Finding The Perfect Horse Property

Always Looking For The Perfect New Home

I am ALWAYS looking for a new home. Even though I love our home, and we have been making improvements over the years to make it perfect, it still isn’t quite perfect. And the biggest reason for this is I do not have a ‘real’ barn. This is something I have wanted as long as we have lived in our home.

Our home is great, really. But it isn’t exactly what I have always dreamed of. It’s close, but not quite perfect. And as I continue to work with my horses more and more, I find myself wishing I had a real barn. A real barn, with real stalls that has electricity, and water. A tack room that was within my barn would be great too. And more property. I think we are needing more property, and less house. All of our children have grown up and moved away, and now 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and 3 living main living areas is a little too much. I would much rather have more outside space than inside space.

I Need My Unicorn

Over the past several years, I have looked at a lot of horse properties for sale. And I get myself all excited when I see the listing photos only to be disappointed when I get to the home. I think I must read more into it, hoping it is everything I really want. Or it could be that I am just extremely picky when it comes to what I want. About a year ago I gave an example of this when I officially started looking for my dream home. Let’s just say it wasn’t my dream home, and my husband was less than impressed.

But I think it’s more that what we have is nice, and I am not going to settle, it’s just not worth it. Moving is hard, especially if you haven’t done it in 12 years.

It’s also frustrating for me because we have made improvements in our own home in order to make it the best that it can be, like new windows, room updates, complete system updates and property updates like improving the barn we have, a riding arena, fencing, and it has mostly been professionally done. I like doing DIY projects, but I leave the big jobs to the professionals. And then when I go look at a potential new home, I am always let down by the half-assed work that has been done. And the kicker to that is even though they slapped some lipstick on a pig, there are issues. But horse properties are so few and far between people will over pay for a property.

Finding The Perfect Horse Property

Like I said in the beginning, I am always looking for our forever home. So that means I have come up with a list of must haves that would entice me to leave my current home. And I should point out that my husband absolutely loves our current home. Especially with all of the improvements we have done. So before I can even convince him to be open to the idea, there are some must haves that need to be met.

Must Haves

• A real barn with stalls (at least 2)
• Tack room
• 5 or more acres – fully fenced (2 acres is just not enough)
• Fenced backyard for the dogs (a necessity by for my husband to love it)
• Attached garage (I have always had this, and love it)
• Central Air conditioning (I am not going without this)
• 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (2 just ins’t enough, but 4 is too many)
• Good windows (we just replaced ours with Renewal by Anderson, enough said)
• Coat closet by entry (I don’t have this now, and want it)
• Master bathroom (we converted a closet into our master bath, and I love it)
• No HOA (I don’t think I need to explain why)
• Riding Arena (we just made ours amazing, I will not be without an arena again)
• Wood stove insert (we have finally gotten this installed in our home, and it is amazing)
• Trees (my husband will not move to a barren piece of land)

Now I may sound like a snob with my must have list, but this is what I need to have in order for me to even contemplate leaving my current home. Ask me again after a hard winter, and my list will probably be a lot shorter.

Nice To Have, But Not A Deal Breaker If Not There

• Shorter commute to work
• Updated kitchen
• Updated panel doors throughout
• White trim
• Wood flooring
• Main floor laundry
• Natural gas (vs. propane)
• Underground power (no overhead utility lines)
• Around 3000 sq ft in the home
• Garden
• Heated Barn (I can dream right?)
• Water source in the barn
• Granite counter tops in the kitchen

All of these things are things I would be willing to deal with, if they aren’t there. I really love having natural gas in our current home. But if my dream home came along and had everything except natural gas, I would be willing to concede that.

And with all of the videos I make for my YouTube channel, having options for filming is helpful. The more places I can film, the better. A lot of natural light is always a good thing for videos.

My husband has an at home business, so he needs his space as well. If he doesn’t have his trees, he isn’t moving. And he is the gardener in our family, so having a garden is a definite plus, and a nice one could potentially convince him to move.

And I know that if I had a real barn, with stalls, a tack room, and an aisle way, that would be awesome. With electricity and water of course.

And all of the photos that I am sharing with you in this post are photos of a potentially good property. It does tick off everything on my must have list.

There is even a virtual tour of the property. But what is a little concerning is there are no photos of the 3 bathrooms. And the house is priced about $100,000 over the zillow estimate of what the home is potentially worth. That isn’t a complete deal breaker. But after we had our home refinanced last year, I have found that zillow is pretty good at knowing what a property is worth.

So I guess that means I am going to have to call my realtor, and schedule a showing of this house. It is close to perfect, at least in what I see online. I guess I will have to go check out the bathrooms for myself.

The good news is we have done remodels on bathrooms before. So if we did have to update a bathroom or two, well, I think I can handle that.

And maybe since they have a super high price, maybe other people won’t be interested? Or might find something else before looking at this house. So maybe, that would give us some time to finish the projects on our own home before we have it ready to list.

I am a big believer in everything happens for a reason. And if we are meant to move into this house, it will happen.

And now the hard part, I have to go discuss this with my husband….I could call this home, I wonder if he could?