove and on and on.

Next step: a weekend road trip to view the site -- to see the area in person as I've never been there. The Husband (TH) has skied the nearby mountain and driven the road so he's one step ahead of me. The closest I can get is looking at highway traffic/weather cams a dozen kilometres away.

Let's see where this takes us. Will this property be the one or simply a bump in the road.