Teresa and I, after some soul searching, have decided against building a large house up on our property. We decided living full time up there would introduce too many hardships.  There are many factors, but most importantly, we love the little town of Salida and have found a number of friends in the town with common interests. We just met a number of the neighbors up near our property at a gathering, and aside from two or three couples, we don't have much in common with them.  Nice folks... we don't have any "problems" with them.  They are simply the solitary type.  I think any of our attempts to create greater sense of community would have mixed results at best. We'd certainly be the youngest couple up there. Second, the cost is frightening. With a 2000+ sq ft house, and costs up near $160/sq/ft and up, we'd likely be in the hole over $400,000 dollars! Yikes! Third, we'd be missing out on many of the fun evening activities in Salida.  It's not fun driving the canyon at night with wildlife jumping out at you, not to mention snow and ice in the winter... especially after a beer or two.  Fourth, I don't think satellite for an internet connection will be sufficient for my work.  Lastly, it's not very "green" to live out in the boonies, adding carbon to the atmosphere every time we go 25 miles or so into town... not to mention gas prices.  In-town living simply makes sense.

So we are now looking at getting a tiny house near the town of Salida, and eventually building a small cottage up on our property.  We hope to continue to develop the property to the point where we can plug the trailer in, but we may take our time in doing so.

Now if I could only get the loan officer to understand why we had no income last year.