For Sale. Eveything Is On Sale

A few weeks ago while walking the property I took some snapshots of sale signs...they're all over the place. Here's one I thought could be a deal. Right smack dab on top of the hill overlooking Cartecay Valley. There's a total of 12 acres but can be split. At the bottom of the hill is a creek that may run about two feet in width most of the time. Price? $15 K per acre but I'll bet that can be whittled down. Rumor has it the owner may be desperate, but that doesn't seem to be new thesedays.

Turning directly around or 180 degrees another sign. Not sure what they want for this one but it's something like 120 acres. Here's a county map showing property areas. The green dot is where I am standing taking the pictures. Dark blue is my property.

Next to the previous sign is another, something like four acres. Yea, I took one last summer but it didn't have any prices.

This morning while investigating a power outage (another tree down) I see another property up for sale. I've only moved 50 feet from the green dot on the map. Actually it's a modular home....aka mobile home. 1550 square feet. 3BR/2BA 1.5 acres. I investigated the sale sign in the window to where I was directed to a website. $59,900 or make an offer. It was repossessed but the sale does not include the land.

I suppose that's the norm for the rest of the country. For sale signs everywhere. On a more positive note I actually saw a new home under construction a few weeks ago. It almost looked strange.

Quaint Meadow Adjacent To Property

As mentioned I really had not paid much attention to what surrounded my property. It was mid May when I paid the first visit with limited visibility and the the spring leaf growth. Low and behold look what's on the other side! I can be a dreamer, but what good is life without dreams!


Picture taken at 8:35 AM August 19, 2008. This would be cool. Now I can build that bridge I've been dreaming of too! A guy needs things to do. Shown below is the creek view where the bridge would likely span both properties. Photo above would bring it in on the left near the tree line in the foreground.

Up the creek on the other side of the meadow I also came across a thick patch of rhododendrons in April of '07.

Grabbing this piece of land would be wonderful, but along with it comes a price. It's currently owned by another who has an additional 40 acres north of it, more than likely investment property. But it was purchased in 2006 so I can't imagine anybody topping those prices for years to come. After all real estate is dead in this area too. Many depended on the Florida boom that went bust. Foreclosures are rampant in the hills too.

"Just gimme the meadow..."

Some ask me what I paid for my current property. Sure I bought it at the peak just as many others did across the USA, but it's a home and not a flipper. Something I never had in my 51 years after wasting most of my adult life by drinking and having no real goals. I did manage to get the former owners under $200K.

Did I mention the steep hill on the other side of the cabin and creek? That's on my list too. I'm a bit frightened by the area being logged like the other side of the hill in what seems like five years ago. Sure logging leaves some younger trees intact but they leave such a mess when they're done.

Searching For Land - Gentle Slope, Creekside?

When I viewed Gilmer and Fannin County Ga real estate listings in early 2006 there were no shortage of pictures on the web and the terminology sounded attractive. For instance gentle slope seemed to be the buzzword in this mountainous area, and/or 200 feet of creek side property. Sounds nice doesn't it? It is until the properties are actually visited. I sure wasn't interested in the gentle slope seen below.

PIC COMING SOON

Nor was I interested in this creek side piece that should have been listed as a small branch instead of winding creek side acreage. Sure once a nice rainfall hits it may begin to look like a creek but I was looking for real creek side property.

PIC COMING SOON

Here's one in Cherry Log just a few minutes north of Ellijay and South of Blue Ridge off highway 515. Six acres were listed as 191K with a small creek running into a man made retaining pond. One side of the property included a small open storage shed. The views from atop were wonderful and there was a nicely cleared area suitable for a cabin at a later date. Not only that, a flat area above could provide room for another structure with the best views.

This piece was my first choice until one day I walked into Jim Stovers office. We had been searching the MLS listings for two days and hadn't come up with much that I was looking for.

It was obvious the larger tract of land was out of the question. 10-20 acres unless you wanted to live 10-15 miles outside of town downwind from nasty smelling chicken farms. Some properties had limitations as well because of marsh lands. And those gentle slopes were more of a mountain climbers paradise.

Jim suggests, "let's try this a different way..." So he begins looking for properties about 10% more than I was willing to pay and came across what appeared to be an overlooked tract about ten miles east of Ellijay off Highway 52; an area the locals call heaven. Creekside with a cabin on a little over four acres. It was listed in the 225K range. I wasn't really looking for a cabin but thought why not at least look at it. I still had a larger piece in my mind.

Climbing bumpy gravel roads into this secluded area I came to the conclusion some probably just said "forget it" before looking at the land. At first glance I was impressed with the overall lay of the land where the cabin was situated. The cabin itself needed work, but that didn't set me back. It had one key ingredient, a nice running creek only 60 feet from the back porch.

Next: Which one to choose?

Rental Cabins In North Georgia Mountains

Considering much of the current writing is based on memory, I'm having a hard time finding how I found the site that led me to a week's rental of this pictuersque cabin located on the Ellijay River. I'm not much of an organized person, especially considering most of my paperwork still sits in boxes from a recent move. Hopefully I'll dig up the name of the website before the end of this story.



The week long stay was the second week of May 2006 in this three bedroom cabin located off Whitepath Road about five miles north of Ellijay east of 515. Very clean and set in a nestled valley with the Ellijay River winding around the cabin. About the only thing I didn't like was the smoking rules. Not even allowed on the property! There was a caretaker who lived about 100 yards away so it was almost like high school all over again sneaking smokes.

Other pictures included are a cabana located a few feet from the back porch that contained a hot tub and another view of the river winding east. I only wish current building codes allowed for structures to be closer than 50 feet from a water source. This cabin was a mere twenty feet from the back to the edge of the river.




Bugs? Yep plenty of 'em in the mountains. I never did get the name of these critters. They weren't shy!



Cabin Rental Source: Sliding Rock Cabins

Mountains - Ellijay Ga. Buy Raw Land Or Cabin?

It was back in 2005 when my mother began talking about Blairsville, Ga. A neighbor had just bought property in the area. 2006 rolled around and I began looking into real estate. Oh great timing eh? Everybody and their brother was into RE at the time. Even my nephew was thinking about flipping houses. When you see someone that has no business doing such you should know to avoid it. But these Ga prices were too hard to resist.

I was astounded with local Florida prices. The 700 square foot apartment I was living in had decided to go condo. $225K for a little box surrounded by block walls and no view. What a joke. So I thought of Blairsville and began checking out real estate sites. Homes in Kennesaw and Marietta were going for similar prices on four bedroom and 2 1/2 baths. Wow, what a deal I thought, but being single what did I need all that for? More research after getting a feel of Georgia pricing I gandered into mountain property listings.

Originally I wanted to buy 10-20 acres and the listings looked attractive. I cannot remember why I chose Ellijay. Oh... it was the pretty rental cabin pictures I saw. In any event 20 acres for $ 225K looked attractive. Compare that to the small Bonita Springs apartment or one half acre of sand for the same price, it was a no-brainer. Besides living in Florida since 1980 I had had enough.

Considering I grew up in rural Bucks County Pennsylvania, a change to some country living sounded like a good idea. As this blog progresses you'll notice this was more of a quest to buy mountain property and eventually build on. The eventual selection was an idea from a local real estate agent in Jim Stover, whom I spent three days with searching for a piece of wooded property with a creek/stream. Looking back I can't say enough about Jim. After all if it wasn't for him I would probably still be in Florida wondering why I bought property without a cabin.

It seems all the pictures I have of Jim show him from the back. I'll find a better one later but here's something that is now a part of the past. The Gilmer County courthouse (county seat Ellijay) was torn down and replaced by a new one still under construction.


Jim Stover's Georgia Mountain Real Estate Site