what would you do with the land?

[Kellie Powell]

My retired parents have a piece of land that is about 2 acres. Located in Indiana. It has an old pole barn and a grain silo on it. It used to have a farm house on it, but the house was torn down 20+ years ago. It is surrounded by farm ground It is located out "in the county". 20 minutes from the nearest box store, grocery store, or any employer of significant pay. They have offered to sell this property to us at a deeply discounted rate. We thought about putting a mobile home on it an renting. However, we know there will be costs to likely re-do the septic and well (I have no idea how much that would even cost). What would you do with this land? Build SFH to sell comparable to others in the area? Add a Mobile home or two? I need ideas! Something that would make the purchase profitable. Thank you!

[Erin Azar]

Yes, the above info would help to better understand what you are working with. You may be able to build duplexes on an acre of land in residential zoning. This depends on Kokomo zoning laws, and I cannot remember those off hand. If you do this, you could also build 1 septic per duplex (saves on cost but adds risk for single point of failure for both units). Here are some ballpark costs to consider:

Assuming you could build 1 duplex per 1 acre - you would need the following:

a) Boundary survey + Topo survey = ~$3.5k per duplex/acre

b) Civil Engineering design set for each duplex which includes house placement on land, drainage, septic design = $7-8k per duplex/acre

c) Septic system + install =~$20k per duplex/acre

Hope this helps. I own a civil & environmental engineering firm in Indiana, so these are ball park numbers given our experience in Indiana in cities/areas like Kokomo.