If you want the place, and it certainly looks wonderful in the pictures, that "extra" money isn't going to mean much over the course of the time you own it.
When we bought our 25 acres in 1963, we paid $12,000. For another $13,000, we could have purchased the 1 1/2 acres adjoining it. We decided that didn't add up and we didn't buy the second piece. HUGE mistake. When we returned after a six week escrow, the seller had built a garage so close to the property line that by today's standards it wouldn't meet set-back restrictions. That couple lived there for a year or so and sold it for $14,000 to a family who extended the garage into a poorly built house. Over the years, they divorced, the mom raised four drug-using, probably drug-manufacturing rowdy kids. Three have spent time in jail and one was murdered in a drug deal gone bad. She remarried a guy who liked to collect cars. At one time, I counted 16 old cars. Two of them actually ran. I planted a row of the bushiest plants, shrubs and trees we could find. The second husband died and the wife sold the property for $220,000 to a lovely single woman who wanted to be near her mother. No dead cars. No drugs. Nothing negative at all. We're thrilled. But 40+ years of living in a slum was about 39 too many. That initial $12,000 would have been a very good investment. Nancy
