Originally Posted by NSpaul

In fact, I was talking to OH about this over the weekend. I think its something to do with the way we Brits are conditioned with regard to the property market. Lets face it when you are in the UK you spend months househunting and getting totally depressed because you are hoping for that mysterious underpriced gem to pop up because it means you can have a house that is what you want that you can actually afford. But it never does - they are always just that bit too expensive and you have to compromise in the end. If anything ever does come up thats actually nice and good value its a fight to the death - other buyers are all over it. You have to snap it up really quickly - waiting just a few days means the dream is gone forever.

Then you come over to Nova Scotia and the houses are, comparred to what you're used to, unbelievable. Both in terms of price, size, amount of land etc. People are so preconditioned to having to snap something up quick before it goes that we assume the same is true of the real estate market here. But that isn't the reality - all the houses are cheap and great compared to the UK so they aren't going to fly off the shelf that quickly as they are competing with each other. Canadian buyers are actually really fussy (no hardwood flooring throughout? - no thank you!)In fact, we looked at plenty that we were tempted to "snap up" that had actually been on the market for several years! So, in other words, Canadian buyers had been turning their nose up at them for years so, being realistic, we weren't about to loose the house overnight to someone else. My advice to anyone house-hunting here is to try and remember they are house-hunting here and not in the UK.