When dealing with properties such as yours, I've found that the main home was more important to buyers than barns and additional outbuildings, most of the time. However, you never know where buyer's priorities may lie, so your idea of splitting the difference might be a good place to start.
Also, make sure you have the correct price for your water shares built into the asking price. When in doubt, the cost of an appraisal might be worthwhile.

Here is a link that might be useful: Water Colorado

I would guess that only someone who is interested in horses is going to buy your property (I can't imagine buying a property like yours and not wanting horses). So you have a smaller market available to you. I'd advertise at the University and the Vet school as well as any other business that caters to horse folks. You can also try advertising towards military in your town or state (call the base to see if they have someone who puts together housing for their people).

We had an acre in Tucson and our CCRs allowed horses on the property (although we had no buildings or equipment for that purpose). We always thought land was valuable. But it's not if buyers don't want it. We found a lot of buyers wanted smaller, bricked in yards and didn't want the open space that we had. Fortunately, we did eventually find buyers who appreciated the property but we had to wait 9 months to find them!

berniek - Thanks for the link to Water Colorado. That's very handy. We have included the value of the share of water into the proposed price, it just seems smart to have it folded in. The additional two shares will be available at market price. Thanks for the feedback, also, on the importance of the main house, informed opinions are valuable.

fairygirl - yes, only horse people will want this property! As you've both mentioned, our pool of buyers will be small, as our property is specialized. It takes the one person to whom this setup is perfect. But it does make the selling process a bit difficult, especially in a buyers market!

I live in Wellington Florida (Equestrian Town) and have several properties similar to yours near me. The owners of these properties use them only in the winter for the shows. On the big properties (20+acres) they usually have a small house and a very large house. On the smaller properties (less then 10acres) they usually have small houses which are generally used by the caretaker of the property. I am not a horse person, but I know that the houses must add value since they add them when the properties are developed for horses. I do know that the barns, tack rooms and horse runs add big time to the value here, since those things can cost big $. In fact the barns are usually a lot nicer then the small houses. To keep things in perspective, a 10acre horse ranch with little house and a very nice barn would sell anywhere from $2-4million in Wellington depending on its location. You should hire a realtor that specializes in equestrian properties. Someone that does not understand equestrian people and their needs will not know how to market your property properly.

your situation sounds similar to a friend of mine's.

their house is 1/2 mile from mine. we both own 4 acres that the house sits on, i have a 18x18 shop, they have a 6 stall airconditioned barn with a mother in law house built in it. their house is roughly 500 sq ft smaller than mine, BUT is 10 years newer, mine being built in 78-79 and theirs in the late 80's. my house is currently worth about 200k, theirs even with the big outbuilding and a seperate 30x30 shop, is worth around 175! now, this reflects local pricing, but still what they have been told is that it is due to the house being TOO much catered to horses. they have tried to sell it a couple times, each time doing owner financing, and finally did sell it the first part of this year and the buyers brought their own financing to the table. their house was sold w/owner financing 3 times that i know of, and all 3 times the buyers moved less than a year later, because the upkeep on the outbuildings just totally blew out their budgets. we would have bought it, but at the time we bought our house it was not for sale. there is nothing wrong with the house, just people buy and then get horses and find they cannot afford both. once they get rid of the horses, they can see no reason to keep the house.

all i can recommend is to split the price range the realtors are giving you and offer it there.

kitchenshock - one of the reasons we're not selling the 4 adjacent acres separately until the house portion sells is that one market for us is the wealthier person who puts a renter/caretaker or a son/daughter in the smaller house and builds their nice big house on the vacant lot. Since we've done the work of the split, that would be easy. Regarding Florida prices, we're not anywhere close to your higher priced market! It's all in the location and you are in a very nice high dollar equestrian oriented area. I'll bet I'd love it there!

davidandkasie - where are you located? This is a pretty horsey area, so I'm hoping the property won't be considered too much horse oriented as just too little house. A fine distinction, I know. With the land it's on, though, at least one could do a remodel or addition if they so desired. In retrospect now I wish we had! The fences, sheds and barn are all in great shape so no one would need to do anything to it except keep the weeds mowed and put back up what the horses kick down!

my neighbor hood most everyone has horses. so to me and most folks who buy in my area it would be fine, but to the REALTORs it is not. of course, other than the folks who kept buying this house, and me buying my house, no one else has bought/sold/moved in my neighborhood in 15 years either!

JaneA,

The best bet for you is to have the property appraised by an appraiser qualified in valuing rural, agricultural or farm property. Call you nearest office of the Farm Credit Bureau (or FC Bank). They will know of appraisers with these qualifications. Where I am in northern NY, one can also hire a FC staff appraiser to do the job.

Realtors without experience in this area could easily give you a wrong value based pretty much on how the house fits (or doesn't) with the residential market. But your property is quite ifferent because it has a lot of value (acreage and outbuildings) in non-typical amenities. You are correct that you need to find a special buyer who will recognize the value; that's where you'll get the best selling price.

I have paid from $300-500 for rural property appraisals and it's been well worth it. Be sure to ask the appraiser if she/he will spend the time to go over the full appraisal document and how the calculations were done. Learning how property is appraised is almost worth the cost all by itself. It will stand you in good stead for evry RE purchase you make from here on out.

HTH,

Molly~

Molly,
Thanks for your thoughts. You're right, and an appraisal by an experienced rural property expert is good advice. I found a branch in a town nearby, so I'll contact them tomorrow to see if they can help me. I wonder, though, whether they'll be interested in talking to me since I might be considered more of a very small hobby farm than a real agricultural endeavor? However, I appreciate your comments and will try to pursue this.
Jane

Jane,

Farm Credit does mostly deal with loans to large farm operations, though here they are also lenders for all types of rural property mortgages. However, you're not seeking a loan but rather help finding a qualified appraiser, either by a referral to someone they know or from one of their staff appraisers on a fee basis. I hope they will be able to help you.

Molly

Four acres, especially with some of it devoted to a house and some of it devoted to a riding arena, is not nearly enough to support eight horses so without the additional four acres the property is not worth anything as a horse farm for any knowledgable person. What are the township rules regarding acreage per horse? What is the zoning, can you legally run it as a boarding stable or are the horses all supposed to be owned by the property owner?

I'd think with the amount of work that is needed to care, feed and groom horses that a smaller house would work out just fine.
I'd suggest trying to advertise not only to horse people but to Alpaca hobbist as well. A set up such as yours could work for someone looking to start up a Alpaca business.

LOL. Four acres in CA would house about 20 horses. I think CO is pretty much the same situation, hay year round with pasture for entertainment, not nutrition.

We dealt with small house (2/1, 900 sq ft, no basement, no central heat, no central air, no dishwasher, no garage, *bare bones*) in exchange for not having to put up an entire operation in a less desirable location(in our price range, it was this very well located place or bare land farther out). We did put up a new house eventually.

So, it's been done, at least in KY :)

Wow, I'm surprised at how much zoning laws vary on horses. Here, my town allows only one horse per 3 acres & they don't allow fudging...for example, 5 1/2 acres & you could still only keep one horse. I live in CT where the pasture is lush from 50" of annual precipitation.

The only reason I know this is because we looked at a property a couple weeks back where it was a potential issue & I called the town to check.

/tricia

Wow, 3 acres per horse? That sounds more like a rule to prevent horse ranches. I would think they would at a minimum allow 2 since from what the horse people tell me, you never want to keep a horse alone. At many of the horse ranches where I live they have these small little horses to keep the larger ones company. I also notice that they rarely put one horse alone in the paddocks. If they are alone in the paddock they always put a horse in the paddock next to the other one.

I do agree with limits which I think would mostly have to do with preventing someone from keeping so many animals that sanitation would become the issue. There is nothing worse then a ranch where they do not clean up after their animals. I don't think horses need all that much room for general exercise and I think most people buy feed for their horses so having green pastures is not all that important.

I can tell you one thing, after watching all the work that goes into taking care of horses, it was very easy to say NO when my girls started hitting me up for a horse. Several of their friends have horses and either you pay someone to take care of the horse or you are at the stables 7 days a week.

I suppose that anyone who is ready to cram eight horses on what can at most be 2 1/2 acres left for paddocks of mud, dust, uneaten hay, and manure after the land taken up for the house, barn, riding arena, manure pile, lanscaping, and place to park the vehicles (horse trailer and boarder's coming to visit) would not object to a little 2 bedroom 1 bath house.

But I think that anyone who comes thinking they can have a small horse farm operation for $449,500 and finds once they get there that the inviting 4 acres now being used for turnout will cost them an additional $200,000 will walk away feeling like they have been baited and switched.

Horse may not need much room for general exercise but they do need room to keep their distance from agressive horses. Try to cram too many horses together in one small paddock will result in many injuries and the alternative is spending all day switching horses to give each horse a turn to be out with only those horses they get along with.

Wow, dianemargaret, you really need to come see my operation before you describe it the way you have. I say that because for years we hayed our field and didn't use it for turnout at all as it wasn't fenced. So we have had up to eight horses on what probably was about 2 2-1.5 acres. It has always been very neat and clean and never full of "mud, dust, uneaten hay and manure". We pick stalls and paddocks daily and haul off our manure to grateful landscapers and farmers. We do not "cram" horses together allowing them to be injured or terrorized. We have plenty of paddock space for turnout and no one gets stuck in a stall all day. Nor do we have to spend the day rotating horses. Our regulations allow 2 horses per acre here. Out west we do not rely on small properties like this to sustain horses by grazing. We buy all the hay they require and store it. You must live back east where horsekeeping is done quite differently. I would ask you to keep an open mind to the fact that it is quite possible to have a nice operation done in a manner you are not used to.

around here they only say something if you have a large number of horses and they primarily eat by grazing. there are several horse barns that rent out space to as many as 30 horses, yet they are on 4-6 acres. each horse basically has a run dedicated to their stall, and then a large common area. but the barns supply feed and hay twice a day, as well as clean out the stalls on a regular basis.

3 acres per horse IS right for grazing, but if you feed them hay and feed then you just need enough room that they don't crowd each other. in my neighborhood alone there are 2 acre lots with 6 or more horses AND a house on them.

i agree that your area determiines how things are done. in MY area folks feed the horses a couple times a day. in other areas folks put some hay out and the horses primarily graze for food. in that case you need a LOT of ground for each horse.

Yes, it is possible to keep a property set up like you describe clean but it takes a heck of a lot of work and money as I'm sure you realize or you wouldn't have thought it worth your while to fence in that other four acres. So I would agree with carol that a small house would probably be a plus. It is good that you have an arrangement and the equipment and time needed to haul away the manure. Without the additional 4 acres to make hay the new owner will have even more expense.

The ordinances governing acreage around here mean dedicated acreage, not overall acreage. And I'm sorry but you cannot convince me that with 8 horses utilizing 2 1/2 acres and getting plenty of turn out time those paddocks would not be beaten down to dirt, dusty in dry weather and muddy in wet. Is the property zoned so that the property owner could take boarders or run a commercial lessons business or are all of the horses supposed to belong to the owner for the owners use? All of these questions make a difference in how much the property is worth.

The ordinances governing acreage around here mean dedicated acreage, not overall acreage

see that is the thing, in my area there are NO ordinances. sure the humane officer will tell you that your horses look skinny and overcrowded, but unless there is a neglect issue they cannot legally do anything. ANY property ooutside municipal limits is zoned agricultural, so they cannot tell you what animals nor how many you can have.

also most people in my area do not ride the horses in the grazing area. they take them out in the open and ride along the rural roads/thru the woods. the property where the animals are stabled is just for stabling them, NOT usually for exercise.

right behind my house is a 2 acre lot with 3 horses on it. the only area that is torn up is right around the hay barn, the horses eat there and they tend to tear the ground up good. but i would have to honestly say that 1.5 acres is lush green grass. they can run and play all day, but they hardly ever graze onthe grass so most of it stays put.

You might talk to the person in charge of the Vet training program or at the University to see if they could incorperate this property into their program--A teacher/ or advanced studen could live at the house.--maybe for horses who need special care, or for training or for advance students or labs--they may have some other ideas. Or are you too far out?
How about a vet hospital specializing in unusual illnesses?

"The ordinances governing acreage around here mean dedicated acreage, not overall acreage. And I'm sorry but you cannot convince me that with 8 horses utilizing 2 1/2 acres and getting plenty of turn out time those paddocks would not be beaten down to dirt, dusty in dry weather and muddy in wet."

I won't try, then. A permit can be applied for if a boarding situation is desired.

mariend - I'm not sure about that, CSU owns plenty of land around Fort Collins for whatever purposes it needs. But we will be advertising around the vet hospital, which is close by, because that is a good potential source of buyers.

I thank everyone for their comments.

Now that the discussion of horse per acre is over, I have 20 acres, 5 cleared and had 6 horses at one time. Am now down to 3 mini donks, who are much more fun.

But anyway, from a bank perspective, if your buyer is looking for "normal" mortgage financing, the house and acerage must make up the majority of the value of the total property. Regular, non-farm, mortgage loans do not want to put mortgages on non-residential structures. Most "outbuildings" on mortgage financing appraisals are combined together and given a value. That value can not be a big part of the overall value of the property.

Most lenders do not want to put residential mortgages on what are called "hobby farms or gentleman farms".

Yes, that is a good point. We refinanced a few years ago and went through this. At that time we did qualify for a conventional mortgage.

We sold our 4.7 acre house/property last fall. Big difference was we were in a sizzling realty market and we were only 1 mile from the city limits but definitely out in the country. Subdivisions were closing in fast.
Our county only allowed for 1 horse unit per 4 acres. Yes a horse unit LOL.. 1 horse = 1 cow. Either of those equalled 10 goats I think.
However you could apply for an intensive variance if you wanted to keep more than 1 horse etc.

Another important issue was subdividability of your 4 acres. Is it subdividable? Ours was subdividable once, into 2 two acre parcels which made it more appealing to an investor. It was also considered "light holdings" which meant that the 4.7 acres could be used for almost any type of business. So ask about subdividability, zoning for commercial enterprises, etc.. it could tip the scale in your favor. I can tell you there are a lot of people out there looking for places to keep a horse and lots of guys who are truckers etc who would love a place they can legally park their truck and rig and/or some heavy equipment.

davidandkassie,

I hope you'll forgive me if I point out that 3 horses is a lot less than eight horses. Yes, it is generally around where the hay is put out that the land gets torn up the worst, but many horses do not feed compainionably from the same pile. The hay piles need to be spread out so they don't fight over the best bits and so that everyone gets some. So add four to six more areas of hay spread an appropriate distance from each other and that 2 acres of undisturbed grass starts getting swallowed up pretty fast. It sounds like Janea has the 2 1/2 acres divided up into several paddocks. Unless the space between the paddocks is double fenced with space between each paddock (taking up even more space) the horses will fight over the fences which requires contstant maintence. I do believe janea made a joking reference to fixing what the hroses kick down.

As you point out the humane officer does not have many enforcement tools without ordinances of some kind. Otherwise neglect is pretty hard to prove unless and until the animals are at death's door. Do the ordinances keep neglect from happening? No. But they do help at least with overcrowding which is one symptom of an abusive environment that can be enforced without it being subjective. And IMO most neglect cases do not come from intentional cruelty but more often from ignorance and denial.

I'm sure Janea keeps her farmette and her horses well but I think she is in denial if she doen't recognize how unique she really is. I think by separating that extra four acres and advertising it separately she is going to get people come to look that can only afford the home place and realize they need the other four acres, or people who would look at the place as a business opportunity and accept the small house as a tradeoff only to find out they could not run it as one without a permit. Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think you can apply for a permit until you own the place so that is a big gamble if the permit is not allowed. And I think that anyone who is wealthy enough to themselves own, feed and care for up to eight horses is not going to be content with a small house. To sum up I think it would be a frustrating exercise to advertise or try to sell the properties separately. Worst case scenario is that it will sell to someone who quickly finds out the operation is more work and money than they can afford and the animals will suffer, which I'm sure Janea would not like to see.

I've been pretty much lurking here all winter while we gear up for our sale. Here's an update on our property. We went on the market this week and had a full price offer within a day! They asked for no extras and are pre-approved for the loan. They're putting 40% down and there is no Hubbard clause. The closing is May 22 (which is very good because I broke my ankle last Sunday and can't imagine packing to move before then). As others have noted it just takes the right buyer for a rather specialized property like ours. The woman who is buying it has been looking for quite awhile for something just like this and is apparently ecstatic about it. We have been having other showings because "it's not over 'til it's over", but I feel very good about our buyer from what I know of her.
Here's the virtual tour for the property: http://www.visualtour.com/shownp.asp?T=1429416

Beautiful set up. I live s/e of Denver. My son graduated from CSU. I had to smile as people from FL wrote about their horse property. Whole different world - we moved here from FL on 1992. Visual tour is very tasteful. Hope all goes as planned.

Thanks daytona1. It really is a nicely laid out property that can nicely accommodate the number of horses we have, though it may be different from what people in the east are used to. But what we have is certainly not atypical for the western states.

We've had a lot of interest so far. My realtor says that in general things are picking up in this area for him. I hope other people find that true in their areas.

Congrats on the contract! And a smoth closing and healed ankle. (had one of those ankles once skiing in Austria)

Beautiful property .. wish my barn looked like yours! I was just making my barn rehab wish list yesterday.

Good luck with the ankle, I shattered mine 5+ years ago, they finally fused it during the second surgery.

Good luck selling ... I love how the horses had to get their pictures taken.

berniek and pamghatten, thank you for the congrats. Fortunately, my ankle isn't shattered, but the doc said I'd need surgery if I didn't stay off of it. That's incentive!