"After searching for over three years for the perfect piece of property, Alix helped me make my dream a reality. A home on 15 acres for horses only 11 miles from downtown Atlanta! Talk about acheiving the impossible!!!"
- Dana M.
My housewarming gift to Dana
I met Dana two years ago when I started back riding horses, a lifelong hobby that had taken a back-burner after college due to time constraints. I leased Dana's horse Vic from her for a year and she quickly morphed from my trainer into a great friend!
In early Fall 2007, Dana approached me about helping her find her dream property: acreage that she could have horses on as close to downtown Atlanta as possible. Not an easy feat on a budget! I knew because of zoning restraints, this was going to be a tough one and that I was going to have to think outside the box. The trick with finding property that is appropriate for horses is finding something with enough cleared acreage for pastures to support them which is also zoned to allow them. The trick to making it affordable is to look at property that is not currently being used/sold as horse property, as that typically comes with a premium price tag.
This involved some digging on my part to make sure I really understood the various zoning restrictions and building codes, while also juggling the specific needs Dana personally had for the property.
After quite a bit of digging and several phone calls, we located what seemed like the perfect piece of property: a 5 bedroom home in Stone Mountain sitting on 15 acres of land, 14.75 of which were in a flood plain. This was ideal because the property was not valuable to a developer since it was in a flood plain, therefore keeping the price down. We went to see the property and were very pleasantly surprised! Over half the land had already been cleared and it was nice and flat; there were several existing outbuildings that could be easily converted into shelters for the horses and storage for their food & equipment; and the house was a great size and literally 15 minutes from downtown Atlanta. It was perfect!
The Atlanta Jump Club enjoys the new farm!
Unfortunately, it was also already under contract to someone else. I spoke with the listing agent and found out that the current buyers were having problems with their financing, so we submitted a very strong back-up contract and I spent the next 2 weeks calling the other agent every day trying to find out what was going on and if there was anything we could do to get our contract in first position. This property was just too perfect for what Dana needed to let it slip away. There finally came a point where the buyers were asking for another extension due to financing problems. I took that opportunity to give the other agent my hard-sell about why my client and our offer were the better option and was able to convince him and his clients not to agree to the extension and instead put ours into first place. Hallelujah!!!
Pounding in the fence posts for the new pasture!
After a scary delay due to some fairly serious title problems with the property, the attorney finally got it worked out and we closed in November '07. Dana now happily lives at "Jump Club Acres" with several horses and her dog Ripple and has made many improvements to the property including building a barn, fencing 4 pastures, and creating a riding arena. My own two dogs love to go out and visit her and run around with Ripple while Dana and I enjoy watching the horses graze from her back deck. CONGRATS DANA!!!
Posts
