Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living is water a requirement for a mortgage?

We looked at a property that I liked. My wife falls in love with almost every place we see including this one. 10+ acres, really nice house remote with the major drawback that there is no water except for a huge, really well executed rain catchment system and haul in for backup. Not having a well was a deal breaker before we saw this place but setting that aside.

Would any legit mortgage company finance a property that doesn't have a water source?

Thanks

Just curious, is a well that prohibitive to put in?

I don't know. I called a well digger just a few miles from the property but no response. Fairly arid country and higher elevation so water might be deep. I'll try a couple more diggers.

Depends on the company. Also depends on the fire service if there is any. For instance if they are close by and have a tanker then maybe no big deal?

I'd be real careful. Water well companies are in the business of drilling wells... Not finding water.

You could drop $50k on a deep well that doesn't produce water.

I'd sure get it witched before drilling. By a reputable water witcher.

I doubt any legit mortgage company would commit. However,a lot of properties sold in that Hartsel country west of COS, and there is no water. I think they were all private financing though. I know of a couple houses that were built off of Gold Camp road with no water. Fools built the houses before they tried drilling for water.Then there is Cherokee Water district in south eastern Colorado Springs that was built with not enough water and they bought water rights in Black Forest then paid to have wells drilled,holding tanks, and pipe line laid from there to Cherokee for water. I know of some areas NE of Black Forest near County Line Road 1 that sunk two 5,000 dry wells. So I guess it happens.


In the future, the entire Colorado Springs Metro area is going to have major water shortages..Buying any property with out water is pretty much throwing money away IMO.

Saddlesore, were those dry wells 5000 FOOT deep? That’s amazing. When we built our house in Black Forest we were required to drill to the bottom of the Dawson aquifer... for us that was just shy of 500 feet. The hydrology of the area from north of Colorado Springs through North of Denver shows 4 or 5 distinct aquifers, the Dawson being the second (I think, going by ancient memories here)

One of the reasons we left the area was we knew the rampant growth was going to suck up all the water. The static water levels in local wells was going down about 5 feet a year!

And we didn’t know about the Cherokee district pumping water and shipping it south!

DumDum. Those two dry holes were about 200 yards east of Elbert County Road 1 (Elbert/and Douglas line) and 1/2 mile north of County Line road.This was at least 30 years ago. I bought hay from the ranch there and they had given his daughter and SIL 40 acres. I worked with the SIL and they sunk $30K + in those two wells before giving it up. Funny thing, not 1/4 miles away was an artesian spring that has never gone dry in the almost 46 years have I lived here. It keeps a 20 ft x 4 ft stock tanked filled. Across County Road 1 in Douglas county is a huge commercial green house with plenty of water. You can drill thru rock that dirt that never taps an aquifier

Most homes in Black Forest suck out of the Dawson Aquifier. Big wells, like the Cherokee out of the Denver Aquifier. Not many out of the Ogallala(sp).

My well is 320 feet deep,it has gone done 10 feet in the 46 years since it was drilled.I never heard of wells loosing 5 feet year, but I guess if enough straws are put down to suck water it can happen. Most new wells require meter on them now with limits on pumping and what water can be used for.

We weren’t too far away from some Colorado Springs Water Utility ( dunno the official name) deep wells they put in as part of the Briargate development annexation agreements.

Like you said they probably went down to a deeper aquifer, but everybody likes to pretend the aquifers are not connected to each other and they can pump all they want from a deeper aquifer without draining an upper one. That’s what we think was causing our static well levels to drop so fast.

A neighbor of ours probably helped build that greenhouse! When a big hailstorm damaged it (late 1990’s/early 2000’s?) he let us salvage a bunch of material there.

I am in Black Forest now but looking in New Mexico. Can't afford to retire here. Looking around Trinidad as well but Colorado has just gotten expensive. We can't imagine not living in the west but we had a serious car accident in a blizzard last January and my wife is already not looking forward to the winter. So we need a lower altitude and/or lower latitude.

Just looking so far. I like to think I am objective about property but my wife falls in love with at least one on every trip so most of the time I have to be the bad guy with "no vision".

I lived in Albuquerque for 10 years. Retirement is doable in southern NM like Demming, Las Palomas over to Lordsburg, That is sure desolate country though and then you contend with illegals. You might look around Cloudcroft

I was thru Albuquerque in early April .Unbelievable growth since I left in 1974. Anything 20 miles north and 20 miles south is pretty pricey now. Same thing in Sante Fe, Espanola, Pecos, etc.

You might look in the country west of Belin. Magdalena all the way over to Pie Town, or down by Silver City.Good hunting in the Gila Wilderness.

The problem with a lot of areas in more rural settings is as we get older, good medical care availability gets more important.

One thing about New Mexico, far far more so than Colorado.

it is a very volcanic area, and a whole lot of water wells produce water that you really don’t want to drink. Or even cannot drink. Arsenic, sulphur, metals, etc. many people here buy bottled water for drinking and cooking. Some people we know can barely stand to take a shower with their well water!

Be sure to check well water quality if looking to buy an established property, or check neighboring well water quality if buying undeveloped land.

When I lived in Albuquerque, down in the south valley, my property was on the old Rio Grande River bed after the course was altered many years before that. My water table was about 3.5 feet. I usually hit water when I was setting railroad ties for fence. My house well was 55 feet and was great water. I had a 2" irrigation well 24 feet deep that made 120 gallons a minute.I was also on a private cement ditch and had Rio Grande Conservancy ditch water that made 3000 gallons a minute Ah, those were he days fighting with neighbors over ditch water.

Those people up on the west mesa in the malpias had those nasty tasting water wells


Now I think I am lucky if my house wells pumps 6 gallons a minute

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Wow! That’s enough water for a small town!

I had a buddy that bought a place, with mortgage, outside Bend. He had to have water trucked in monthly. Given how water is these days I'd be careful. Wells have been known to dry up.

I was a water well contractor for 36 years. Still licensed in every aspect of the water industry. I worked with dozens of lending institutions over the years. I know of no lending company that will lend on a house without reliable water. Quite a bit of our business was doing what we call , a real estate test. This was a test pump on an existing well to determine flow rate so financing could be obtain. Several lending institutions required a full 24 hours running test and full recovery before lending. No financial institute wants to be hung with a house they repossessed that has no water source. And to address the advise to get a "well digger". I have never met a well digger in all my years. A well digger is a thing of the past. Once drill rigs were invented well diggers vanished. There is no way to determine if water is underground prior to drilling. NONE, The best thing to do is get a reliable, knowledgeable, local driller with years of experience in your area to advise you. Just 36 years of experience and multiple thousands of wells drilled.

I appreciate all the information. The property in question has another offer on it. I am glad. The water issue was a big deal for me. Mostly ya'll have confirmed what i suspected. I had enough trouble finding a lender for a manufactured home with a great well.

The house I own in Minor Hill was on a spring when we were looking at it . To finance with a FHA or VA loan it either had to be on city water or a well with chlorinators . The seller had it put on public water using what turned out to be a very long and leaky pipe coming from a meter 1/8 of a mile down the road from the house . Six months after we moved in I got a $600 water bill indicating a leak so I found it , dug it up and fixed it . One year or slightly less I had another leak but could not find it . I put the house back on the spring . To sell it I will have to dig up the 1/6 mile of pipe and repair all the leaks or find a buyer with cash some form of non conventional loan .

Just farm property may be different but I'm not sure as all the acreage I have bought has either had ponds or a good spring or two .

There’s not a house within a couple of miles of me that is on a well, except one on top of a hill. All are tapped into a spring, one way or another. Never a problem with a conventional mortgage.