People can no longer use their homes equity as ATMs by taking out lines of credit or refinances their homes to fuel consumption.

I do not know of any clean AND cheap technology.I do agree that energy consumption is going to skyrocket.

Its all natural food grade, labeled for human consumption.

Shouldn't the ENTIRE market be allowed to determine the value of a property, not just those only able to buy for personal consumption???

Obviously, that will not work for all services - e.g. firefighting, police, defence, etc.Many countries are also moving towards a consumption-based tax instead of an income-based tax.

Then cross reference that against electricity consumption, accounting for dryers, lights, vending machines, etc.

For all you MF owners out there, here's a quick tip I learned today from a veteran PM:Have your maint. guy (or yourself if you're the maint. guy) write down the water meter reading twice a week and track it over time.This will allow you to identify a hidden leak fast and get in-front of it before it gets too bad.For example If the week over week consumption jumps 50% on day and nothing special should have caused it then you need to start looking into it. 

My sense of caution is also based on the world economy, which is so heavily based on debt/fossil fuel consumption and will have another serious downturn at some point; we just don't know when.

For info on utils - you can call NS Power for example and ask for average consumption for the place you're looking at, and you can also use Viewpoint to get the taxes - it also provides sales history which is handy.In my opinion - Middleton is a pretty good area as there's a hospital, some gov't, NSCC, and several car dealerships, and other businesses such as this........in other words for rural NS it has some good things going on.  

Some others will foot the bill to sub meter and charge each unit per their consumption.