After talking to people, and especially Jon, I have decided to pull the trigger on a property. It’s on the North East side of Casper on E. Geary Dome Road in Evansville, WY.
It is a series of trade-offs that I had to sort through. I had originally driven by it, and crossed it off due to the fact that it was semi-populated on lots of about 10-50 acres. I was looking for something more isolated. After looking around all of the other properties, there were other issues from covenants to access issues. Most were well off the paved highways which might be problematical in winter, not to mention Amazon deliveries.
I came back to view the property with the realtor. I examined the 5th wheel travel trailer on the property and the two 40′ containers. But I also saw the decider – a year round (so claimed) pond in the middle of the property.
Beyond the pond you can see one of the drawbacks, the neighbor’s horse barn. Along the right is the fence line of the other neighbor. The property is an odd shape, long and narrow as shown below.
Budget Home Kits. They sell a steel framed kit built home. The base price for a MacArthur 1080 sq ft 3bdrm/2bath house is $54K . It comes as a kit, packaged and they claim it can be assembled without cranes, etc by 2-3 people. Pictures here. They claimed (at least prior to COVID) to ship 30 days after receipt of payment.
Low ball option. The property comes with 2 40′ shipping containers. I have been poking around on Mr. Gore’s interwebs about people who have converted them to living spaces. For instance HERE or the contrarian view HERE. I think that part of the appeal for me is a. it’s cheap and b. I’ve already demonstrated that I can live in a long metal structure with little access to the outside world.
One thing that intrigues me about the Budget Home Kits is that if we could re-constitute the Kling Bros Construction Company we could get the house exterior sealed in a week’s vacation if I got the site prep work done before hand. After we build mine we could do a reprise for David if it works out.