would you rather live on acres of land or on a lake?

[ashef]

If the lake you're talking about buying property on is Lake Norman, I'd definitely do that instead of buying 10 acres of land, especially since you don't want to live in an isolated place. (Fine for him to talk about isolation since he has an office full of people around all day long.) The lots on Lake Norman are good sized and there are great communities all around. My friends who live on/near Lake Norman have lots of friends and activities and love it. No way I'd choose isolation in the country over Lake Norman!

Besides, coming from California where you have to water everything you want to grow, you & DH probably don't realize how fast unwanted plants & weeds grow in NC. Super fast, trust me. Ten acres would require a huge amount of work just to keep it from turning into inpenetrable jungle.

 

[budbeerlady]

We have a little over 10 acres of land, its wooded with a creek running thru the back acerage of it. Dh wanted to be able to run around his house naked if he wanted to. (To the best of my knowledge he has never done it but anyway!)
We like the peace and quiet, I like not seeing people around when I look out the windows. We cannot see anyone from our house, and because of the seclusion when we are gone we have a dog inside to deter intruders.

 

[DawnM]

This has actually already happened to us!

We were new members at a church here and a couple sat behind us. We started talking to them as we were both new and didn't know anyone else. Turns out we had lived ONE BLOCK from each other in Pasadena, CA and had never met! AND, we had mutual friends!

Very small world!

We have found what you are talking about here. We had a tree fall down and our neighbor came over to help my DH chop it up for firewood!

Our current neighbors are great. We live on 2.5 acres and that is plenty for me!

Dawn

we moved from california as well-and to 10 acres (although we have ponds eating up some of it). 10 acres depending on what type of land it is-and how you want it to look will determine much of how much upkeep you have to do.

we looked at places that were stunningly landscaped-but i reccognized the time and expense of maintaining it. we wanted something that we could work with but the bulk of which we could retain in a much more natural manner. to that end we purchased property that provides us the opportunity to landscape around the house but has a much more forest like setting on the rest of the property (dawnm-ours would remind you of areas of california because of all the pine trees with the snowy mountains views off our back deck ). so our upkeep is/will be the formal landscaping around the home with just general brush abatement on the rest of the property.

it is different living futher away from neighbors-but we've found that we know our neighbors much better than when we lived in a traditional neighborhood. people watch out for one another (when we had a massive snow dump neighbors were checking in with one another to ensure people without power had heat sources, we loaned a spare hand powered coffee grinder to our caffeine addicted neighbor to facilitate his 'needs' , and we awoke one morning to find several neighbors out with snow moving equipment clearing everyones entrances to their driveways ). it's a different kind of community feeling-but very much like what i remember as kid (when the neighborhoods were filled with sahm's who knew each other and all watched out for each other's kids-not like now with so many massive commuter parents and latch key kids ).

who knows dawnm-you could have the same flukey experience we did. moved from california, did'nt know a soul-moved into our remote country home-to find out that the neighbors on the 2 adjacent 10 acre parcels-are BOTH from our california home town and moved here for the same reason what are the odds?

 

[DawnM]

Well, I was looking at Lake Wylie instead. Norman really doesn't have any homes for less than 1M and the commute from there to Uptown is horrid. My understanding is that Lake Norman is the "party lake" too and is much louder than Wylie.

Dawn

If the lake you're talking about buying property on is Lake Norman, I'd definitely do that instead of buying 10 acres of land, especially since you don't want to live in an isolated place. (Fine for him to talk about isolation since he has an office full of people around all day long.) The lots on Lake Norman are good sized and there are great communities all around. My friends who live on/near Lake Norman have lots of friends and activities and love it. No way I'd choose isolation in the country over Lake Norman!

Besides, coming from California where you have to water everything you want to grow, you & DH probably don't realize how fast unwanted plants & weeds grow in NC. Super fast, trust me. Ten acres would require a huge amount of work just to keep it from turning into inpenetrable jungle.