Here's a tip for all the potential homebuyers out there... When I was buying my house (my first), since it was a new construction, I had a choice of lots. I elected to go for a “premium” lot. It's a corner lot, it's got a little extra land to it, and I paid an extra $5000 for it. At the time, $5000 seemed like not that much, given how small a percentage of the final cost it was, and how it'd be nice to not have houses on all sides, as well as a bigger yard for the dog to run around in.
This was a retarded decision. First off, I live in a basement. I don't go in my backyard and barbecue, and drink lemonade, and enjoy nature. I sit in the basement, wishing I was a cyborg. What about for the dog? The back yard is full of snow right now, and one can clearly see that he's done nothing but patrol a tight ring around the back of the house. 85% of the yard is untouched. But I did get to pay out the ass for the landscaping and sprinkler installation for that nice big yard. And how about that snow? Thanks to my premium lot, I have roughly three times as much sidewalk as everyone else in my neighborhood. When you combine the snow and the sidewalk, you have the main problem with my lot. It took me a full hour and a half of shoveling, with help from the nice neighbor guy Justin, and “help” from Munk in the form of commentary on her faulty shovel. Let me say, shoveling for an hour and a half, really sucks. It makes your back and hands hurt.
So, the point is this: Don't spend $5000 on a premium lot if you're not going to use it, because it costs a lot more than $5000, especially in terms of effort and shoveling.