A String of Luck?
On Friday, fresh off the heels of closing my Vroom transaction on the Tesla I got some more unexpected potentially good news, I had someone interested in one of my “investment” lots in Lehigh Acres. During the first real estate boom down here in the early 2000’s I bought two vacant 1/4 acre lots in Lehigh Acres, paying somewhere around 50k total for the two of them. At the time the prices of everything was skyrocketing and I wanted my piece of the pie. Early on I looked like a freaking genius, there was a point where the value of these lots had increased another 50% but I wanted to hold on for a REALLY big payday.
Well all of a sudden the bottom dropped out of the real estate market and it happened in a hurry. All of a sudden everyone was trying to unload these overpriced lots, including myself, unsuccessfully. The value of these properties cratered and for most of the last 18 years they have been worth between 3-5K each. I have relentlessly held onto these, hoping to someday at least break even but that dream faded a long time ago. However this past tax season really motivated me to try to sell these properties as the annual property taxes on each more than doubled due to a ridiculous fire assessment change, charging owners of vacant lots a premium.
So despite EVERYTHING in our area real estate related appreciating once again at meteoric pace (my home supposedly would fetch close to a half million right now), these lots have been dragging their feet in value. They have been going up, but very slowly. So that brings us to Friday. I got a call from a woman that was genuinely interested in one of my lots which I had listed on Zillow a few months prior. Since listing I had a lot of calls from scammers or commercial real estate firms looking to low ball me. However this woman and I agreed on a price which still results in a 9k loss for me but at least would get me out of the property and allow my to put the proceeds on my HELOC which was used to pay for it almost two decades prior. I did some digging into what was required to do the transaction. It should not be too bad as I got a vacant lot contract sent to me by a title company who can also process the transaction for us. If things go well hopefully I can relieve myself of at least one of the two worst investment decisions I ever made.
The weekend was dedicated to me working hard on my list items. I not only mowed the front but also the back of the property over the two days. I will also likely tackle weed whacking the fence line tomorrow or Wednesday, just for fun.
I made two videos so far this weekend, one documenting the Vroom ups and downs and another mocking the stupid safety recommendations made by a Chinese EUC company.
On Saturday afternoon/evening Deb, DJ, and Katie were over. We had a good time hanging out, DJ likes Deb and calls her “Bo”. Saturday night we watched a movie called The Professor with Johnny Depp. He plays a college professor that finds out he has terminal lung cancer and has six months to live. It was pretty powerful at times. You couldn’t help but think about that scenario and if you truly have lived your life in a way that matters. I’d give it an A-.
This morning I headed to the title company first thing to get the transaction rolling. I had my folder of documents from 2003, just in case I needed anything. The buyer can complete the entire transaction without stepping foot in the title agency, I am the only one that needs to be present. I am not counting my money until it’s all said and done but I am hopeful that I can have some financial good fortune for the second time in a short period, something very unusual for me.
I also ran the truck through a car wash and then applied a ceramic coating at home. Despite the amount of effort being significantly less than conventional waxing, the product claims to look better and last longer. I guess time will tell.