All Forum Posts by: Henry Clark

This is not for sale to anyone.  Just showing the type of Subdivision I am doing.  See picture below.

My question at the end will be any thoughts initiating the "First" sale?

Lot 5 is our house which is not for sale.

This is 80 acres we own outright.  Not in a hurry to sale.  

Our son will not come back here, he is headed to a big city.

Both Houses and lots are in short supply in our area.

Interest rates are low.

Realize everyone's property is always "special" but without going into it ours is "special".

We have priced at the very top of the market per our Realtor.  I tell them I think I'm leaving money on the table and am pricing below their true value. 

These are Country lots 2 acres up to 20 acres.  We are one mile from town and 1/4 mile to a 4 lane highway to the city.  Could have made them into 1 acre lots, but want a certain level of priced neighborhood.  A few covenants.  Requiring 2,000 square foot on the main floor or larger.  Allow Barns or facilities added on.  They do their own Water well and sewer.

 You can go to their website for a tour of the lots.

Again, we are not in a hurry to sale.  If we sale one lot per year, I'm happy.

We have priced two of the "plain" lots at $100,000 which is lower than the $130,000 to $180,000 for the other lots, to help spur their sale.  Have already landscaped along the property lines with about 150 trees.  Put in the front entry with concrete so there is no question on some of the Double access entrances, of who pays to start with.

Most of the local builders won't touch these lots as spec homes, because they are used to $35,000 to $75,000 lots.  Also the 2,000 square foot main floor means a $400,000 house.  With the lot of $100,000; getting to a total of $500,000 its to much for them to speculate with.  $500,000 up to $1,000,000 is not our normal market; but we do have some in the area.  We are definitely not in the spec home business ourselves.  We are just selling the lots.

Other than waiting, which we are fine with.  Even not selling. Do you see or know of any other methods for initiating the First sale?  The reason I am emphasizing the first sale, it is my understanding that the herd mentality of buyers, will get kicked off with that first one.  Thanks.

There are really so many angles to this simple question.  You have to talk with an attorney.   

Since this is a relative doing you a favor.   You need to watch out for him

Does he have health care?  Any pre existing conditions? Long term health care.   Assisted living care.   Funeral. Living will.  Power of attorney.  

I would wait for the above until your “deal” is done.  If he is like most older people he will resent your efforts.  

Ask if you can talk with his tax accountant.  You will need basis and depreciation schedules by property and then some valuations.  The attorneys will need this to explain different options.

Ask about any benefit making part of the purchase a noncompete agreement.   Also an asset purchases versus a business acquisition.   

Your Uncle won’t like all of these questions but explain does he want you or the government to receive his money.  He will understand that. 

Another option to ask them if you could buy the property at a set price with payments of $50,000 per year (how much salary was he wanting) for xx years with a balloon payment of $x,xxx,xxx

This angle versus the trust angle.   Again talk with a tax and trust attorney   

Going to sound cruel but I am giving you the business angle.  How old is he? Does he have “zero” other relatives and I mean “zero”.  

Recommend you strongly talk with a tax and more importantly a trust attorney.  

Do not take this as a gift.  Have them walk you thru the above questions I asked.

Good luck

Places like Jasper, Longview and Nacogdoches are ok as long as you like fishing and hunting.  Or the Hill country.  You already know what your looking at.  You can always be a county engineer  

Hello from Iowa.  Originally from West Central, Louisiana.

To me this isn't a financial question.  I've lived and have family in both Louisiana and Texas.

1.  Life style change.  Family, in laws and kids.  Don't know about you, but I would really miss the weekend backyard crawfish boils or taking my kids saltwater fishing/skiing  or messing around catching crabs in the jetties.  Or taking the wife out to Cafe Dumond for coffee and Beignets; and watching the tourists go by.

2. Financial.  Assume they are not giving you this property and you have to pay for it.  Lets say $5mm for kicks.  What would make me leave my family area and Louisiana to move to Texas.  80%; 70% of market price?  The reason I ask, is the properties you mention, you could buy in Southeast Louisiana; and still keep both your job and your lifestyle.

3.  Again just for Kicks lets say you make $100,000 to keep it round.  You would need to make that plus some.  Says maintenance is partially provided by owner.  Thus your swapping a $100k job for a $45k job.  You already know the work since you have some properties.  Can you pull $55k out of the Rentals plus still making them nice investments with an additional $55k wage applied to them?

Dallas area is sterile and suburbia.  Houston or Beaumont are grimy, but have flavor.  Quick interstate ride back to SE LA for family.  San Antonio is just a huge town, other than the River Walk.  Austin has entertainment and Barton Springs for swimming.  Love Texas, but different from SE LA.

4.  I'm an Accountant by trade and hate bookkeeping and also doing house maintenance (painting, plumbing, rugs, cleanout, etc).  Another route is to use a management service from afar while still living in LA.  To me I would pay the additional $55k or $100k noted above to have someone manage the properties along with the existing maintenance employee cost.  Whether I lived there or not.  My joy in investing is Deal making and not cutting grass or spraying weeds.  But for $5mm or whatever investment, I would do that near me, versus afar.

How much of a shave is the relative willing to give up on the price, to me is the deciding factor.  I don't think I would "consider" the move, unless there was $500,000 to $1mm in it for me.

None of "my" perspective is "right"; just the thought process I would go through.  You have the totality of all of the financial, family and emotional facts.

Love both States.

Which forum is best for asking a Subdivision marketing question?

Thought I would share an example of why we like self storage.

 Our caretaker in Belize showed us our first Mango of the season below.  Still a little green, but sweet.  Airport doesn't open until August 15th.  Hopefully we can get down there.  Apple Bananas, Plantains, Coconuts, papaya, Starfruit, dragon fruit, limes/oranges/grapefruit, Avocados, Cacao (you can eat the pod itself, versus just the chocolate), Soursop, Custard Apple and others planted last year, starting to take off with the rainy season.  Have an order in for 200 pineapple plants.  Planting Bougainvillea (red, purple, orange) along the drive.  Cassava, yams and taro root along the sides.  Have 10,000 Teak trees coming mid August, so neighbors will help plant them.  Have to settle in first and then decide to build a fishing pond.  Howler monkeys in the trees (below), hopefully they and the parrots will come check the fruit out.  We are at the edge of the jungle, so we will have to watch out for the Jaguar that visited one night.  Actually got to see a Toucan flying through the trees.

Do google earth.  Look for Spanish Lookout.  Look at the intersection of the Western highway and the road into Spanish lookout.  We are on the Northeast corner.  Have the Belize river on the front border and Iguana Creek on the East border.  If you zoom in, you can see the white looking beach on the island.

Official language English; Currency pegged at $2BZD - $1 USD, no currency fluctuations; English common law on property ownership, even for Foreign investors; 2 hour flight from Houston.  Property tax 50 acres = $200BZD.  Even houses say, $300,000 = property tax $500BZD.  No inheritance taxes. Little income tax, no capital gain tax on property.   

Not everything is sunshine.  Belize is ranked in the top 10 deadliest countries in the world (drug related in south part of Belize City).  40 poisonous snakes, 4 of them can kill you in 15 minutes (only about 5 people out of 330,000 die per year from snake bite).   Their beaches aren't really white sand beaches like in the pictures (photo shopped).

So when your zoning is difficult, finding a spot is hard or financing is tricky; keep pushing for your dream.

Fogot this was a Storage Forum.  Only about 40 storage units in the whole country.  A lot of expats, so I will need to check on building storage.  Probably will go with Cargo Containers.

If we weren't done buying and building storage facilities, I would be on a plane right now for due diligence and make an offer.  The worst case would be, we spend time at a great summer/winter vacation spot.

We don't do SFH or MFH, thus the concept of "Driving for Deals" isn't a concept I am familiar with from some of the other Discussions I have read here. But with this market I would drive and talk with all 60 of the above non internet locations. Deals are out there, go get them.

Follow up comment to the person I helped:

If you do go with Sparefoot give me a shout out. They have 4 different sort methods: Recommended, Reviews, Distance, price.

We can get you to the top 1-4 in each category within two months. Obviously Distance would be just for your locale, since you can't change that ranking.  This is way faster than increasing Google rankings.