I appreciate you all sharing your experience and knowledge with me. With not a clue as to what it would cost to do the improvements mentioned and possibly having to drain pond and remove sediment/dig deeper, I wonder if it would be more cost effective to start with something like this that needs work or start completely from scratch.
The area we're looking in doesn't have a lot of ponds and even fewer places with ponds that are for sale. However, there are numerous small creeks and swampy areas which was what this place started out as I'm sure. It would be very easy to find a place that has some low lying wetlands that could be turned into a pond. But it would seem like it would be more costly and more of a headache(getting permitting etc) to start from scratch.
Would you guys take the gamble and purchase a place with an amateur built pond as a good starting point or would you look at places without a pond and plan on building one? I fear if we get a place without a pond it'll probably never get built.
