Finding a Suitable Place

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MAYBE you already have a place of at least 3/4 of an acre of level, good land. So much the better, but read this section carefully to make sure your land is suitable for intensive cultivation.

I am going to suppose you live in the city - own no land - and know nothing about finding a suitable place in the country.

Here's how you start. Get a good map of your locality. Take a compass and using your place of work as a center point, make a circle the radius of which should be approximately the distance you can travel in one hour.

If you own a car, this radius could well be 25 miles. This 25 mile radius will enclose a territory of 1,962 square miles (an area about equal in size to the whole state of Delaware). If you expect to travel by bus, street car or subway to your job, the radius would be shorter.

Next study the encircled area. Is there any particular part of it in which you would especially like to live? Have you friends in some part? If so - talk to them about finding a place.

The most important single step in the "Have-More" Plan is selecting a suitable place. If there is any question in your mind as to whether you will enjoy owning your own home - raising your own food or living in the country - or any other doubts - rent in the community you select before you buy. Remember, you are choosing a place to make a permanent home - you are not simply leasing an apartment for another year.

The very fact that this first step is so important and difficult is a good thing because if you haven't enough gumption to go out and find yourself a place - then you probably would never make it amount to anything even if a rich Uncle left you the place in his will.

One reason so many city dwellers continue to go on paying rent and living the restricted life people lead in an apartment seems to be because they don't know how to go about finding and developing a place of their own. Another obstacle is the mistaken belief that they can't afford a country place of their own.

Deal With A Good Real Estate Man

Many people who go to a doctor when they are sick, a dentist when they've got a toothache, balk at going to a real estate man to buy property. Somehow they figure they can find a bargain in real estate themselves if no real estate man enters the picture. Of course, a real estate man is in the business of selling real estate - and he is going to sell everybody he can. But most people who get stuck by a real estate man let him sell them something he wants to sell. They don't tell him exactly what they want - and make him find it for them.