Please explain to me why you city folks are willing to spend thousands of dollars each year to have someone tell you how to live on your own property! You probably pay as much or more in taxes than I do for 5 acers of ground. I have all the major home inorovement stores and walmarts and targets and 12 restaurants within 15-20 minutes drive. I can park all the trailers I want on my property...Just curious what you city slickers find so interesting? Lol.......

 

Move over, I'm moving in!! That makes a lot of seance to me, and we could go riding/fishing every day!!!!!!! Out in country living....crickets, starry nights, bears, and maybe some of Franks kangaroos, migrating down from Flint loll
talking about the great outdoors....my buddy just got back after ice fishing, for 3rd time this winter, and was skunked ea time! His problem is, he can't sit still, moving constantly, drilling holes thru ice everywhere, walking back n forth, checking bait, and wonders why everyone else is pulling em in! lol We keep telling him the best spots to fish, yet he is going to do things his way, trusting his head instead of his gut! lol
Come on up sometime Ken, before the ice is unsafe, and go out with us. Got all the fresh northern lake waters, flowing thru here, for some of our famous Great ''NORTHERN'' Pike, way up ''NORTH'' here, and is why there called ''Northern''! Not....southern soul catfish, or thorny tiny Bull Heads! Maybe even some of of them yummy little Lk. ''Eerie'' bow wow ''Dog Fish'ies''....lol! How bout some of our freshly flushed toilet bowl Gold fish, that flow down river, your way daily! Great eaten!! YUM!! I'm sorry.... I got going, and couldn't stop laughing lol I know your going to let me.... have it! next!
Just starting to snow here. My son is in Seattle where they have 12'' on ground and expecting more, with the whole city on side of a cliff!

 

I paid less than $700 property taxes in 2018, not thousands of dollars, for my 2-story 3-bedroom house with 2 bathrooms. I bet you paid over $700 property tax for the year. I have those same stores 2 miles from my house, plus I'm only a few blocks, easy walking distance, of a Rite-Aid, convenience stores, pizzerias, several fast food places, and a Middle Eastern grocery that makes their own pita bread. I have to go a little farther to get to a Korean market or a real Mexican restaurant. Mmm, tacos with homemade hot sauce. Yum. I'm a little over a mile from a hospital and less than 3 miles from some doctors I see. I'm also 3 miles from the biggest shopping mall in the county, several strip malls, several dozen other stores and dozens of restaurants. I only had to go 3/4 of a mile to get my new truck battery, and I'm within a mile of the Kroger I shop at. I park my trailer where I want, and no one said anything when I parked my quad in the front yard except, is it for sale? I have almost anything you can think of here, except a decent size property.

 

Wow you have cheap property taxes, I am just giving ole 4tracker a hard way to go...when we lived in the city we hated the close quarters but to each his own. Being retired I am thinking about downsizing but will still try to stay out in the country. Just to congested in the city for me. We have friends that live in Mich and we are always comparing living costs and giving each other a hard time all in fun of course. The big plus is everyone on my road has a shooting range on site and experienced shooters. We dont have crime out here, we all look out for each other. But yes our taxes are much higher.

 

Speaking of Taxes....I just walked next door to city hall, and paid our winter taxes $470. That might seem high, but we do have a double ''country sized parcel of land'' for a city lot You like how I mentioned ''country size'' in my description. I'm always telling the ol lady here, if she can't find me right away, I'll be way out in the back 40....40' that is lol And you can see the stars most every night....O wait that must be the street lights, well how bout our beautiful fluffy city/country clouds....O wait that's more of those smelly gasses clouds coming from our refinery, you've been hearing so much about, on the news! Well then the only other country style living, I can think of that's left, is the wonderful farm aromas we get often....O wait that was a pig/cattle hauler spew, that just leaked out the back of the semi trailer, and ran down to our sewer drain....I was wondering where those gasses were coming from that keep bubbling up from our bathroom potty....you don't dare light a cigarette around here! lol I'm going out now and brush off the country like snow fall off my van....O wait that's some kind of green, glowey stuff laying on the snow, so bright lt looked bright white, at first glance, I need to get my eyes examined, something around here has made them blurry, since we moved, way out here in the city sticks, 40 yrs. ago! You use to be able to see clear across the street 50' away, back in the day....what's happening to all our wide open, country like, city spaces? lol And we pay good taxes for, ALL THIS?
Move over Ken, were moving in, next door to ya! lol Have Quad will travel!!

 

LOL.....those are the reasons we moved out of the city....seriously though those are cheap taxes! Our friends tax is higher than ours at 2400 per year and they live just over the line or at least less than half hour over the line....The big cities must give a big tax break! Guess you can afford to store a trailer off site somewhere. I have some friends from the gun club up in Michigan and they cant even change the color of there siding without approval, no trailers or vehicles outside of there garage unless company (24hrs) parking only. No fencing unless by special permit and even had to build a small storage shed to hide there trash cans or keep them in the garage (whew...glad I don't have to do that, especially in summer).
OK I guess you have some good points for living in the city smog....if you need a place to put your trailer you can rent some land from me.....LOL then I get user rights!

 

Well maybe i'll stick around here then, since I still have oil rights....yeah, that black crude keeps gushing up from almost every crack in sidewalks, streets...O wait, they found out what that oily gooey stuff really is.... a city truck just pulled up, apparently there's a broken sewer pipe, that's sticking up out our back 40! lol And here I was about ready to shovel it up and toss it in my custom van, not worrying about the mess, thinking it was black gold! lol
You wouldn't believe it now, but when my parents bought their first home, just down the street here, we were one of the first new homes built, away from the big city skirts of Detroit, after ww2, and this was a township then, without a single grocery store, gas station, restaurant, nothing but woods, fields, ponds, wildlife! So we had to drive back into the city for everything! I was fortunate to have grown up here, and as a kid before the subs started filling in all around us we had, deer as close as our back yard, pheasants suddenly jetting off in almost every step you took, hunters shooting out many neighbors windows! Had to take an hours school bus ride, to schools in city every day! I was very lucky back then, so while having to live here now, at least I have fond memories of our country life here, from way back when! lol

 

They must live in a subdivision with a home owners' association, or someplace like Frankenmuth where they have to keep things looking good because it's a tourist trap. There are enough city laws to follow here and I wouldn't want a lot more. Fences in back yards can't be any higher than 6 feet, and the 6 foot cedar privacy fence on one side of my yard can't go past the front of my house. I think I was supposed to get a permit for it but didn't. Fences in front yards can only be 3 feet high or maybe 4 feet. You need building permits for a lot of things but I didn't get one for my shed either. I think it's not considered to be a permanent building and doesn't need one. You can only cover a certain percentage of your property with buildings so I can't cover my back yard with a little pole barn. Property used to be worth more here before the white flight when half of the white people left. I'm an even smaller minority every time there's a new census. The 1960 census said the population was 196,940 and the estimate for 2017 was 96,448. Over 100,000 people got while the gettin' was good. I think there are too many houses for the number of people left and now they're worth less. I stuck around for my job and my family and now I can't afford to leave.

 

I'm afraid ''you are stuck there'' dude lol and I don't see it getting better any time soon....I drive past/around the area as quickly as I can, and never, dare look back!! It doesn't get much worse than there, ashamed to even call it a city? in Michigan! Use to head up to Saginaw back in the 80's most every weekend w/ wife for getaways, and occasionally drove over that way, not knowing then, how bad it really was! Good luck if there's no other alternatives like.... living UP NORTH!! Do like me, dream of living there, which might help lol

 

There are much worse neighborhoods than mine, and better ones too. My street hasn't been plowed yet this winter and the roads have 2 inches of glare ice. I had to put my truck in 4WD today to get around. Coming up to one stop sign the front of my truck slid over and slammed into the curb when I braked. It wasn't that bad yesterday but the sun has it polished smoother than glass, and the temp dropped down to the low 20s so it's going to stay that way. The good news is, most of my driveway isn't just cleared of snow, it's actually dry. If only I could leave it without fishtailing all over the place.

I've taken M-13 up north several times when I-75 was too crowded and too slow or stopped because of an accident. And I took it through Saginaw at night once. That's a scary place and so are parts of Pontiac. You know it's really bad when someone from Flint says it's bad. There are millionaires living nearby and this is the kind of house they have. I want to live in a castle even if it is a small one, but I'd settle for the mansion a local car dealer and her ex-con, ex-mayor, husband live in. A 5-car garage would be nice too. Check out the houses in this link. Flint, Michigan | Woodcroft Estates and Carriagetown - SkyscraperPage Forum