Kiplinger.com has published an article about purchasing in Nova Scotia. The author refers to Nova Scotia being like New England 50 years ago. More than one of my clients has remarked that they feel the Village of Chester is like Nantucket 50 years ago, and they should know because that is where they come from to escape the ferry waits, line-ups in stores and all the tourists that crowd everything.

The full Kiplinger article can be found at.
http://www.kiplinger.com/personalfinance/magazine/archives/2005/08/abroad.html
Kiplinger.com
August 2005

At Home Abroad
by Pat Mertz Esswein

One alternative for buyers who don’t mind mixing a little adventure with their pleasure trips is buying abroad. With smart shopping, the price can be very right, but the real payoff will be in savoring a slice of the good life in another culture. We scoured three continents for desirable locales that are both affordable and accessible and settled on three: Nova Scotia, Honduras and the Etruscan region of Italy. Then we found part-time expats who are living their dream.

Nova Scotia: New England revisited

John and Jenice Benton of Tempe, Ariz., intended to buy a second home in New England to escape desert summers. In 1997, they spent part of a vacation fruitlessly scouting out places in Vermont, where they found properties too scarce and high-priced. On a whim, they headed to the historic Nova Scotian fishing village of Lunenburg, near Halifax. While strolling one evening, they passed a real estate office with its door open. The next day, the couple went back and asked to visit some of the homes for sale. They bought the second one they saw — an exquisitely restored two-story Cape Cod built in 1840 — for $92,000 (all prices in this story are in U.S. dollars). It’s in the village, within walking distance of its harbors.

Nova Scotia has since become a family affair for the Bentons. Eldest daughter Katie and her husband, Hal Cohen, from Baton Rouge, La., purchased a second home for themselves and five-month-old son Julius. The couple split the $81,000 purchase price, and the $81,000 it cost to renovate the house, with her parents, and they share ownership.

Parts of Nova Scotia have seen appreciation similar to that in the U.S. Properties in Lunenburg, for example, have appreciated more than 70% since the Bentons bought their home nearly eight years ago. But the province continues to attract Americans looking for a location that’s more affordable and less congested than New England and elsewhere on the East Coast. “Nova Scotia feels like New England 50 years ago — unbelievably wholesome, with a slower pace,” says John, 57, a real estate developer with family roots in New England. The province has 4,600 miles of coastline, hundreds of lakes and rivers, 60 golf courses, and a rich Celtic and Acadian heritage.

But Nova Scotia’s greatest asset may be its people, uniformly described as friendly and kind. John Benton says his neighbor, a purser for the scallop fleet, often leaves a bag of the day’s catch in the Bentons’ refrigerator with a note to “cook them tonight.”

Where to look. Buyers have already discovered Nova Scotia’s …. see full article at

http://www.kiplinger.com/personalfinance/magazine/archives/2005/08/abroad.html

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Tim Harris, Broker, Tradewinds Realty

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