Dillema - land/house advice

it really is up to you and your husband. i prefer old with character, but generally more expensive to renovate and heat. your husband may sweat changing a lightbulb, but if he earns enough you could get the diy done professionally. limited land for horses is workables with management, and never forget you can always put the ned into livery for the worst of the winter and have him home the other 8 to 9 months of the year, thus not trashing your own land and the expense of mending it in the spring.
 
I haven't seen the houses and really can't tell you what to do but;
When we were looking for a property the land had to be paramount. Sister and I were selling 2 houses and we hoped to be able to buy somewhere with 2 cottages and land. However we ended up sharing a house because the properties with 2 houses didn't have suitable land, one was too wet, one was too steep, one was too close to the motorway. We have kept 4 horses for most of 16 years on the 3 south-facing acres on millstone grit, which we eventually bought. We are able to graze a neighbours land sometimes but actually we find that we can manage the horses' weight better by feeding extra forage, rather than having to restrict grazing. The house needed a lot of work and it did take several years to get it all finished. The maintenance of the land/fences/buildings etc takes so much time, The first thing we did after getting here was to convert the buildings to stables.
I wouldn't take it for granted that you will get PP because there is evidence of previous buildings - you certainly need to check that out before making a decision.
TBH I think if I were you I'd keep on looking - the right property will be out there somewhere.
 
You can manage horses on less land, and with stabling for half the time you can halve the amount of land you need (as it's rested for 12 out of 24 hours). We have an acre and a half's field to use, and two ponies + one weanling live out on that, with the occasional addition of another pony during the day. It's split and rotated, we put down hay year-round under the trees, and poo pick twice a week (daily in summer). I'd go for the newer one, and get a small pony companion - 10-11hh sort of size (not shetland, they bulldoze and break fencing like you wouldn't believe!).
 
I love old character but my sensible suggestion would be to go for house 2.
Personally I do not see why you could not have a small companion if you looked after the land right.
You can really make the new place more homely and less sterile. You said he would sweat changing a light bulb, so I would go for option 2, I think option 1, as lovely as it sounds, I am sure the old character has a wonderful romantic charm but what with the noise pollution potential, along with everything else I would go for number 2.
Well that's my opinion :D

ETS:Also the older houses can be money pits, expensive to heat and renovate etc
 
Bit late to this thread, but I can tell you that the motocross track will drive you to distraction, even for the limited time it is open. I would not even go and look at a house that had anything like that within a hundred miles even if it had everything else going for it and they were paying me to take it!
 
cariad said:
Bit late to this thread, but I can tell you that the motocross track will drive you to distraction, even for the limited time it is open. I would not even go and look at a house that had anything like that within a hundred miles even if it had everything else going for it and they were paying me to take it!
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We live within a mile of a motoX track, which is open once a fortnight for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning and due to the lay of the land you can't hear it unless you really strain your ears - we didn't even know it was there for the first 2 years of living in the village !!
 
Well I know the motocross track, the people there are really nice and friendly and it has its own access road so no trouble there. The noise really isn;t that bad......I live near a speedway track and can;t say it bothers me.

The facilities look great in the new house, but I am all for character and oldness. Also, the new one does look very exposed and I know you say the old one is too but it seems to have trees round and about?

Keep us posted on what you decide!
 
Sorry, but another one late looking at this post.

You mention that you are a happy hacker - what is the hacking like ie. main roads, quiet lanes, any good bridleways in the area for these two properties - can you send me a link to the properties you are interested in (via PM if you like).
 
Thanks everyone for your opinions, this is really helping me to look from all angles.

A few extra details:
The older house is only 16 years old, btw. The acreage is set out on a type of rectangle, with the last acre opposite where the motocross starts on the opposite side of road. It's open 11 -4 on sat (and 11-4 on weds also during school summer hols). I spoke to the owner today, he was very friendly and told me to come down and visit and meet him, but he understood my concerns. I asked him if he was trying to extend his hours and he was evasive. You can't hear the noise at all from inside the house as its double glazed and farthest away. The hacking is fantastic, btw, miles and miles of droves. Theres a functional 3 stables, very far from house, with a good frame,and a haybarn, Security would be an issue, but it'd do for now. There's a functional double garage, it'd do for now, but needs replacing in the next 2/3 years

What we think?
 
Sorry - a bit late to the discussion so havent read all the replies but I think I would go for the 2nd one.

I have 4 acres and only really use no more than 2 acres (even with rotating them) because mine are fatties. Having a menage would be lovely (and they cost a lot of money aside from getting PP etc) and the fact that you can see over the land is great (I love that about my place!). Maintaining old houses / land that needs a lot of work is hard work and straining on a marriage - most weekends will be eaten up with doing stuff...

I also really wouldnt want to hear motocross noise for however little time....

Its all down to personal preference I gues ;-)
 
When you say you are old, do you mean over child-bearing age?!

So it's safe to assume that you are not going to start a family one day and need those extra acres for the various ponies you will have to acquire :)
 
I would have said the first house, but we used to have a motorcross track near us, and its VERY noisy and annoying. Even now there is one about half a mile from our PC field, and when its on its too much. I'd go for the easy maintenance one if hubby prefers it, especially as he's not good at DIY. You can easily have a small companion on that if you manage the turnout properly, and you have everything ready to go...
 
Llewelyn said:
When you say you are old, do you mean over child-bearing age?!

So it's safe to assume that you are not going to start a family one day and need those extra acres for the various ponies you will have to acquire :)
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That's right - over childbearing age and hubbys 50.
 
Can you afford to move in to the older house and pay people to do it all? If you can, then it's no problem if your husband is not keen on DIY, but if you are going to have to roll your sleeves up and do it yourselves, then house 2 sounds a lot easier.

Two acres is plenty for a horse and a pony companion. I have quite a collection of daughter's outgrown aged ponies (hence my question) so I can let you have one of mine if you like!

You could do the paradise farm system in the summer (or whatever it's called) - fence a narrow strip all round the edge and a native pony will mooch about happily keeping slim and fit, while your horse has 85% of the land. I keep 5 ponies and 2 horses on about 5 acres, yet my field is lush right now because the 3 little ponies get about an acre (with hay) and the bigger 4 get 4 acres. I have fed hay/lage throughout most of the summer, but only as a top up.
 
Llewelyn said:
Two acres is plenty for a horse and a pony companion. I have quite a collection of daughter's outgrown aged ponies (hence my question) so I can let you have one of mine if you like!

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It's 2 acres total plot, incl menage, garden, house, barn and garage, which leaves a small amount of land:(
 
Honey 08, I'm really glad you said that about the track as I was beginning to think I had super hearing when in fact I wear a hearing aid as my hearing is so poor. It is however only poor in some respects, but with other things, such as motorbikes, motocross and the like it seems to hit a certain frequency and I just cannot stand it. Perhaps it doesn't bother others who don't have hearing problems, or the wind is always in the right direction to take the sound away but it would be a deal breaker for me. I remember looking at a beautiful house just off the A1- only from the road mind, as well outside our price range- but still relatively cheap for what it was and we couldn't understand why. It was because the house was subject to a constant low level hum from the A1 traffic and it was substantially devalued because of that. You have to think of re-sale value even if you don't at the moment think of moving, as you don't know what will happen. I'm sure the people running the place are lovely, but it would be then very awkward to object if they want to increase opening hours.

We went for scruffy cottage and outbuildings, but 11 acres and in 3 years haven't seen anything we'd rather have. The financial savings on just having your horses out at grass for 6 months and more of the year, plus taking hay off as well is immense and far outweighs extra mortgage costs.
 
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