The entire Liberal government has been really bad with this.My hope is that this plan to phase out natural gas will be scrapped as soon as someone sensible is in power.

It's just part of the game, if you decide to play.  

In fact it's a rather lovely LTV rate for the lending institution, very secure for them.For a primary residence I wouldn't monkey around with the value play too much. 

Here is a cool link that allows you to play around with your mortgage rate.  

Track down an engineer that is familiar with the area, play detective kinda fun.

There are opportunities, if you can play at that level.Less expensively, you can look at Danbury, CT; Albany, NY; Dutchess county; northern Westchester.I'm also considering the Berkshires and Eastern CT.

Mortgage payment on the more expensive property would be ~740/mo, on the cheaper one ~460+75, or ~535, though that doesn't matter as much -- where it comes into play is "what are the financials of the HOA like?"

Then you play the follow-up game!

You'll need to know the costs and time frame for receiving permits, which would play in to step 4. 

Truck mounted professional carpet cleaning is powerful enough to extract all the water, which is critical when cleaning carpet.I would not use bleach, but I would try Oxiclean on it.