Property for Sale: New Neighbours?

Our farm is bordered on one side by an equestrian park and on the other by nine acres of vacant farm land.  While we love our front neighbours, we also love not having any next door side neighbours.  There is something to be said for being able to prance around your backyard in your underpants and not have anyone see you (and think you're really weird).

So, we were surprised (and concerned) to see a For Sale sign on the vacant land beside our house this past winter.  Since we've lived here, this land has been owned by our diagonal neighbours who purchased it eight years ago to prevent anyone from building a house across from theirs.  They like their front yard privacy.  However, they are now looking to retire and are selling the land to supplement their retirement income.

It was my dream when buying Gael Glen Farm that we would eventually purchase the property next door to expand our farm from two acres to ten.  However, the increase in value of this particular piece of property over the last decade has been quite significant - from $90K in 2005 to an asking price of $249K now.  Holy cow!

From what we have heard the land has now sold to a young family with two children a bit older than Liam.  Word on the (country) street is that the buyer is a child of the cattle farmer that lives across the street and two doors down  from our diagonal neighbour selling the property (the other way down the street from our maple tree neighbours).  The new family will be moving from their current suburban home and is planning to build a single family home on the property in the near (though not immediate) future.

Given that there is no way we could afford to buy the property given the price (trust me, we thought very, very hard about it), having a young family move next door is really the next best thing.  Hopefully we all become friends and their children will become playmates for ours.

Liam and the neighbour kid?  Hopefully...