Very Quiet Neighbours

Stephen and I found another Annapolis Valley Property to go look at, and despite the snow and my bald tyres, I drove out there today. It's not a bad location at all with the lot being fairly regular and rectangular with one corner belonging to the lot next door. From the road the cleared land slopes south to a brook and then north up the hill which is mixed forest. The road is fairly quiet, being off the valley floor and away from the major roads, but it's still close enough to town for supplies and to have customers within easy reach. Since we know the price of fuel is just going to keep going up, being closer to town is important if you plan on selling produce as a part of your farming business plan. And yes, even people who are self-sufficient have some sort of a plan. We experiment along the way, but we have an idea of where we're going too.

I won't give you all the details of the land...look how well that worked out for us last time. I'm going to take the advice of some friends and just say "tell you all about it once it's ours". I will tell you about the neighbours though. It's just out from the village, and I use that term loosely since it's maybe a closer collection of 2 dozen houses, and has one home across the road, one next door that can't be seen from the road, and on the other side is a small church and cemetery.

So here's the kicker...how do we feel about having a cemetery beside us? In Nova Scotia, they're all over the place. From small family ones to great big community ones, cemeteries are everywhere. Not like in BC where many times they are hidden behind hedges on the outskirts of town. It's something you get used to, same as the number of upright stones instead of the modern flat ones. I like the upright ones, it reminds me of English churchyards I guess. It's an interesting thing to think about though because I already have a very over active imagination and I don't imagine living beside a cemetery will help much. But I'm also religious and having a knowledge of what happens to people after they die, I'm not much worried about ghosts. Still, I think that side of the property would be better suited to an orchard than a yard so we'll plan accordingly.

I think this place will work for us. It's got cleared land, decent soil, no chemicals for a few years at least and running water. Time to pray about it and think about making an offer. Any thoughts you have? Oh and here's another question. If you knew someone had bought a piece of land, kept it for 1 year without doing anything to it, and then they were selling it for 25% more than they paid for it, would you offer them close to what they paid originally? ie. If they bought it for $45k and were selling it for $55k, would you offer them say $47? How much can you low ball a property without being rude and insulting?