Mike,
Another potential risk involved in building the new lake is that there is no guarantee that it will hold water. I have a friend who built a supposedly 15 acre lake. He did all the right things as far as having the dirt tested to make sure the clay content was high enough and used a very good contractor to build his dam. Well, when the lake began to fill up, it would only get to about 4 acres. It turns out that there were some sandy areas that no one found up front that leaked. He spent alot of money trying to fix the problem without success. He finally sold the place. One thing about building a new lake is that you never really know what you will end up with until after you spend your money.
If you buy an existing lake, you will already know alot about whether it holds water and if the watershed is large enough, etc. You should tell the real estate folks that you will need to launch a boat on the lake to check the depth and try to get an idea of the types of fish in the lake. I did that with my lake that I bought last year. My lake was built in the 60's but I found that it was plenty deep and also found lots of cover on my depth finder. Also found out a little about the fish population.
Bill
