The real estate agent will take you serious. Lots of people move to smaller homes. You can use the real estate agent to list your home and buy the new home. That is totally up to you. The agent will assume that you would want them for both. If you don't, simply tell them that. I take everyone seriously.
That would be great to be mortgage free. I wish you the best. Always make sure you interview several agents. Pick the one that works best with your personality....

Realtors may take you serious but not devote a lot of time to you. Probably email you some listings that are not what you're looking for then stop returning your calls after a while. At least that's been my experience when just looking for a small lot to build on. Then again it depends on if they have anything for you. If you're looking for a needle in a haystack then you'll have a similar experience. If they have a lot of these properties then I'm sure they'll take you serious.

If you go to a major supermarket or bookstore you should find quite a few "small house plan" books in the magazine section. Lots of unique cabin and studio type buildings in there. Literally hunderds of pages of them. I think you have the right idea, if you can make do in a small space, see if you can find a place to build it where zoning will let you build that size and type of structure and start seeing if any general contractors will give you the time of day. Converting a gas station or other commercial property to a decent residence takes a lot of money, probably a lot more than just to build from scratch. Good luck and keep us up to date.

As someone who has searched for a commercial property or special use property for a long time let me share soem of my experience.

They are very very difficult to get converted in many cases. ie 2 years of fighting with your zoning board even in a small town.

If you want a mortgage they are very difficult to get, require a minimum of 20% down and almost always have adjustable rates that are amortized over shorter periods in many cases.

If you go to purchase home owners insurance, again, very difficult unless you get the zoning handled before you close, and that's a very generous seller to wait all that time for their money.

Just some things to consider. Not to say it's not possible, not to say that you can't find a way around the complex financing or insurability - but something just to keep in the back of your mind.

Some day I'll get my firehouse - but in the meantime I've just been socking away a lot of money.

Regarding the type of new home, I'd take a look at some of the newer manufactured homes which are totally fabulous. Dwell magazine did a huge article on them about 2 months ago. I think there's also a company flatpack.com that basically sells homes that you 'assemble' - loosly speaking.

Any agent that won't take you seriously isn't one that you want trying to sell your home anyway.

If by manufacted, you mean modular, those articles don't talk about the biggest downsides to that type of construction.
1.) Finding someone to sell you one. With limited and highly territorial distributor/contractors they don't want the business, don't return calls, show up to meetings looking like slobs etc. *My experience.*
2.) Try to put one in an established nhood and watch the residents freak out thinking you're putting in a mobile home. Plus lenders often aren't completely comfortable with it.
3.) Usually can't do a basement and the floor plans require marriage walls in certain places which make make a floor plan layout a little awkward.
4.) They're not cheaper than conventional construction.

Great concept though!

quirky I think you need to go to the manufactured homes discussion board to gain a better understanding in the difference between modular and manufactured. For one difference modulars can and do make use of basements. It is manufactured homes that must be placed on slabs.

It is manufactured homes that must be placed on slabs.

We had a mfg. home that was on a full basement. The stairs were right off the kitchen. It was designed that way.

I wouldn't recomment a mfg home to anyone, but I would love one of those Dwell houses.

If your house came with wheels and axles attached, it's manufactured. Modular homes are assembled on site, with no wheels.

The modular homes I'm talking about require a stem wall foundation. Personally I don't see why they couldn't do a basement, thats just what I read or what builders have told me. If i was talking about mfrd, then obviously my other remarks wouldn't apply.

"We had a mfg. home that was on a full basement. The stairs were right off the kitchen. It was designed that way."

Oops thanks for the correction. When we looked into the difference a few years ago I was certain this is what we were told. oh, well.

Manufactured come on a chassis. Modular are shipped to the job site and hoisted into position. To the untrained eye it's no different that conventional construction and may even be stronger since they're built to withstand the shipping and assembled in optimal factory conditions with supervision and trained workers and all that good stuff. I may have come across like I was knocking the concept and I'm not. I think it's a great idea with a lot of potential and I think this type of construction is the norm in the northeast but down south it's easier said than done.

Anyway this post has veered off topic.