Burns, TN / Montgomery Bell State Park

We spent two long days looking at houses while staying 4 nights at the Montgomery Bell State Park. Unfortunately, prices haven’t gone down as much as we had hoped they would by now, but it’s nice that the homes are staying on the market longer with the higher interest rates, so we aren’t too pressured to make a quick decision. We are able to put down a large downpayment and we will look for an opportunity to refinance asap!

While in Murfreesboro, we met a friend, Rick Leffler, for dinner at Metro Diner. He was also kind enough to let us send some mail to his place, since we couldn’t send it to the state park.

On the first day we saw these homes:

• 2nd choice –  2869 Thompson Rd, Murfreesboro, TN 37128, $1,130,000, 3075sf, 7.34ac, 2013. The Ionized in-ground pool was pretty; organic orchard / garden, chicken coop and goat pen. The house was nice, especially the huge windows in the living room and the two-sided fireplace, but it didn’t have the main level master that we were hoping for. We aren’t totally sure we want the extra work of a mini-farm, but if we did, it would be nice for it to be established already instead of us starting it on our own. The idea is intriguing, at least.
• 1st Choice – 102 New Dawn Rd, Rockvale, TN 37153, $1,200,000, 3400sf, 10.12ac, 2016. The front yard is neighbor’s side yard, which is a little strange but didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would, since they’re so far apart. The lot is long and narrow, but again, it didn’t really bother us as it normally would have, since there were trees on both sides and with 10 acres, it wasn’t too narrow. The front 3 acres is cleared with the back 7 wooded with a cleared trail going through them. No pool, but with the large flat back yard, Randy will get to design one exactly as he’d like. It’s nice to have so much privacy, yet still have neighbors and be close to everything in Murfreesboro. The house was awesome! There wasn’t anything about it that bothered me; if anything, just that it’s a bit larger than I was looking for, but Randy likes the larger size, so it was a good compromise. Oh, and I prefer having separate garage doors instead one large one, but the garage itself has extra space inside.
• 3rd Choice – 2731 Midland Rd, Shelbyville, TN 37160, $899,900, 3363sf, 10.01ac, 2004. All brick exterior. Decent floor plan, but not as bright and open as the previous two we had already seen. We really liked the mature trees in the back yard, but one was too close to the house for comfort, especially with roots that could cause issues under the patio.
• NO!!! 1931 Wartrace Pike, Shelbyville, TN 37160, $995K, 3763sf, 30ac, 1964. We’ve seen a few old homes that had been remodeled and were worth considering. The lot of this one looked interesting enough to consider remodeling it ourselves. But it had an awful floor plan and was completely outdated, so the price seemed unreasonable. There was an in-ground pool and a small guest house that stunk (literally!)
• NO. 10554 Manchester Pike, Christiana, TN 37037, $835K, 3027sf, 10.63ac, 2004. Too much noise from a nearby interstate.

We didn’t have as much luck the next day when we saw these homes. I think it was the homes themselves that were less appealing, but it was also raining too hard to walk around outside, so it’s possible that added to the negative impressions.

• NO. 2254 Pleasant View Rd, Pleasant View, TN 37146, $729,900, 3006sf, 5.02 ac, 2005. House needs updating but floor plan was ok. Closer to road than would prefer, but nice pond in front yard.
• NO. 8079 Highway 41a, Cedar Hill, TN 37032, $815,000, 4192sf, 5.51ac, 2016. Too much road noise from highway in front and nearby interstate. Really cool house, though, with interesting features: concrete countertops, Amish wooden floors, ladders to upper room and basement storm shelter.
• NO. 901 Slayden wood Rd, Vanleer, TN 37181, $879,900, 3552sf, 7.22ac, 2018. Had multiple cabins and weird floor plan for main house. Great for an Airbnb business, but not what we were looking for.
• NO. 975 Slayden Wood Rd, Vanleer, TN 37181, $799,000, 3474sf, 5ac, 2018. We liked this one better than its neighbor, but nothing special.
• 1st – 325 E Piney Rd, Dickson, TN 37055, $829,900, 2782sf, 6ac, 1986. Has an in-ground pool with a large patio area (too large, actually). Exterior just has brick front w/ three sides vinyl siding. Inside was awesome — a total remodel with open floor plan and great use of space throughout. Kind of close to a road that was busier than we’d prefer, but not terrible. Front windows look across to junky neighbors. Lot had rolling hills. While there, we saw a family of deer in the back yard.
• NO – 712 Hwy 48 South, Dickson, TN 37055, $1,100,000, 2640sf, 9.7ac, 2018. Cute, unique house with barn doors over the front door. The house sat on top of steep hill with a narrow driveway entry and a busy highway that was a deal breaker.

After looking at all these homes and considering ones we had on our list to see in other areas, we decided we liked the 102 New Dawn home well enough to make an offer. It wasn’t quite the “This is it!” reaction we had when we found the CO home, but I do really like the house and we can plant some trees in front and put a pool in for Randy, so it’ll eventually be what we were looking for! We countered their price with a low enough offer that we figured it would go back and forth a couple of times and buy us at least a few more days. There are a couple of houses in northern Georgia that look really nice on “paper”, so we want to see them before making a final decision.