Mowing and lawn mower question [View all]

Those of you with lawn care and mowing experience, please advise on the following situation: Later this month, I'll be starting a lawn on a flat ~3/4 acre--composed of several smaller areas, some with tight corners and turns--with bermudagrass seed. The idea is to establish the lawn in time to put the house on the market this fall. Location is SW AZ.

What would be the best way to mow for the ~6 months until I move? I've never done lawn care. If I do it, I'll need to get a mower or mowers, including a riding mower because the area is too big to use a walk-behind.

Options I can think of are:

1. Hire a lawn care service. The problem is that good service providers are scarce around here (reliability and competency issues). I want to make sure it's done right so that it looks as good as possible when the house goes on the market. Anyone who's good probably is already booked up. Also, because of the size of the area + the multiple corners, turns, etc. the cost of someone good will probably in 6 months exceed the cost of buying a mower.

2. Buy a used recent model big-box store type riding mower. However, there aren't many for sale around here, I'm not experienced at checking for mechanical issues, and if anything significant goes wrong with it, I would have to take it to a mechanic, and the options there are not good. The local mower repair shop won't work on riding mowers. There is an auto and tractor mechanic who might work on it, but probably the turnaround time would be long, I would have to pay to have it towed both ways (at least $300), and I would be unable to mow while it's in the shop.

3. Buy the least expensive new riding mower. The lowest price would be at least $2,000 for a low-quality imported mower from one of the local big box stores. Resale value around here would not be great--even with only 6 months' use, I'd be lucky to get a third of the purchase price. Not worth taking overseas. The advantage would be that presumably it would work well right out of the box and not have to be repaired while I use it.

4. Try to mow with my vintage Case 648 tractor (18 hp, ~1,000 lbs). I'd have to get the mower deck repaired (came with the tractor but I've never used it) and the problem is that even though this is a small tractor, it has a front end loader and is not very maneuverable. If I hit the property's perimeter block wall only once, the cost to fix that would exceed any savings from not buying a riding mower. I've been advised by several people in online tractor groups to not use this tractor for mowing.

5. Buy a classic garden tractor with a mower deck and take it with me when I move. This would be an e.g. Wheel Horse or John Deere from back when they were made in the U.S.A. and were durable, tough machines that were made primarily for mowing lawns and can be readily repaired. Ones in good condition sell for ~$1,000 and up with mower decks; with transport costs I could get it here for ~$2,000-3,000, and I'd have it delivered to the tractor mechanic for a thorough going-over before bringing it to my property, so it should work well for the next 6 months. The benefits are that they are worth repairing, keep their value, and can do other jobs in the garden--towing carts, dragging small harrows, etc. Wheel Horse was once a popular brand near where I'm moving so probably feasible to get repairs done in future.

Thanks for any help figuring out what to do.