Counter offer from seller

The real estate agent just called to say the seller has made a counter offer but has accepted all our other terms, specifically, removing all the contents of the barn and the very old bus on the outside and allowing us to use the barn for storage before closing.

The counter offer isn't much lower than the asking price, but we'll think more about it tomorrow. We need to make some calls to see what the pole barn would cost to build, and figure in the value of the septic system and the water and electric meters.

Living in someone else's house

We closed on the sale of the house in Indianapolis today. The date was moved forward from August 1st, and then back a day, but the deed is done, or, to be precise, the deed is in the new buyers' names.

We have a lot of work to do in Indy still. Most of the contents are still there, and we don't have anywhere to move it yet except the new apartment which is small to say the most. I also need to take down some of the large shelving in the greenhouse, dismantle the grandkids' tree fort and take the raised gardens apart to save the stiff sides for the new site.

The buyers have a lot they want to do before they start using the building so no absolute date has been set for us to completely vacate the building. We have set the end of next week as our goal, but I have agreed to pay the utilities through the end of the July.

Here's a picture of what we're moving from:

The offer to buy

Today we made an offer to purchase the property on Route 54. We asked for a quick reply and also asked, if it is accepted, that we be given access to the barn before closing so we can begin moving things into it. This would save us one move for most of our belongings.

We are currently renting storage space near the Raccoon Creek Community site. That has allowed us to partially empty the house in Indianapolis to make it look larger, not that it really needed to look larger. It's over 3000 square feet plus a basement and an attic in which one can stand up.

We noted in the offer that the property might be purchased by a limited liability company (LLC) rather than us as individuals.

Greene View Springs LLC Established

After sending in our offer for the property near Bloomfield, we decided that it was very likely that we would come to an agreement with the owner, so today, Wednesday, July 11, 2007, I also filed "Articles of Organization" with, and a "Certificate of Organization" was issued by, the Indiana Secretary of State for Greene View Springs LLC. The purposes of the LLC are "to purchase, manage and develop properties for use by the Members..."

If you've read the posts so far, you may be wondering how the blog title was established before the LLC was official. It wasn't. All posts before early August were pre-dated.

More good news

Today we learned the property already has a water meter and a septic system connected to the barn. Earlier we saw the electric meter on the barn, a telephone pole, one of those short green ones, at the road, and noticed a gas meter on a small adjacent property suggesting that we could easily add gas if we wanted to. This means, if we make an offer on the property, we can turn on the electricity right after closing on it.

We made a commitment on the apartment in Bloomfield. Even if we don't get the Route 54 site, we can begin moving our things from Indianapolis. We are closing on that sale at the end of this week.

More details on the Route 54 property

Today we drove back to Bloomfield to gather information about the property and look for temporary rental options. We visited a nice apartment building that had a vacancy that is available on a month-to-month basis.

We drove "around the block" at the property, a distance of about 4 miles. Then we stopped at a property across the county road but no one was home. We walked the property again, and decided to drive by the neighbor's one more time.

This time there was someone there and we stopped to talk. It was the son of the late owner who was working in the garden. He explained that the property had belonged to his grandparents. His brother had sold it to the current owner. He seemed to be happy with the idea of its being purchased by someone who would not abuse it.

He suggested we talk to his brother who owns the property immediately south of the "target" property. We drove down the county road and knocked on the neighbor's door. We had a wonderful talk with the owner and his wife, for over two hours! He took me for a ride around his property and suggested that he might be interested in selling a piece of it adjacent to the property we are considering.

This gives us a second option in the neighborhood. On our next trip we'll look up the taxes and other details at the court house.

Looking for property

We had planned to be moved from our too-large home in Indianapolis by the fall of 2006. Since it became clear we would not be getting the zoning we needed, multi-family, at the site in Owen County before the end of 2007, if at all, we decided to begin looking for another site.

We had hoped to build clustered homes, some of which would share walls, design the least intrusive system we could afford to process our waste, not subdivide the property, and incorporate other perhaps unconventional features in the homes. Part of the problem was dealing with county entities, some of whose members, to be polite, weren't very open to new ideas. So we decided to center our search on Greene County which has no zoning ordinances and, consequently, no need to apply for variances or changes.

Our goal was to get our life in the country underway with as little further delay as possible, and to get out of Indianapolis where our property taxes rose another 90% this year (after a nearly-200% raise just a few years ago), so we decided we would consider appropriate property between 3 and 25 acres. If we could find a nice property that was larger, then an intentional community might still be incorporated. If an appropriate property was smaller, we would consider it for just our own use.

We started looking at properties at the end of June. Of the suggestions from a few real estate agents, and some we found ourselves while driving the area, we visited three properties, all in Greene County. Two showed promise and we visited them again today, the Fourth of July.

One of them, east of Worthington, though it was a beautiful, forested property with lots of hills facing various directions, had serious access problems that would cost a lot of money to overcome. We had a nice talk with the adjacent landowner whose permission would be needed to access the property without a lengthy and hilly new road.

The other is on State Road 54, just under 8 miles east of Bloomfield, the Greene County seat.

After looking it up on the internet, we walked the property to see if it would work. It's over 16 acres, virtually all on a south-facing hill, has a small pond, a large pole barn and, as we found out later, a small spring. It is partially wooded and has a beautiful south view of Greene County hills into the distance.

We have decided to pursue this property and will return tomorrow to see if we can ask some of the neighbors about it.

A momentous decision

After nearly three years working to establish Raccoon Creek Community with my fellow members, it has become clear to me that the community, as we have envisioned it these past years, cannot become a reality on the site in Owen County, Indiana, at least not within a reasonable time frame--one much longer than I can accept.

Over the next few weeks I will explain some of the reasoning used to arrive at this difficult decision. We have put our hearts and souls into the project. Much work has been done on and off the site, many meetings have been held there and elsewhere, and much of the property was walked many times and marked for various purposes. Walking away from the beautiful site at Raccoon Creek is not easy.

The property will revert to our member who owned it to begin with. Disposition of other assets will be decided over the next few weeks.

I hope the property owner will still build on the site. It is currently zoned "agricultural" which allows at least a single home to be built on it.

I will try to keep readers of this blog current with our thoughts, plans and actions.