Since learning more about the three acre lot with the higher water table, my free time has been partially taken up by doing research into what that means, and what it would mean to build in such a condition. The over all answer seems to be more cost because of having to bring in extra fill. Basically in suck a condition, you’ll end up putting the basement floor on what is the current top layer of dirt, or just a bit under it. You then build everything like normal, and bring in new dirt and fill to raise the new ground level up to where the first floor of the house now ends up. As a side effect of that, and for cost reasons, you usually also always have a walkout basement. Why spend the money for that fill that you don’t need to actually have? There are also, depending on the specific conditions, possibly also some additional requirements around some additional structural stabilization stuff. Beyond that, it’s more about managing the water on the property, which is something you better be doing anyway. Water is one of the worst things that can happen to a house.

Knowing that there is no guarantee on this land (we still haven’t heard back from the developer yet), we continue to look at some other land that we have found as well in our searches. We’ve found another lot that is about 1.5 acres that we really like as well. We will probably take a drive by and maybe a walk on it too to scope it out this weekend. It’s in a new development so there aren’t any other houses, so I doubt anyone will notice our little walk or get suspicious.

Looking for land is an interesting thing. Obviously you can use MLS stuff like our realtor is doing for us with searches set up to notify us, but I wish there was a place to go for people who are doing the for sale by owner route. It seems like you have to just happen across those by accident almost. We’ve seen a few, but haven’t been interested enough in the area or look of the land to give them s call. But if we hadn’t been driving along and saw it…I wonder how much longer those types of land take to sell?