Solid points. I’m just concerned about what we “can’t” see since it’s so overgrown. They are asking a premium already for these two acres and have been sitting on it for awhile.
If they insist on getting a premium, they may never sell it. There’s not much you can do about that.
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Yep, the seller’s agent works in the seller’s best interest. Always 
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OT: I joked to a co worker a few years back that I bought a machete from harbor freight as a self defense item for home invasion. Nothing strikes fear in a home invader like someone coming at you with a machete. He said he has a good metal bat and commented a machete would make a big mess. He’s right but I always wanted a machete.
Perhaps the click of a shotgun strikes more fear for most invaders, though that would also make a mess. I have a pitbull, though she is a family dog and would rather lick any intruder than bite them. We also have a sticker on my car reading “I 
my pitbull”. That probably works better to prevent home invasions than a machete, a bat, a shotgun or a security system. By the way, pitbulls are total sweathearts and have a terrible rap. It is the bad owners that give them a bad name.
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My liability insurers would disagree with your assessment. And my previous research suggests that even a sweet dog can easily snap and do some serious damage to those who love her most.
I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the “lower animals” (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me. Mark Twain
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Guaranteed! It is unmistakable in the silence of night. But it’s not a good idea if there’s an actual intruder, for lots of reasons.
My only (thank heaven) personal example … shortly after moving into our last home in what should have been a safe subdivision, my dog started barking at ~3:00 a.m. I thought there was noise from the garage and grabbed Betsy (12ga pump). While racking a round and checking off the safety, I opened the door to the garage. My new neighbor immediately hit the floor and started identifying himself. He heard me rack the gun before opening the door and new exactly what it was. Of course, he was a police officer.
The kicker - He was trying to close my garage door as I had left it open. 
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Well played. I’ve never been a gun person myself but I can certainly see where ot has its merits. In most all cases better than a machete for home defense.
If he had been a real crook and heard the rack, he would have known where I was and what I had. That can do strange things to crooks. It’s best to be able to surprise them so they don’t have the time to think of options. At least that’s what I think, but I’ve been known to be wrong. 
ETA: I’m not really a gun person. I’ll shoot some clays every year or two just for practice, and once in a blue moon go to a range, but that’s about it.
And it embarrassed the hell out of me. Fortunately, we’d had a couple of months to meet the neighbors and for them to get a feel of who we were.
I don’t disagree that some dogs can certainly do that. I was very skeptical too but as my wife had previously owned one I started to learn much more about them. My rescue pitbull is submissive to other small barking dogs and is a very loyal heavy lap dog. We got her when my youngest son was 2 years old and we were concerned of her smothering him accidentally but she napped beside him more carefully than even we could.
Certainly do your homework and make sure you have a ‘family dog’ and not one that has previously been abused as a fight dog. Yes, those that have been trained badly can be unpredictable, no doubt about it, just like any other abused dog can be unpredictable. Pits have the unfortunate rap of being misunderstood and getting the headline media to make people fearful of them.
Pits are very strong and resilient and when trained to be agressive can certainly do more damage than most. But they are the most loyal dogs I have ever known. Loyal to a fault. They are one of the best fighting dogs because they will do anything to please their owner, when their owner trains them to be that way. But when you raise them and treat them right they are like no other companion, and extremely loyal to their family. My pit wants to follow me everywhere.
Please though, for anyone who ever thinks about owning a pitbull type, educate yourself first and take training to know how to be a good owner (owner training, not just dog training). That really should be a requirement. I’ve seem many good owners who absolutely love the breed and do right by them but unfortunately everyone knows of the bad owners that show up on Judge Judy. You only ever hear about the bad dogs who are owned by negligent owners.
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It’s really hard to hit a honking goose with a machete.
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This.
Your liability insurers are basing their decisions off of numbers, and those numbers are biased. They don’t think anything about pit bulls. Also, they probably don’t know that much about pit bulls if they’re using that term in a legal context to indicate disallowed breeds. Pit bull is not a breed.
All dogs (or any animals, including humans) can turn on others unexpectedly. The evidence suggests that pits are actually less likely to do so than many others. However, if a chihuahua turns on it’s owner, what can it do? If a pit does, it could kill you. That’s why no one ever reports chihuahuas turning on their owners.
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Numbers are numbers, they’re not “biased”. For them it’s all about reducing risk, and perhaps they don’t go enough into the details of what a pit bull is and whether some of them are better than others when they explicitly exclude the entire category / type. Huskies are beautiful and loving family dogs too and they are also “high liability”.
Anyway, corndogg brought up that they are sweet if not mistreated, but liability insurance is a financial consideration, and this is mostly a finance forum, so it’s only prudent to mention it.
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By biased I don’t mean in a way that, for example, people are biased against other people. I meant there are various biases which result in numbers which seem to indicate one conclusion, but that conclusion is incorrect due to the biases. Liability insurers are not worried about the chihuaua bites since the liability associated with a bite is significantly less. But don’t want to stray the thread too far off topic, and agree its worth mentioning that liability insurance premiums may be higher.
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Or if you were silly enough to let your chihuaua’s bite make it to your insurance company as a claim. 
This old thread having resurfaced, I’m going to seize this opportunity to add an item to the checklist I posted early on here:
Be certain the metes and bounds description of your land closes.
I’ll use my own experience from years ago as an example:
It’s about a mile around the periphery of my land, a good walk through field and forest on a nice day. 
Hence, as you might imagine, the description in the deed I was offered was lengthy. Way back then the only computer available to me was a lowly Commodore 64. Nevertheless, I managed to write a program to check the metes and bounds description for closure. The description did NOT close. Before agreeing to the purchase, I demanded a proper description of the land I was buying.
For anyone unfamiliar, closure just means the description, after being followed, leads you back to where you started, the “point and place of beginning” to which you sometimes see reference. When you buy land, the description in the deed you’re being offered should close.
With the massive increase in computerization available today to surveyors, I’m confident they have pre-packaged programs available now to check this stuff, with no need to write their own. Nevertheless, the check must be performed. This is especially important with land which might not have been surveyed for a great many years.
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So what was involved in the seller getting this? Did they have to get a surveyor and then verify county records for neighboring plots and update the records for their plot?
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I honestly cannot remember the details. I remember having a very big contretemps with the local surveyor, who was not local at that time to where I was living. But I also remember that surveyor had me at a disadvantage somehow, and I had to concede something, likely money. The surveyor did NOT like that I had discovered his metes and bounds description did not close, and was annoyed and bothered. I’m pretty sure what happened was not commonplace for him back then.
It was all so long ago.
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Bumping this thread as we just closed on a one acre lot in a subdivision!
A few things I’ve learned and experienced through this process:
- You do not need a realtor to purchase property, but I can see how they could help with logistics and showing line of sight to closing. We purchased our property from a private party and we agreed upon terms along with finding a joint title agent for closing.
- From there, we utilized our local MLS contract to agree upon terms and countersigned it for our benefit. The title agent company then assisted with all of the official paperwork and filing with the county.
- The lot we purchased is in a subdivision with a HOA. I crawled through every single document including amendments to understand what expectations and constraints there are. Moreover, I used my professional network and found someone in my industry that lives in the neighborhood. I reached out to them but also spoke to others to get a gauge of experiences with the HOA (good and bad) to find out what we will expect as we progress forward.
Now, we are in the process of building a house. We are getting a list of potential builders along with design companies for plans. Any guidance in this area would be much appreciated. 
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Increase your B-12 intake by at least double. Stock up on Valium and bp medicine, and start learning to meditate.
Sorry, but my only house-building experience was 40 years ago, and was followed shortly by my only divorce experience.
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