Thinking of purchasing country acreage

Hi all, I found this forum while doing a bit of research on Google and was pleasantly surprised to find out it was an Australian site despite the .com name!

Anyway, the reason I have been researching is because my wife and I are currently looking at buying/investing in a country property which will primarily serve as a weekender. The property which we are currently looking at is a large acreage which has a fairly beat up house on it.

My plan is to subdivide it and potentially build a kit home on the empty lot, and probably to sell the lot where the current dwelling currently sits.

I have a few questions however;
- How much does it generally cost to subdivide? I did find another thread, but I just wanted to know if the main costs were getting water, electricity, sewerage etc connected.

- The current lot does not have either water or sewerage connected (it is on tank water + septic). I've called the local water authority and have found that it is financially prohibitive to connect sewerage so I will leave the septic tank as-is. How badly does a septic system negatively affect property price? (if at all)

- Town water will probably cost about $15k to connect as the mains have to be extended by roughly 40m. Again, if I were to leave the house connected to the existing rain water tanks without mains water, how badly would this affect property price?
 
I'm not an expert on the questions you pose, but I just had to welcome you to the forum, with a moniker like "fatrabbitbrain"... :D
 
Anyway, the reason I have been researching is because my wife and I are currently looking at buying/investing in a country property which will primarily serve as a weekender.?

Welcome - and which country is the property located in? :p

Depending on where it is you may not be able to subdivide smaller than the current size.

Cheers,

The Y-man
 
If the entire area has septic and rainwater, it won't affect the price. If its a mixed area with some mains, some sewer, some rainwater etc then if you've got dreadful old tanks and a dodgy soakage pit it might have an impact on price.

I have one house with rainwater + soakage pit in an area with only 7 houses on mainswater and another house with mains water + septic tank with STEDS in an area where that is mostly standard but there are still houses on soakage and rainwater. STEDS is better than plain septic, I don't know what it stands for but it means excess water from your septic tank magically goes to some evaporation pans a few kilometers away.
 
See? Magic :D

Was talking to my back neighbour about the dubious fence there, he reckoned he built it just before STEDS came through (30 years ago) so he had lots of tales to tell. And don't dig any big holes there *points*, that's the STEDS line. He was too old and deaf to explain that we were digging all these big holes *because* we need to trench to the STEDS ...

I try not to think about the plumbing at my old house. It goes somewhere mysterious, it doesn't smell, doesn't back up, and it makes my rosemary plants grow really big so I figure its a soakage pit.
 
Well the lot without the current dwelling on it would be for us, as a weekend - so more for lifestyle choice.

I am just wondering if it is worth the time and money to try and subdivide the block. The area predominantly has mains water and sewerage, and after speaking with the local water supplier, it turns out that the property which I am looking at is only 40m from where the mains water ends!!!! Apparently it costs $300-500 per meter to get that extended, so I would be looking at a minimum of $12k for the mains extension plus another $1.2k to get the property connected. Not sure if it is worth it.

I guess the dream is to have something not too far from Melbourne where we can have nice big gardens with an orchard of sorts...
 
Apparently it costs $300-500 per meter to get that extended, so I would be looking at a minimum of $12k for the mains extension plus another $1.2k to get the property connected. Not sure if it is worth it.

For that amount of money you can buy a hell of a water tank and a UV disinfection unit, and never pay council water rates/usage again.
 
I originally bought my old house as a weekender. My criteria was simply "north of Adelaide south of Hawker for < $25,000" (you can still fill this criteria today but you get a really hideous hovel for that price now and you'd be lucky to find one listing every 8-12 months).

If its a lifestyle thing, knock yourself out and just buy it if you like it.

Large polytanks are about $2000 each btw, get a few of those and you have a brilliant clean water supply, especially if your roof/gutters are clean and good and the rainfall is more than about 200mm a year. You'd be surprised how much you can catch from a large roof.
 
I bought myself a Weekender on a double block in Goughs Bay (on Lake Eildon near Mansfield and the high country) a few months ago. It has views over Lake Eildon. Its a lifestyle thing and at the moment I am renovating to put on the holiday rental market. Near the lake and man from snowy river country during summer and a short drive during winter to Mt Buller.

It has 5 water tanks and a septic. So me, the bayside city boy is now learning about country living. So far, I am having a ball.

I looked at buying 10-15 acres but decided it was too much effort for me.
 
Hah, both of my blocks are smallish (1800 and 1400sqm soon to be divided to 650 and 750sqm) and they're still work. Amazing how many weeds grow when you don't keep livestock. The other half never let me get a goat. We have a whippersnipper instead :(
 
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