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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As soon as kids go to college we are leaving DC and buying acreage somewhere to enjoy for a couple decades.  We'll be 47/48 so we should have 20 decent years.  I want 1 level living, a separate walkout basement apartment or small secondary living set up like a carriage house in case a kid or parent needs to move in with us, and 5+ acres.

Our NoVA house is only 1500 sf so it's fine, but it's set up terribly with bedrooms upstairs and laundry in the basement and I don't want to deal with it after the kids are gone.[/quote]

My parents did this in their mid 50s when I was about to finish college, except they bought a 3-bedroom (with a first story master bedroom) farmhouse complete with a barn on 15 acres. They downsized from our suburban 4 bedroom house.

They had fun with it, but it was a ton of work and $ to keep up (with a lot of outsourcing). Soon after, my dad had a heart attack, but thankfully survived and they continued on. They spent a lot of money on renovations over the years. They were further out from quality medical care and once they hit mid-60s and a few medical scares - dad fell outside and broke/shattered his arm from slipping on ice - they downsized to a one story with attached garage in the suburbs near medical care and good hospitals. Some other things to think about if you’re further out with land: slower internet / frequent outages, cell signal - it was weak so they required a land line, septic system only, lower water pressure, giant wolf spiders (yikes), lots of land to mow (on a riding mower or outsourcing).  Finding reliable people to come out to make repairs (further out can cost more and they often had to wait longer until people could make the trip out), mail delivery at a local post office instead of mail box, people would drop off outdoor cats they no longer wanted and my parents would get them spayed/neutered and 
let them remained outdoor cats feeding and watering them daily, while letting them live in the barn, lack of uber/lyft for when I was visiting. The good: gorgeous landscape (my dad became a pro designer after he retired), young grandkids who lived 20 mins away LOVED coming over, they built a chicken coop and had fresh eggs (tons of work) - chickens got slaughtered when a fox got in their pen one night, amazing fresh fruits and veggies, pumpkins patch for kids, lots of space with no neighbors, lots of funny and great memories, among others. That said, even if you’re not “farming” be prepared for all of the other potential issues, which my parents definitely had to get used to! [/quote]

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