Talk to enough people. 

Ask enough questions.

You may eventually get to the truth.

I am a bit surprised the realtor doesn't know this stuff, this is her job. 

I guess?

Because after several more phone calls,  I finally got to the brass tacks about county property.  

See, I wanted this question answered.  Are there restrictions or are there no restrictions on county land, outside of a city limits? 

It took several phone calls to the wrong places that I was directed to before I got to an unlikely source: The county's bridges and roads department. I mean, :I didn't even know that department existed, it never showed up under any google searches.  

Mind you, other people I talked to insisted that "other" sources were the place to call. And you call them, and they're like, we only do "this and that" here, we aren't responsible for any zoning. Finally, some dude said, uhh as far as I know? There is no zoning in the county. I had heard this several times from various people before, but no one from any "official" source ever said this.

Yet, he didn't know who to call either.  He tried, but that number ended up being a dud.  I decided that I would call the county and I would just - not stop - until someone could give me an official, definitive answer.  

Now I know. There are NO zoning ordinances in Texas counties.  The only things that have to be observed are state rules - like if you're installing a septic system, you have to get a permit.  Oh and the property owner selling to you can name conditions.  Mineral rights are obvious.  Easements as well. Most properties have easement for natural gas around these parts.

And then, when the property owner gets their money off of the easement money, they try to sell the property at highly inflated prices. They made their money, only pure greed would dictate to ask for outrageous prices for property after the fact. I'm not stupid, I am fairly intelligent. I know about zoning, hence I didn't just go out and buy just anything.  I had to find out about the zoning.  But the information coming out from all the sources is ridiculous.  

There is so much BS involved with properties around here, it's headache inducing stuff. You find facts on one thing and then you find out there are a dozen more questions about everything else.  You hear one thing from some "official" and then you hear something completely opposite form another "official".  You attempt to do your  research, but you don't know what the hell you are doing, who to ask, what to do next after finding out - more derogatory information that you cannot verify whether truth or fiction.

I freely admit in this arena of attempting to find out what a city or county allows or not? I have no clue.  Or had no clue.  I'm getting there. There is more to go. This idea that I have to put on a minimum 1,100 square foot house on one of my properties is outrageous.  I'll take that to the city council for a vote.  They can do as they see fit, but I will present a case they can't just ignore.  

That will have to wait, however,  until after the 6 month waiting period is up, another 3 months, and I see about getting an actual title to it and the other properties.  

Okay it's late. Pandora's box was opened today.  Once again: There are no zoning rule applied to any property in the county. There is no such thing as "zoned residential" in the county.  The realtors are making that shit up.  

I am not going to Cheniere as this new dispatcher attempting to give me.  I can't go there. She reassigned me to another Oklahoma run.  I can see times are going to be difficult with this new dispatcher.  Whatever. If it comes down to tit, Ill speak to my manager about it and he can determine what course of action he will take with it.  

I do not have an early load, It's 1:30 pm. Meaning I won't even arrive to that plant until probably around 11:00 pm.  

Regardless, I'm getting offa here. 

G'nite.

 The truth of the dictator at city hall and the property inside city limits came out today.

The dictator hasn't been completely truthful.  He is accountable to 2 people above him.  He is not solely responsible to the city council.  That was his claim when I asked about it specifically the first time I met him. 

I have both of those people's phone numbers as of today, one of them the city manager.  Of course and duhh. The city manager is above pretty much everyone but the mayor in any given city.  I will be visiting that person tomorrow if I can at all find this person and meet up with him/her.  

The property was listed as a "rare find" and "inside city limits" but with no restrictions! Oh really?  Liars. 

The property has a small portion of it inside city limits, the rest is county land.  It's pretty strange to think about acquiring a property this is partial city and partial county.  

So what's the deal here?  Well, the deal is that if you want the city's water, electric and sewer, you have to ask for it to be annexed into the city, according to the dictator's version of what the city manager's "policy" is.  I can think of a number of reasons why you wouldn't want to voluntarily subject yourself to the city, the other part of the Little Dictator's engagement today was proof of that.

 He told me that one of the properties I bought at auction would have to have a pier and beam structure with shingle roof or a brick structure put on it with minimum 1,100 square feet.  Oh my, isn't he so wonderful to concede that? That street has old  - and I mean old - mobile homes on it. OLD site built homes. One of them is rotting out.  It has a mansion on it, yes, down the road a ways and completely fenced in.  There are a few nice, regular houses. It's a total mix.  But this dude thinks I should dump a hundred grand into a housing project.

I'll tell you what, if i wanted to do that? It would be a small apartment complex or a duplex, triplex, or quad.  

I haven't given up on doing with that property, but I have minimal hopes of just putting a small house on it and renting it out.  They don't want to deal with it, with no particularly good reasons as to why.   

Back to the other property.  I am going to try to find out if there is county electric and water available.  There are numerous homes on the other side of the street, where are they getting their water and electric from? Not the city, or if they are, it's not because of some ridiculous mandate that the city gets to take it over with governmental authority.  

Look, I don't even know if  I can get the financing for this property. But you have to do the homework first.  

Tomorrow - yet another day off work - I will be attempting to find out if there is rural water available with rural electric. 

__________________________________

So, I went out and got the aerator machine yesterday.  It didn't take long, just a bit over an hour to pop holes all over the yard.  It did, however, kick my @$$.  It's a machine that has a motor and self drive simply by turning the spindle the tines are on - but just trying turning that thing!

You either have to lift the machine up or run around like a madman in a half circle trying to get it to line up with where you left off.  So it rained last night, I have no idea if the seeds got washed away - again - or if they are buried in the dirt.

Back to the property.  
For I went out and walked around part of it and up and down the streets next to it.  Power lines are running right through it, the city has no control over that.  The city doesn't generate power anyway. What they have control of is water sewer - if there is sewer out there I couldn't find anything.  But there is water running on the other side of the highway, but another water utility running down the side street.  I found a map and that appears to be under the control of a neighboring, much smaller city.  Whether they want to annex to provide services? I have no clue, tried calling them and got a recorded message and a "mailbox is full" message. 

The property has an old, caved in house on it.  Was rather surprised to find that thing there. It's so caved in there is no telling about whether there were utilities going to it.  One would assume yes, but assumptions are bad things sometimes, especially when considering putting my name on the line for 100k and giving a sizeable down payment to back it up.

One one of the corners of it, there are actually very small, separate properties, all with mobile homes on them.  Another situation where whatever entity has control of the land through the government would have a hard time coming back to me and telling me that the "only thing" I can put on there is what they dictate and take it or leave it.  

I also talked to the city manager.  I can make no guarantees, he said, but it would certainly be on the favorable side.  he talked about a study the city had done quite a while back where they wanted an RV park near downtown.  He said that would go favorable on your project.  Because not only would I have to have the property annexed, if I had to go that route, I would also have to get new zoning on it.  I have yet to find out whether the majority of the property is in county land or in the next city over's jurisdiction.  

This whole thing has been a giant learning curve for me. Whether I get this property or not, I am finding that I have to learn about more and more contacts to get necessary information before you even think about going to the bank and talking about a loan.  The property is way over-priced, but, i found out today going through the tax roles, it's owned by an heir of the deceased that originally owned it.  The description reads " motivated seller".  Well that's interesting, because I don't reckon that property is worth more than 3 grand per acres.  That puts it around 100k. They want - I dont' remember exactly, 138k I think it was.  

Whatever the case, I am putting any more fact finding missions on hold for a bit today and just sit back and think about all of this.  For even if I could get this property, I would likely be short on the funds/cash to be able to develop it.  Utility access along will cost in the thousands or even tens of thousands range.  That's the biggest drawback to any of these properties that don't have city sewer and water.  Or a coop.  Or a rural utility.  

Day 2 of 2 full days off of work. It's more like 3 since I only worked part of the morning on sunday, but the company will call that a day that I worked anyway. Full expect to get sent out tomorrow, dunno where.  I need a good run to shore up the Oklahoma run.  

With that, I have house work things to do and I'm getting offa here.

G'day.