Housing Opportunity: Traditional Catholics Wanted
Please PM me for details not included in this post:
A renovator friend of mine is completely renovating a home which, when finished, will be a 3 bed 2 bath with three stall garage (detached) ~1500 sq ft 1.5 story house. The home has had a basement newly rebuilt including floors/walls, all new wiring/plumbing, of course new sheetrock, flooring, fixtures, etc. My friend is looking for interested traditional Catholics, and is willing to even leave parts of the home unfinished (e.g. the basement), lowering the price, for a buyer who is confident/handy enough to complete the finishing process.
Social/Political/Religious Demographics of the area:
The home is located in a small town in the upper Midwest. The town is about 1,500 people in a red county of about 20,000 people, in a blue state of several million people. There is a small independent chapel (Thuc clergy) in the country about ten minutes from the town attended by 7-10 families, most of whom have small children, four of whom live in the town in question, almost all of whom live in the county in question. There is also an SSPX chapel with valid priests about 45 minutes away. I am told there is also a small SSPV mission about the same distance, although I don't have any experience with it. There are no nearby indults nor Eastern liturgies. This is a growing traditional Catholic community in a county that is still ~95% Anglo-American and geographically removed from large urban centers.
Economic Opportunities:
The nearest population center is a town of about 100,000 people ~45 minutes away. The population center has a strong manufacturing and healthcare based economy. There are many opportunities for construction labor both in the population center and surrounding area. Realistically someone who owns this home, unless they are entrepreneurial or have remote work available to them, will commute to the population center for work.
Who this opportunity is ideal for:
With a vision of subsidiarity, we are doing what we can to work on a local level to build a real, geographically based, traditional Catholic community where as many of our neighbors are trads as possible. Anyone interested in that kind of vision would be a good candidate for this opportunity. That said, we expect the following would make the best kind of candidate:
A young man, married or unmarried, who has not yet set down roots and/or is interested in uprooting himself. Given the sparse population of the area, someone who is willing to work construction or who can fit well into the manufacturing/healthcare industry (or who is already self-employed/remote) would have a lot more job security than someone else. There is no public transportation to speak of, so a driver’s license is a must. This is a four-season climate with real winters, so experience in (or at least willingness to learn) how to live with snow, ice, winter weather driving, etc. are important. Moreover, this is not only a small town but a town removed from urban centers so the ideal candidate will not be attached to/reliant on the modern amenities of urban centers.
Price and timeline:
The median price of homes in this county is 200-250k, but my friend will be selling for much less than that, and if you are interested in undertaking some of the finishing yourself, he’ll sell it for even less than that. He expects the home to be ready ~May/June 2025 (sooner if the buyer is interested in undertaking some of the finishing work).
Again, PM me for details.