I´m writing from Norway, please excuse any bad spelling or grammer.
Last year my wife and I bought the "family farm" (100acres) from my mother. I call it a farm even thought it is has not been used as such for 30 years, it is only being used as a house. We bought the farm for two reasons, part investment and part sentimental value. The "farm" has been in our family for 150 years.
A month or so ago I stumbled upon this site, and have been reading eagerly ever since. One of the first things I did was make plenty of cuts in our budget. Our biggest expense is naturally this property, but what I have begun to realize more and more is that this probably is a bad investment. Let me explain why.
1. The house is big and old. This past year almost all our savings went towards maintance on the house. Putting in new windows, floors, paint etc. We are nowwhere near finished...
2. The house is far fram the nearest town, 20 miles. And the nearest town is small ( population 10 000). This means lots of time and money wasted getting places.
3. We have an extra appartment in the house, but after months of looking we have no tenants.
4. The house requies large amounts of electricity, which of course means big bills.
5. Since this is a rural area with few jobs and oppurtunities the value of homes is not increasing as much as in other areas.
Therefor, we have a big mortgage ($330 000, 30year, 4% interest), big expenses, no income from the property, and the property will most likely not increase in value at a normal rate. Did I mention we moved hundreds of miles from all our friends?
There are possibilities. The property is big, and I may be able to re zone parts of the property for vacation homes (this is nice and popular vacation destination). But this is a long and expensive process, most likely not yielding results.
Is we get tenants it will pay for 60% of our mortgage payments.
In my opinion, considering risk vs reward, we should sell. What do my fellow mustachians think?