The Things That Matter

As any good father, all I want is what is best for my family. After 20 years in Jacksonville I am simply sick of it here. One visit here and you'd see why I want to get out. There are many reasons why I want to move, such as the 60% graduation rate, high crime rate... just so many reasons that deal with quality of life and what fits.
I lived in Williamsburg in the 80's for a while and fell in love with the central Atlantic. My friends and I made many trips to Naggs Head, and having seen so much of our country know what I'm looking at when I look at Currituck. I know what I want to do, how I want to shape my life and direct my family and why, but things being the way they are my vision won't be easy to create. I'd need some consideration and a little help.
Let me explain what I want as a life...
I want just an acre or two, and would like an old farm house. I have the ability and drive to restore and build, so what others look at as "old" I see as "a treasure". I've found three places in Carolina and one South of Salisbury, Maryland in Virginia on the boarder (a 5 acre chicken farm, but I don't want to be a full time chicken farmer).
On any small farm I want some small agri-business, like herbs or produce that would be in demand in the local market. Niche marketing could have some real benefits, and while I don't see that as a primary income source, I do see where some good profits can be made.
My primary source of income will be in painting and light construction. There again I am specialized. I have the ability to find paints at low cost and would market myself to the farming community and light industrial interests in an "hour drive" range. I have the ability to paint barns and farm equipment cheaper than a farmer can in the off season, using higher quality products than most would buy, and with Virginia Beach as a nearby market and my experience in painting large buildings and warehouses, I believe I can find work even in a depressed economy.
Jacksonville and Florida, because of the influx of "transplants" and low pay, poorly educated workers make the painting market here harder to get traction in.
The other thing I want to do is open a miniature golf course near Barco. I figure start-up would run about $14,000.00 for a 60's style course, and would have a standard deal of $20 for 2 adults, 2 kids, round of golf and and a ice cream. With the high landscaped $150K courses at the beaches costing about $8 a game I'd be strong competition, and also create my own market, running extensive summer hours and a three day week year round, weather permitting. I would draw from Elizabeth City and all of Currituck, and have a steady client/customer base. Once built, operational costs and upkeep are nominal, and my wife would run days while I work, either for someone as a painter or on my own, and I would run eves. There is a company that makes everything in turn key fashion, from business plans, pre-fab courses and obstacles down to putters, balls and score cards, and for about $6K I can get almost everything I need for the course, the other costs are for lot rental until black ink starts and utilities.
As far as an "agri-business", with a percentage of income coming from "agri-business", such as farming specialty produce and a directed aspect of business painting farm machinery and buildings, I would qualify for grants for alternative energy, like wind or solar, and with a nominal investment live with an almost 0 energy cost, which would allow me to hothouse some limited winter crops and flowers and produce some limited income. This is more of a secondary lifestyle decision and to qualify as a small family farm.
If all I wanted was a house I could rent something cheap, but lifestyle is the thing that is the primary reason for moving.
Once set up I expect to earn about $2-3,000/year from produce and flowers & plants, $25-30,000 from miniature golf, and $20-30,000 from contracts or employment. After an investment of $4-7,000 for alternative energy, I expect to save $1,600 to $2,200/year.
I grew up in a town 0f 6,000 and our town was sistered to a town of 11,000, where I went to high school. That was a co-joined small community, and I expect to find many of those aspects in Currituck, and I also grew up spending many summers in the farmlands of South Jersey, picking blueberries, near corn, squash, tomato and potato farms.
My experience with industrial coatings gives me a unique ability to serve the farming community where coatings are concerned. I also would be able to serve commercial clients well because I assume most painters in Currituck are generally more residential, and have spoken to a few painters in the research stages of this decision and that is the general take I get from my queries.
I want to live within 10 miles of the high school since my son, Alex, is almost 13. I also like the proximity to the waterways and ocean, and that there will be a new causeway connecting Corolla to the mainland.
With the market the way it is, when we sell we may only have about $25-35,000 in equity to play with. With a move cost and lag time of about $6K, and a start up minimum for the secondary business of a golf course, we'll only have about $10K to put down on a home, and with my credit scores being about 600 (circumstances from a January 2001 injury) and working for myself and having to establish, and with the state of the world and financial markets, getting a loan is going to be the biggest obstacle, even at 20%/80%.
It is my hope that someone will see that we are ready to invest every last cent we have into making this thing work, this move.
I stayed in Jacksonville, even running for City Council, because I am community minded and want to make a better world, but I'm at the point that rather than make crap smell like roses I want to be where roses still grow. Jacksonville never seems to get much better, it suffers from urban blight.
There's much more I could add, but this is a starting point so I don't have to talk someone's ear off, so those who may or might be able to help us make this move have a starting point to see if they actually may help us become their neighbors.....

I made a run for City Council here in Jacksonville, and recently have worked to save a historic fire station, clean up the St. Johns River (and introduced a plan for alternative side of street lawn watering that was adopted by the mayor and passed into law), ran a school garden project, and fought to save a small elementary school. You can see more by keywording "Skot Wilson" and "Skot David Wilson" and researching what I've done and going to APowerOfOne.blogspot.com