Potentially huge thing for me happened today.
 

Several years ago I bought 10 acres of land just outside the city limits where I live. It has nothing on it. The previous owners used it as farm land so it is flat and only has a few trees at one end of it. I had always assumed I would one day build a house on it and sell it or something (maybe even build a house on it and live on it). Ever since I bought it I have been petitioning the city to annex the land into the city. If they did this the land would be part of the city and would then be eligible for city services such as water, electricity etc.

I was just told today that they accepted my application. The process is that it has to go on the next election's ballot, which in this case won't be until 2012, but if the voters approve it then the land will be part of the city. Mainly what this does for me is allow me to then apply to have it re-zoned as a multi-residential property. If I can get that zoning approved I could either build multiple homes on it and sell them or sell the land to a developer who would then develop it.

From what I am told about 95% of all annexes are approved on the ballot so it looks like it is pretty likely to happen. The re-zoning in another story, but it looks like I have a decent shot of getting that.

So it is still a ways down the road, but today was a big step in turning this land into more than just a big field. :)

who gives a fuck?

that is cool man....i like the story... there is money in real estate still

The problem with that is, nobody is building new homes these days.

Kaching!

he does! .. :thumbsup:warning

Congrats. A question though.

I understand the benefits to you if annexed, but what is the benefit to the city? It sounds like more expense with little potential for return. Can your city afford additional expenses or are there so many hippies there that they don't think about that stuff?

Nice story, congrats!

does that also mean you will be subject to additional taxation once living there instead of not being annexed to a city?

a city is not going to give him those things for free.

If I do nothing with the land and just let it sit as it is there is not a whole lot of benefit for the city. They will collect a little bit of tax revenue from it, but not much. However, if the land eventually ends up being developed then it could bring in decent chunk of extra tax revenue for them. Also if the city grows in size (population wise) it becomes eligible for more federal investment.

In the end they would charge for installing the water, sewer etc to any homes/buildings put on the land so the developer would pay for construction cost and they would get more customers which could be additional revenue as well.

Right now the land is zoned a single residential. If I can't get it zoned multi-residential there is always the option of commercial. If that were to happen and they could attract some businesses it could add jobs.

So in theory there are some good things in it for the city, but any of those are a long ways away.

Well, there is that little problem.

However, at the earliest if the annex passes the vote it will be late 2012. From there I would have to get the zoning changed and I'm finding that nothing works fast when dealing with the government so you never know how long that could take. So I would guess it is at least 3 years away in a best case scenario. Hopefully by then the housing market will be on the up-tick and people will be building/buying again.

my area got rezoned to "city" and i had to pay 2500 to get put into the city sewer system rather than septic

If it passes and is annexed I will have to pay some extra taxes on the land, but at first not a whole lot. Right now the land is empty. There is nothing happening with it and nobody living on it. Since the taxes are based on the value of the land, it is not worth nearly as much now as it would be if there were a house on it. If I ended up just building a house on it and living on it the value of the land would go up by a pretty large amount so the taxes I pay on it would as well.

Yeah, that kind of stuff can be very expensive. My hope is that if I pass the annex and get re-zoned I could just sell the land to a developer and let them deal with all of that. I don't have the knowledge, contacts or money to develop the land myself. I would have to do it one house at a time which could take forever.

what makes it worse the only reason it got rezoned is because a huge piece of property got sold to a devolper who pushed it through and he wanted it all to be on city sewer so he could build a ton of houses cheap. Those houses he is building are not paying for it all to be put on city sewer it is all of us who have lived out here forever :(

sucked - but oh well

Outside Portland could be a good place to build for those that work in the city and want to comute to a better location to have their family.
Portland is just too wet for me

That sucks. Were there a lot of people that were affected by it?

Damn. . . I look so sad :)

There are a lot of small towns around Portland that have grown a lot over the last 10 years because people have moved out there and commute in. The town I grew up in had about 2,500 people in it when I graduated high school there in 1989. There was a decent size city between that town and Portland. You had to go through that city in order to get to Portland which made commuting there a real bitch. In 1995 they built an expressway around that city so you could bypass it and get right to the freeway. Since then the little town I grew up in has tripled in size and is basically now a suburb of Portland. A lot of families moved out there because they could get a lot more house for the money. The growth was so fast that the schools couldn't keep up and had start busing some of the kids to different nearby schools.

http://datnog.com/kanehippiefield.jpg

Fucking hippies.

My daughter is living in Washington now going to school, next time I drive up, I'll stop by and visit!

It is a strange place. In the last election this state actually re-elected a governor who was not very good his first time in office and basically ran on a campaign saying he would raise taxes.

Also, like you say, it is a strange mix of people. Portland is one of the top cities in the world for transgender reassignment surgery. We also have more lesbians per capita than any other city in the nation. We have big taxes right now high unemployment and yet we have 2 bedroom apartments downtown still going for 700K.

Where I live the average house they would build would be a 3-4 bedroom that would sell for 180-300K, but the way my land sits they could probably fit 50-70 houses on it. There was a lot that sold a few years back (pre housing bubble burst) that was right down town and was about 3 acres in size for $850K. The owners had lived on it forever then the husband died of a heart attack and the wife decided to move out and sell the land (she was in her 60's) the developer snatched it up and put a lot of nice houses there that sold pretty quickly. So, in theory, if everything fell into place I could be looking at a pretty big payday, however it is still a ways down the road. If nothing else getting annexed should increase the value a little bit, then I just have to wait and see how things work out.

Sounds good, we can grab a beer or something.

nice! I hope it goes thru. I keep saying that with our porn money we should all buy land and build properties, so when the sh*t hits the fan in porn, we have something nice to fall on

congratz and good luck :)

Thats pretty cool, kane! Good luck with it. Make it full of renewable energy or something green and trendy, people will eat it up out there wouldnt they?

You also look like a black dude so I wouldn't give that post much thought.

Congrats on this step and good luck with the future investment. :thumbsup

Just something to think about..

Wife had a property right be fore I met her. She was not doing well with the payments at the time. 1.14 acres. I asked her how much she paid and what the monthly was and said hell lets make sure it gets paid and finally finished early. 2 years later we found out that they were building a University a few miles away.

Put it for sale at 8am on Friday morning. at 8:03 had 2 contractors bidding on it. Bidding started at my asking price of 49K. ( paid 12 k ) finally got my check about 4 weeks later for 57k after agent fees.


Land. They dont make it any more.

That is for sure. About 15 years ago I bought one of those lots you sometimes see advertised that was kind of out in the middle of nowhere and cheap. It had no services and was in the sticks, but I thought I might one day put a cabin on it and use it a vacation hide out kind of place.

Anyway, I paid around $5K for it. About 5 years later I was offered $15K for it by a developer and sold it. A few years after that a different developer came in and built what turned out to be one of the best golf resorts/courses in the nation a few miles away. That shot the value of the land in the area way up. Those that held out then later sold the same amount of land I had for around 40-45K. Lesson learned. When someone is very interested in your land, find out why :)

I can't complain though, I made a nice profit and only ever saw the land once since it was about a 4 hour drive from where I live and I used the money to get the land I have now.

haha love it

congrats, sounds like a big step finally taken.

I had a friend who bought 2 homes in Michigan years ago because the houses all around were zoned into commercial property and sold to various restaurants. He bought them on sheer luck that if they turned into commercial zoning, he would instantly quadruple his investment, if not more.

about a year later he got a letter from the county saying his zoning was denied because their already his their max of commercial vs. residential in that area :1orglaugh:1orglaugh sucker!

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh thats awesome!

Good news! Congrats and best of luck getting approval.

I live in an area which is currently experiencing "explosive" growth. It was a self contained town connected by a major highway for years, but as housing has grown outwards it's been joined up with the rest of the city (which is 20km/12.5m away) and it's just like another suburb now. I've been doing some local history research by looking at land titles, and was astounded to find that some of the open paddocks which are going to be developed in the coming years have been held by property developers since the 1970s. They were looking forward 30+ years!!!

If I had some spare $ and time to wait I'd buy up paddocks further out of the city and just sit on them, leasing them back to the farmer who I bought them from. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has that idea though. :thumbsup

For sure. If you know of places that are growing and could get the right deal it cold pay off big down the road. When I moved out to this town about 8 years ago there was a couple of large plots of land that all had commercial for lease signs on them. All of that land now has businesses on it and those people, who ever thought to buy that land in the first place, must be loving it.

That's actually great news. You planning on building there or selling it later?

I guess ultimately it will depend on how the zoning works out. If I can get it zoned for multiple residences I will try to sell it because I don't have the knowledge or resources to develop it on my own. If they end up not re-zoning it and it stay as it is I may eventually end up building a house on it and selling it.

i'd sit on it.. been looking at property price history for vancouver, which admittedly is kinda inflated, but 20 years of growth for a city has made a lot of people rich

nice job

and when you're part of the city you can pay city property taxes on top of your county property taxes which will no doubtly will get higher due to the increased value of your land being part of the city.

i do. many people here do. not everyone here is an idiot like you. Many other people here have land they might want to develop in the future and hearing other's stories about how they did it is cool and interesting.

Might be a prob if he wanted to live there or hold the land long term, but I don't see any mention of that. :)

All jokes aside, good for you kane.

Sure, if the annex passes the vote my taxes will go up a little because I will now have to pay city taxes on top of county, state etc. Also, the value of the land as it sits should go up a little bit just because it is now eligible for city services.

However, if I do put a house on it then the value of the land will go up considerably and so will the taxes. But if I do that I would either sell/rent the house I live in now and live in the new place or just build it and sell it so the tax increase wouldn't bother me for too long.

My ideal situation is that eventually I can get the multi-residence zoning and just sell the land to a developer and walk away with a nice profit.

Dirty hippies smelling up my field :)

At least I would hope they would pass the bowl.

Congrats, man. Most of the time, annexations of empty land go through with no opposition so it should be a sure thing. I congratulate you on your success, man. 10 acres of near urban land is quite an asset to have.

Live there or not he still has to pay the taxes. He'll hold the land until he can sell it. What makes you think he can sell it fast in this economy? Heck my next door neighbors have a really nice house that's been on the market for almost 3 years moved out of it a year and a half ago. dropped the price by 25-30% Still can't sell it. So they are paying 2 payments. This house and the house they moved to.

50 huge things inside me

At this point the time frame is wide open. The annex isn't on the ballot until the 2012 election. So if it passes it will be early 2013 before it even goes through. Assuming that happens I then need to get re-zoned. There is no telling how long that could take. I did some research and it looks like once the annex happens my taxes on the land will increase by a few hundred dollars per year. So it is going to go up, but I am willing to pay that for what I can potentially gain down the road.