Great thread. I too fell in love with a piece of land that I thought at the time was beyond anything I'd ever hoped of owning at a price that was low enough to cause me to be more reckless than I should have been.
I sold my house in California and moved here before the deal was closed and bought a small house in Tyler for the time being. It was raw land that I needed to clear and build a house on.
After being here a month, I realized that the deal would never happen. There were two owners involved and one wanted to sell. The other was going through the motions, but he wanted to file for bankruptcy and take the land from his partner through that route. What really scared me is that he had been in jail for extortion and embezelment. (sp)?
It made me sick to walk away from it, and for a few months after that, I felt that there was nothing else out there for me that would compare.
But like all oportunities, you just have to realize that there is always another one. I just got this idea to ask the company that owned the land next to that other parcel if they would sell to me. After a bit, they did for a very reasonable price just to get rid of it. It was a liability to them that was costing them more money than it was worth. Vacant land with nobody around to keep the locals out.
My brother is looking to move out here from California in the next year or so, and we've been looking at parcels in the 20 acre range with a small pond, or the ability to build a small pond. We've found numerous parcels in the $40,000 to $100,000 range. Some are as big as 44 acres for $2,000 an acre with a year round creek running through it!!!
He trains dogs and wants a place to practice different types of retrieves with various bank types. Most of the ponds we've looked at don't have the features he's after, but we're not worried because there are so many properties out there.
East Texas is a great area to live and own land. Property values are increasing, but there's still plenty of land available. Once you get about an hour East of Dallas, you get into the piney woods. To me, it's the most amazing area in the state!!!!
For fun, just go to
www.realtor.com and you can find most of the listings available. Not all of them, but enough to give you an idea of what's available. If $140,000 was more than you want to spend right now for a place with all the improvements, maybe you might be happier with raw land for half that? Have a place to go on weekends and build your dream retirement home and fishing pond.
Good luck,
Eddie
