We started looking at properties around the beginning of March, 2018. I had started a bit earlier looking at farm land and then we both decided it was what we wanted to do.
We focused primarily on horse properties that were north west of Chicago. The first one I noticed was an old dairy farm but it sold before I could get anyone else interested in looking. Then we started looking more seriously and found that what is advertised in the listing is often not that close to reality.
We saw farms with wonderful horse facilities, good barns and lots of paddocks but some of the houses needed to be torn down and started over.
Then we found properties with nice houses but no facilities for horses. True, we could build the fencing and barns and run-ins, but that would take a lot of time and effort. Plus, we were starting to get concerned about the amount of time it might take to get from the farm to the city. Of course, we didn’t want to go into the city every day, but I needed to go in once a week to teach a class at DePaul and Jeanne is still working full time in Northbrook.
So, we started narrowing down the search to properties that were not too far from Interstate 90. That way, we could be in the country and still be able to get back to our old neighborhood. The trick now was to find that Goldilocks property that was not too big, not too small, had a nice house and was set up for horses.