Appreciate the responses so far, all! I will definitely play with some of those websites. I have used Sterling’s Best Places to get some candid reviews on some towns. Sometimes there’s a definite consensus. (Fun fact: Apparently everyone in the small town of Sheboygan, MI is on drugs? But it looked so innocuous in the pictures!)
It is really fun to be starting to go through this process. We’ll be using all our vacation time to do “scouting trips” in 2021 to general areas we find intriguing, while continuing to scan specific property listings that might meet our criteria. Basically, we’re trying to screen for properties/houses we like and areas we like at the same time in hopes the Venn diagram will overlap on a scenario or two eventually.
If we found a house we were really excited about, we would definitely go an view it in person, but if we had, say 4-5 front-runners and needed more in-depth info on them, it would be nice to get a video tour of each before committing to visiting each one in person.
Just for the fun of it, here’s what we’re looking for. Pretty much everything is flexible given the right combo of circumstances:
1. 100+ year old house. My passion for historic houses goes back literally to my toddler days, so this is a life-long dream for me.
2. Preferably less than 2000 sf, to keep maintenance costs under control. Just the two of us living there, and several dogs. And a turtle.
3. Husband has always dreamed of living on a property with a creek, so any property with a creek on it jumps to top billing in the running.
4. We want land for foraging and gardening, but mostly for privacy. If we could get less land, but still have some privacy, we’d go for it (i.e. a property that borders conservation land). Wooded land highly preferable. Need enough space for chickens and fun projects. Anywhere from half an acre up could work, depending on the specifics of the property.
5. Lowish property taxes (sadly moves some areas that meet criteria 1-4 down on the list, like pretty much anywhere east of PA, but we’re still open to the northeast if we can find pockets of lower property taxes that won’t have us re-purchasing our house from the government every 10 years)
6. Rural, but not super-isolated or far from important services like hospitals. Just outside the commutable range of a medium-sized city, where the property values start to drop but retirees like us could still easily get to modern conveniences, would be ideal.
7. Temperate climate. Neither of us like arid climates. We like trees and bluffs and creeks and lots of ‘em!
8. Due to being a nice triangulated mid-point for close family, the Midwest gets preference. Currently the states we’re most focused on are WI, MI and OH. We want to get the fark out of IL, so we’d have to see something pretty spectacular in this state to keep us here. ME properties are our guilty pleasure, but it is just so dang far from everyone in our families… We would be moving farther from everyone and closer to absolutely no one.
9. Want to move to a state with decent ACA coverage. We understand this also varies county by county, but some states are decidedly lacking in ACA options. This knocked Indiana down the list, even though we saw some otherwise pretty neat houses there, and it’s a nice mid-point between two close family members.
Would love to hear others’ criteria if you’re in a similar boat!