Brock homes, $1,000,000 climbing to $1.5 million

Nearly all of Brock outside the villages lies within the Greenbelt Plan's protected countryside, and Durham's official plan reportedly limits rural severances to narrow cases, a surplus farmhouse left over when two farms merge being the usual one, so a twenty-acre parcel will not usually be split for a child or sold off in pieces. Buy it for what it is. A hobby farm may carry the farm property tax class if the land qualifies through farming income, and a lease with a neighbouring farmer may outlast your closing date, so read it. Barns, drive sheds and shops should have had permits, and switching a barn from livestock to a contractor's yard, say, can need the township's sign-off. Obtain the well record, the septic paperwork and a current survey, then walk the fence lines against it, because on old concession lots the fences and the legal boundaries often disagree by more than you would think.

The lake is the township's great asset and its most regulated one. Lake Simcoe is big, deep and cold, with real waves in a north wind and ice that moves in spring, and the conservation authority permits any work at the shoreline or within its regulated area, while the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan sets setbacks and shoreline vegetation rules for new construction. In this band you can expect a year-round house with deeded frontage, a dock, a shore wall and a boat lift, at Beaverton's shore, along the road to Gamebridge or on Thorah Island, which is reached by boat and by ice in winter. Confirm the frontage is owned outright rather than an original road allowance, ask for the permit history on the dock and the wall, check the water intake or well and the septic's distance from the lake, and price the insurance. Beaverton's harbour and boat launch are close for the days you do not want to launch from home.