I have a bridge for sale...

Reading through the various real estate blogs on the internet, I stumbled across a posting from the Housing Bubble 2 blog, which contained a link to a Boston Globe article. This article focuses on real estate speculators who are buying up acres and acres of land in Valentine, TX.

I found it fascinating that people would buy acres and acres of land, sight unseen, using only unreliable internet pictures. According to the article, this is just another real estate frenzy which one developer from CA started when he/she bought 7,408 acres in this drug smuggler and illegal immigrant corridor for $65/acre. This developer has since sold big and small chunks to various real estate investors (speculators) to the point that the price per acre is now nearly $800/acre.

The thing that fascinates me the most here is that all of this land buying has been going on, despite these facts (quotes from the article):

"...The most worrisome prospect: The buyers think someone's going to live here, despite the absence of water, electricity, sewers, roads, and other amenities..."

''...You could live there in a tent, if you could find your land," said Jeff Davis County Clerk Sue Blackley. ''But you'd have to helicopter everything in..."

"...But the fact that this land is being sold off piecemeal probably guarantees that it will never have electric power or streets. Developers want to work with large tracts they control, not hundreds of small plots whose owners are unlikely to agree on what improvements they will pay for..."

The fact that people are buying land that has virtually no chance of being developed, according to the article, is just crazy to me. It is one thing if the land has great views, or some other distinguishing quality, but it sounds like the land is in the middle of nowhere. Not close to big cities, nothing. For a 12-fold price increase in the past 6 months, there must be something that is drawing people to this property - otherwise, this seems like some kind of pyramid scheme where the last person who owns the property is the loser.

To satisfy my own curiosity, I decided to use the latest technology to really see what land in Valentine, TX looks like. Enter Google Maps. Here is the image I got when I ran my search:

From my perspective, it looks like the middle of nowhere. You be your own judge. However, if you think there is really potential here, given all of the other shortcomings of the land, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that may be of interest to you as well...

--Myron