House Buying New Mexico Style – Pt. 1 The Learning Curve!

House buying here, in our little corner of the world, turned out more complicated than we expected.

First – what we want doesn’t exist. Fantasy is always the first sacrificial death!

So – compromise. The question was, what to compromise on. We have a mix of musts and wants:

• Adobe or stone construction
• Dark Skies – limited light bleed from neighbors and altitude – the “valley” is at 4,500 ft and the Village is at 6,500 ft. The difference is quite stunning.
• Places to put down cement pads for the telescopes
• Room for chickens, goats, garden and greenhouse
• Birds & other wildlife – if we feed, they will come
• Enough room for our stuff (yes, we want a dining room, and a kitchen big enough to cook in without tripping over each other)
• 2+ bedrooms ( 1 for company)
• A space for crafts/projects
• Office space
• 1+ bathrooms
• A propane range (after cooking with gas it would be hard to go back)
• The ability to have an outdoor living/cooking space
• Placement options for Catio(s)

Our goal is to keep the price down, since property here comes in two flavors – 500k+ move in ready (not in the budget) or 100-200k which always needs LOTS of work.

Robert really wants an adobe home. It was part of the fantasy of coming to New Mexico, and something we both agree would be an adventure. The problem with adobe homes is they are usually “in town” often very small square footage: kitchen, living space, bedroom and bathroom. And more often than not, on a small piece of property and those that don’t have major problems sell quickly. Which led us to looking at a mobile/manufactured home – something we had not considered before.

© Ken Price “Another Hermit”

Ahhh… we were so naïve.

The home in question sits on a 1-acre lot on the eastern edge of the Village of Magdalena. It is liberally sprinkled with out outbuildings, but the core is a 1992 Palm Harbor single wide mobile home with a 650 square foot addition to one side. It checked most of the boxes… was on village water and sewer and in our price range.

So… we made a verbal offer.

Then we sat down with the discloser document (yes, wrong order!). There wasn’t anything we weren’t expecting…. Until it was listed as being on a septic system?!?!!

Village water – Yes. Village electricity – Yes! Village Sewer – NO!!!

We continued with the offer, madly researching septic systems. When we signed our offer letter we read, with mounting dismay, the 6 pages of legalese we had to sign regarding the septic system.

New Mexico has a septic system problem – a plethora of unpermitted systems that do not meet code. Homes sold for cash “as is” with out inspections or appraisals, and a limited amount of readily available history. Turns out this area of New Mexico didn’t start using MLS until 2005 so finding out anything previous to that is difficult. Our research led us down one rabbit hole after another and given the age of the Mobile Home – 1992! – information was scarce.

We were concerned, so we kept digging.

After finding the New Mexico Waste Water permit site we started our search…. and came up with nothing. We then documented our search and filled out a form for the office of permits to do a search for us. They came up with nothing too.

So, strike one – septic system isn’t on the Village system and isn’t permitted.

Limitations of a septic system…

• Septic systems have a limited lifespan. Usually 20 – 30 years with good maintenance (i.e. pumped regularly) – and we were reaching the upper limit of that.
• The tank and the leach field cannot be built on. Which would limit where we could build the pads for the telescopes and our outdoor cooking area. Although an acre – there are so many existing outbuildings and structures they limited our options.

So, we wanted to know what kind of septic system, where the tank was, and where the leach field was – in order to make some decisions…. We also wanted to know the cost of hooking the house up to the Village septic system ($300) and the cost of routing the waste water to it (unknown).

Our real estate agent had a plumber and contractor come out and we had the house inspected.

Everyone was able to find the tank – although the plumber discovered that the circumference of the pipe used to drain the tank was too small for a modern pumping systems. Which begged the question how long had it been since it was last pumped? As hard as everyone looked, no one could tell us where the drain field was. The Village couldn’t tell us where the hook up and we couldn’t find out if it was actually possible to hook to the Village system due to the slope of the land – waste water doesn’t go “up hill” although a pump could be used, so yet another unknown possibility.

This left us feeling… well, we were beginning to lose sleep.

Next came the inspection.

Our inspector, Charles, was wonderful! Do to our own lack of knowledge we spent part of a Saturday with him following him around as he did the inspection. Learning and soaking it all in.

The owners had offered us a generous amount to repaint and re-floor the single wide. So, we had already budgeted time and money to that project.

But then came all the other odds and ends that started mounting up as we wandered the property with Charles.

• The skirt of the mobile needed to be replaced, according to NM law, they won’t loan on a mobile home with a bad skirt.
• Then there were the windows – all of which needed to be replaced (I couldn’t open and close them and the exterior vinyl was flaked and decayed so their insulating properties were compromised).
• The outbuildings – which we did not get inspected due to lack of access – were going to need maintenance and upkeep.
• The south facing wooden front porch needed refinishing or replacing.
• And little things went on and on – like the welds on part of the gate and one of the hand rails had broken…

The list just kept getting longer.

So, we researched, measured, and priced out flooring, paint, sheetrock, tile, windows and skirting… and the tools to do all of it, figuring we could still make it all work. We would put in the sweat equity and have fun redoing the place.

The lending became our Catch-22.

After looking at the property (but before the appraisal) the bank came back with their offer. They would lend us up to 70% of the purchase price.

In the moment – we were stunned. There was at least 30k worth of work to be done… and that would have to go into the downpayment rather than into the remodel. We would be house-poor, exactly what we did not want to be. House poor limited the remodel, chickens, cement pads for telescopes, goats, catios….

After we breathed a bit, and did more research online. After several days we were surprised the bank was willing to loan that much… mobile homes of this age are often “cash only” and “as is”. Most banks are not willing to touch them at all due to depreciation.

Mobile and manufactured homes – esp. those build before the late 90’s – deprecate more like cars.

And that is when it hit us…

Nothing, absolutely nothing we did to it would ever make it increase in value. Which made me physically sick. The place is adorable – but we weren’t looking for a lifetime commitment – and we would never get back even a smidge of the effort and money we put into it, if we could even find someone to buy it. Home as albatross!

After a sleepless night, we rescinded our offer.

It was harrowing… but we slept better.

We are still looking, wish us luck!

~ Tess