Where We Are - So Far

This is the November update on the progress Zaynab and I (Hawa) have made in buying and living on land.

During the last week in October, we took a trip out to Arizona to check out 8 properties. These properties were:

• not in a flood zone
• $5,200 and under (we adjusted the price to fall within our current budget)
• clear of liens
• seemed relatively flat
• electricity was available

After viewing the properties, only two seemed livable. As for the others:

• 1 was covered with cactus
• 1 had a lot of debris
• 2 were too far to commute
• 1 was just out of range of available electricity (when out of range, the cost is about $3,000 per pole to bring electricity to the property)
• 1 was extremely rocky, bushy and requires a lot of excavation to make a level clear area to build on

As for the 2 properties we considered, we were concerned about their rate of percolation. We dug test holes on all of the properties and for these 2 properties, the water did not drain. We talked to a couple of soil testing companies about this and their response was that some areas on a property may drain faster than others and since they did 6 feet during their test, the soil may be different.

We decided to put in an offer on one of the properties on the condition that it passed a percolation test for a conventional septic system which is required for building. On November 2nd, the company that performed the percolation test informed us that the property didn't past the percolation test. The cost was $750. We decided not to pay for an additional perc on the 2nd property because the water also didn't drain in our test holes.

Now we're back to the drawing board. We did a lot of research and covered a lot of area before narrowing down those 8 properties. But we haven't given up.  New land is continuously coming up for sale and we are just as determined to find land to live on and raise a family.