What's a girl to do?

[Anastasia Orth]

Dear BiggerPockets Community,

I need some guidance / advice.

But first, I just want to apologize for being completely absent on this platform for the past few months. I entered escrow on a property back in mid-April, and the due diligence process has been completely consuming. Yes, we are still in escrow…but after a long and emotional conversation with my fiancee this afternoon, we have decided that although it would be a dream to own this piece of raw land, it just doesn’t make sense to take on a liability at this time in our lives, let alone one that we're 90% excited about.

A bit of context: my fiancee and I have a dream of one day owning a chunk of land that we can take care of and build a nest on. We were planning on finding something several years from now, but earlier this spring we caught word of a 7 acre parcel 1.3 miles outside of downtown Nevada City (30 min walk or 4 min drive to town) for $169k. It’s totally raw land - power and water are only 300 feet away at the main road.The property has deeded access to the county irrigation water (NID), and there’s an abundance of beautiful manzanita, black oaks, cedar, and ponderosa pine.

After $3k of 2 failed perc & mantle tests, $1200 of soil testing for lead/mercury/arsenic/asbestos, and endless hours at the building department, we decided that although this place ticks most of our boxes, we A) just can’t reconcile with the excessive mining history in the county*, and B) can't continue perc & mantle testing at $1500/test to find out whether it will cost ~$10k for a standard septic or more like ~$30k for an engineered system. (wow... so expensive to go to the bathroom!)

(*Note: we waver on the slightly neurotic side when it comes to environmental health - I'm sure most people would be totally fine living in this county, plus our soil tests showed totally normal levels of heavy metal exposure.  BUT it's just a bit unnerving when you see signs that say "don't let your dog swim in Hirschman's Pond" or "don't eat the fish more than once a month").

Before I step away from this property, I’d like to know:

• Is there any opportunity for me to make money from this, perhaps by wholesaling since it’s under contract? Can you even wholesale raw land? Nevada City is DEFINITELY an up and coming town, very desirable. It was in Sunset Magazine as one of the top 5 mountain towns in the West, and there is an emerging tech scene in the area. We’re from the Bay Area and many of our tech community members split their time between the Bay and Nevada City. I can’t imagine this place NOT appreciating over the years… But again, doesn't exactly make sense for us financially to buy&hold something at this point in our lives.
• Is there any opportunity to break even or get back the money I’ve invested during the due diligence process (again, roughly $3k in failed perc&mantle tests, and $1200 in positive soil tests)? Should I try and sell those tests to the seller which he can then include in his disclosure to future buyers, making this property more appealing in an area that historically poses risk of heavy metal exposure? Just trying to get creative here... :) 
• Is there any money making opportunity that I'm just not seeing here?  Is there any reason for me to reconsider stepping away from this?

It's been 3 long months of full on due diligence - time, energy, money, tears. Feels like a second full-time job.  This is my very first experience with purchasing real estate. I went into this knowing that there would be some costs before purchasing, and that I could potentially find myself in this very position.  But I wanted to reach out to my Bigger Pockets community before making a move in hopes that someone with a bit more experience could offer some guidance.

If you were me, what would you do?

Thanks for your time :)

With love,

Ana