We Bought Our $23,000 'Dream House' For $50!

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[2] Remember that you can always find another house. Don't settle for one that needs a lot of work.

[3] Obtain bids from several moving firms. We received estimates ranging from $3,500 to $6,000 to transport one home that we considered buying (but didn't purchase).

[4] If you're buying a lot with the intention of moving a house onto it, by all means make the offer to purchase subject to your being able to secure all the necessary permits to move the dwelling of your choice to the property.

[5] Try not to lock yourself into any kind of tight schedule where you must take occupancy by a certain date. Sit down and calculate the amount of time the whole project will consume from start to finish . . . then double it! If you try to rush things, the inevitable delays will be terribly frustrating. Our house, for example, was stuck in some mud at the edge of our lot for nearly a week due to unusually heavy rain. We spent days, too, tracking down a faulty circuit in the home's outmoded electrical system. And the building inspector returned time after time to ask us to fix "just one more small detail" before he finally issued that all-important occupancy permit.

THE BOTTOM LINE

All told, we worked on our place nearly five months from the day the dwelling was moved until the day it was ready to live in. Was it worth the time, the trouble, and (most important of all) the money? You bet! There's no telling how many thousands of dollars a place like ours would cost to build from scratch nowadays (although—as I mentioned earlier—one bank placed a $23,000 value on the building two years ago) . . . and anyway, some of the home's features—such as the real plaster walls and the extra-wide oak woodwork—just can't be duplicated by today's breed of "slap it together" homebuilders.

The thing I like best, though, about our $50 "dream house" is the happy feeling I get whenever I start to add up all the monthly mortgage payments and interest charges we haven't had to pay ( and never will have to pay ) over the years, thanks to the fact that we own our "little castle" free and clear.

Let's see now: $23,000 . . . financed over 30 years . . . at 9-1/2% interest . . . hmmmm . . . that comes to . . . .

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