Background
Having spent at least two decades in Orange County, we decided it was time to get back to where our family lives. Mine had all moved out of state or passed on (I guess that's out of state, isn't it?). Most of Shirley's family is located in the Phoenix area, so after several years' worth of discussion, we finally decided to make the move. (Honey, I'm moving to Phoenix. Would you like to join me?)
Shirley is quite practical in these matters, so if it didn't make sense financially, we weren't going to do it. We put our home on the market for a rediculous price...and got it!! We were as shocked as anyone. So away we went.
We rented a place here and were first hit with a limitation of visualization. Everything we looked at with acreage looked like kitty litter. It took us almost a year to find property. The piece we finally found was so impressive, we bought two lots with the intent of selling one and partially paying for our own. That dragged on much longer than expected and I finally fired the agent and put up signs myself. By the time I got back home, we had calls. And by the end of the week had a signed contract.
The bad news...the buyer wanted both lots. Since we had asked another rediculous price, we took it. And were back at square one. The good news is we found another parcel (this time a 2 acre lot) that met our needs and we bought it. And that's where we are building.