Hey everyone, thanks for all the comments, I appreciate your experience! Maybe this will be more do-able than I thought! You can almost (almost) SEE Prince Edward Island from this property. You COULD get there in a boat, but it's a bit of a distance across the strait. Yes, the roof does look relatively new. Plus the gutters are pretty new. All the windows are still in it, but one storm window is open a few inches. The foundation has been re-done (house was raised up, and concrete block foundation was added, or re-done - reason unknown) a few years ago. And the shingle siding also is relatively new, but the paint is all flaking off. I looked in all the windows I could get at and all the interior walls look intact and no paint flaking off, except in the back entryway which is ALL flaking off. So, mould is possible, and yes, I guess the pipes could have frozen if they were not drained properly.
Taxes up there for that small house on that land would run around $600.00. I have 10 acres on a salt-water river not far from there, and until I built my garage, taxes on just the property were $127.00 a year. I haven't got a tax bill since I built the garage.
It's dead simple for Americans to retire up here, and buy property. A fair bit of property in NS is being bought up by Americans, and many Europeans (lots of Germans, some English).
I am going to guess the bidding could go up to $20-30,000 for this property (just the property value). I don't know that I'll go that high. We will find out next week, when the auction is to happen. Tell you what, I'll post the auction result next week!