LA House for sale next door - worth it to expand our lot??

[Mel Jones]

We own a duplex in an expensive hillside neighborhood in Los Angeles. The house behind us, which has a very large lot and we share a long property line with, is for sale. If we purchased we would own almost a half acre of land. All of the parcels of land including ours are zoned R1. The house for sale rents for about the same as the PITI (was leased on MLS so I can see the amount) if we can come up with 20% down, which we can do. We would need to make some magic (hard money??) to get the 100K reserves to qualify for the loan. We bought at a good time and have about 600K of equity in our property now.

I don't know WHAT we would do with a half acre with all parcels zoned R1, but it seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity to have this much land that I assume could be developed... somehow, someday?   I am a realtor and there are zero comps for property or land with a lot of this size anywhere near here!  Would love to hear anyone's creative ideas (or warnings!)