The house sits on just over 7,000 sq ft, or, as the tax assesor calls it “.17 acre”. about 2,000 of that is used for the house and driveway, the rest is a grass, trees, and flowers (and weeds). There’s also a couple hundred sq feet surrounding the lot on two sides from the sidewalk to the street that legally belongs to the city but its my responsibility to maintain.
Most lots in this neighborhood (which i like to call “semi-urban”) are around 5,000 sq ft, but some in the cul-de-sacs stretch out to half an acre.
Someday, I’d like to get a hundred acres or so outside of town to just explore, camp on, and maybe retire to.
A portion of my retirement investments are in a real-estate fund, so I guess in some sense I own .00001 percent of various apartment complexes, shopping centers, and office buildings around the US.
In our development, which was laid out in the middle 70s, the lots go from 3 to just under 5 acres. We have 3 acres on a corner lot. We have a small patch of lawn in the front and in the back, but most of the lot is left natural. The previous owners mowed everywhere - even in the wooded area - but we’re allowing it to do what it wants outside of the minimal garden/lawn area.
We didn’t look for such a large lot, but I have to say, I’m glad we’ve got it. Our last place in Florida was barely a quarter acre, and I hated that anyone walking by could see into the house if we had our drapes open. Here we don’t even have drapes in the bow window and unless someone comes down the driveway, they can’t see anything. I treasure my privacy.
Land value is based on location and availability. I live in the city on about 1/5 of an acre and will soon be moving to the country on 2 acres. The country location is much cheaper per acre than the location I live in now.
I would imagine it is easier to buy larger plots of land the US than England due to size and population density.
My wife and I live in a nice, planned Calgary suburb. Like our neighbours, we have about 3000 square feet of land. Of course, we could have bought more land and a bigger house in a different suburb, but we like what we have. Easier to cut the grass and shovel the snow.
A friend in southern Ontario manages a cattle and horse farm on 15 acres. Not as much as he would like, but his beef customers appreciate the smaller herd, and the attention the herd gets, and they are willing to pay top dollar for his beef. So maybe it’s not such a bad thing.
Of course, if we’d been willing to buy a farm here in Alberta, we could have had hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of acres. But neither my wife nor I are farmers, so a house in the city, while more expensive per square foot, was a better deal in our minds.
Aside to the OP: I once took a train across Canada. Among the passengers was a tour group from the UK. They couldn’t believe that nobody owned all the land in northern Ontario. Of course not; it is rock and bog–absolutely useless, and cannot be used to build on or farm or anything. It is too remote and too boggy and it took us at least 18 hours on the train to get through it. But they had never seen so much useless land never developed and never owned by a private owner before. Gave me something to think about anyway, and I can understand your amazement at the amount of land that we can have in North America.
Yup. That’s Manitouwadge, smack dab in the middle of it. Lots of rocks and trees and water. I really enjoy Manitouwadge. Nice people and beautifuly country. For folks who like the wilderness, and are looking for affordable living, it’s a terrific place. I’m heading there next week (to, among other things, handle some real estate transactions). It takes about five hours for me to drive there from where I live (I live in a forest near Thunder Bay). Five hours of rocks and trees and water, including amazing views of Lake Superior. It is wonderful up here!
My flat doesn’t even have a balcony. I have one plastic plant (looks like a ball of leaves) and a vase with silk flowers.
Mom’s flat has a 49m2 terraza; the original surface is bigger but she glassed up a 10m2 area as soon as we moved in, so she’s got a greenhouse. There’s two smaller balconies. She’s got plants all over, but always potted. Some of them are aromatics which she’ll use for cooking.
Middlebro’s flat has two 20m2 balconies. No plants; there used to be flowers occasionally but they’re afraid the baby will… (not sure what, either eat the flowers or break the vase).
Lilbro’s flat has no balconies; he owns a ficus which Mom bestowed upon him. So far the ficus is surviving its stay in good health, much to his surprise.
A lot of the construction currently taking place in Spain is adosados, rowhouses I think is the closest translation. We don’t like them because the stairs take up a lot of space and because you’re paying twice as much for one of those as for a flat of the same meters… but ah, the house comes with a hanky-sized garden up front and another in the back! Often neither garden is large enough for one person to lie down on a towel.
As of 5 PM last Friday, I, or rather the bank that is kind enough to let me live on it, own a vast spread measuring 22 x 100 feet, with a townhouse occupying the majority of it. Everything’s bigger n Texas, you bet.
My house sits right in the center of a lil over an acre. Sitting on my back deck watching the sunset, I’ll sometimes mention that I own as far as the eye can see. I then explain that it is mostly due to the way the land sits, along with encroaching darkness.
to own in Cook County.