The lot is too close to the busy intersection and main road. In addition to the privacy and noise issues already discussed, think of this: 1) Car exhaust/pollution. There is an intersection right there..and some cars will be waiting for the light. You will likely get more pollution due to this. Smelly and unhealthy. 2) 35 MPH speed limit. Just because this is the posted speed limit, it doesn't mean that all cars obey the speed limit. In times when it is not congested, I bet some cars go 45-50 MPH..and some even faster. 3) Burglars: I have seen some stats that says burglars often pick homes that are nearest the main road, because they can exit the subdivision quickly. Also they can monitor your work pattern easily. 4) Pets: If you get a dog or cat, if that pet gets loose, it likely will make it to that main road and get hit by a car. 5) Wrecks. You will hear some wrecks that occur at that intersection. These will occur. They don't sound pretty. At high speeds, the sound is horrible, especially at night and if there are any people screaming for help. I used to live on a main road and the wrecks were bad. 6) Sirens: Because the lot of off the main road, you will hear every cop car/fire engine/ambulance that is passing by with siren on. 7)Do you ever plan to open your windows? If so, you will hear traffic and might smell the exhaust. 8) Resale for the house, that close to the road, will be lower. Lots of buyers would not even look at the home because it is so close to the road. 9) Those few trees in the back hardly count as wooded. It is just a basic small lot (too close to the main road) with a few trees in the back.

We live in the country, too. There is a weekly trash pick up service in our area, but we don't use it. It takes us a month or two to fill a single 30 gallon trash bag. When one is full, I take it to the trash & recycling drop off and pay a by-the-bag fee that is probably one tenth the cost of the pickup service. I have made a concerted effort to stay off mailing lists, and we still get plenty of junk mail, which we shred. We have poor soil, so the shreds get sprinkled wherever we need the organic matter the most. I'd rather compost than burn. Yeah, I admit, sometimes it looks like confetti on our lawn, but the lawn is getting thicker! We compost vegetable scraps from the kitchen, autumn leaves, etc. As for cans and bottles, we recycle everything possible. Only non-recyclable plastic and meat bones find their way into our trash can, even with all the decluttering I'm doing with the help of FlyLady. Household items that are useful to someone else go to the Re-Use It Center, or I Freecycle them on the front porch. At first, I used a couple of cardboard boxes for the recyclable materials. But leaking liquids made them messy. So I replaced them with clear plastic bins that could be washed. I measured the shelf in the garage where we keep the recycle bins. I went to two or three stores that had a good selection of plastic storage containers. I used my measuring tape to be sure that whatever I got would fit into my space. I only need two boxes. One is for styrofoam, which shares space with a bundle of #2 & #4 plastic bags. (The bags are easy to pull out at the recycle place.) The other box holds cans, recyclable plastic & glass, which is how my local recycle place wants everything sorted. I also got a smaller box with a snap-tight lid. The mice chew aluminum foil and make a mess, but with the lid, I can keep foil out in the garage with the rest of the recycle stuff. When I have trash and/or recycling, I drive it over to the place which is also conveniently near some of the stores I need to visit anyway. I can combine my errands and save gas. It works out well for me. MaryLiz

ncrealestateguy, thank you for money saving tip on pool chemicals. I will check out the poolcalculator website. This will hopefully offset some cost in running pool equipment + in pool opening/closing. The previous owners spent years on building the pool and the surrounding deck and waterfall. I wouldn't want to undo their hard work by filling in the pool.. stir_fryi, our house is in a nice neighborhood, which is surrounded by woods. Our 1 acre is cleared, mostly flat land. Kids can definitely ride bicycles and play football on it. (Occasionally, I see neighbors' kids riding small motorcycles in their yard & on the streets in our neighborhood. What luxurious toys they have!) Edit to add: Given the current housing market, if we sell the house now, we would most likely not gain anything financially (after factoring in all the costs related to selling & moving). If the current market were similar to 2004 or early 2005, we would probably be able to pocket some profit, but I don't think it would be close to half million.. This post was edited by ILoveCookie on Tue, Apr 9, 13 at 12:16

We have a blog: http://bamasotan.us I use MarsEdit for posting which makes things a bit easier and less time consuming than Wordpress alone. We also have Instagram though I've not updated it lately. Immediate family and a couple of friends are also part of an Apple photos shared folder where we share quick snaps occasionally. For yourself it's important to take lots and lots of photos and notes about the build, write notes about every meeting with builder, architect or anyone else involved (amazing how quickly details are forgotten). It's also a good idea to followup phone conversations w/ an email to make sure everyone is thinking the same thing and for any discussion later after everyone has forgotten what was said.