Monday - late morning.
Got here - Brownsville - after driving through rain and snowstorms for more than half the trip down here. It was a let down to find out it snowed heavily enough at home to accumulate on the ground and build snowmen. Like, dang, it only happens once every several years - snow that is - why couldn't I be home? C'est La Vie
No snow down here, but it's definitely been raining with craters of pools of water in the yard, mud, not so nice conditions. To the point I spent the night at the truckstop. Just dropping the loaded trailer meant wading through near ankle-deep water. Yup, put my boots on for that one.
Really incredible. People who bought property dirt cheap at the lien sale auction have those properties listed for sale for far more than they paid for them. 2 grand they pay, asking anywhere from 16 to 75k. I'm not saying I'm going to get rich doing this, those properties may sit there a long, long time before anyone is even remotely interested in paying that much money for such small amount of land. My interest was more in putting rental units on them and earning long-term revenues.
Really, it appears at least in my area, that the only way to get a piece of land that is actually not over-priced and is in a desireable location is to buy it through the county auction sale. I've been over 50 different websites and they all are incredibly over priced and alot of them are showing the same properties as the rest of the sites.
This is kind of setting my vision along what avenue to take in getting to the goal. Do enough research and homework you at some point get a view of what you really need to do. I'm not going to pay 10k per acre for property that isn't worthy anything near that. There is one property that looks interesting and has a good price but - there are no roads leading to it! Lol. It's surrounded by other property and satellite and street views show nothing in the way of access. You aren't going to pull an RV trailer through an easement, lol. But I don't even see any easements going through it.
So I'm going to continue to sit on this for awhile. Still looking, still thinking about it, still doing research, but taking no action - yet. If I acquire land but use all my money up and don't have anything left over to build the park, then it's basically useless property. Go hunting, ATV riding, great, but no revenue stream from that. I could go outside of my city area - but I"d have to go east to get anything decent and too far away to make it convenient for anyone to help out with it. Going west - the properties are also high priced.
Getting into high payments? No thanks. Getting into low payments? Maybe. Basically, I'm going to wait until the next auction, see what's available on it, if anything looks good and considering how much it might end up being to get the winning bid on, I will think about options to have the money available immediately in bank account after the auction closes. They want you to pay within an hour of the end of the auction. Why? I dunno. If you don't, you get fined and end up paying 25% of the winning bid amount. So, yea, you want to have the money available lol.
Why do I keep writing about this? Because it's a portion of what's on my mind. It's something I've been wanting to do for many years - even decades. It's something I wish I could have gotten started 20 - 30 years ago. I wouldn't even have to be working by now. A steady stream of income on a monthly basis, I would have developed, over the years, an oasis style park that has all kinds of amenities and would be a go to spot for travelers. It would have a reputation and I would keep improving it. Instead, I'm 56 years old and still have nothing going. It's rather frustrating, to be honest - I have good credit now, I have a 401k I could cash out, I can get loans - but I can't find anything that fits the bill.
I have someone that can actually live in it and run the place. I have people to help with the accounting and fixing things as necessary. Ugh, lol.
Well whatever, need to clear my mind of that for a while, easy to get engrossed in endless searches and finding the same things over and over. Give it a rest Just for a while lol. The only property I found that would work won't allow that kind of development so shrug my shoulders and move on.
As for today, it's noon and they haven't even taken any of the full trailers out of here yet. 99% of the time they take out two loaded trailers and come back a few hours later with empties. I would have liked to have been out of here by now so I could make it back tonight. About 2:00 pm, maybe 3:00? That's as late as I can assess getting out of here and making it back to the yard. After that, I spend the night on the road somewhere for I don't see any point in driving all night long so I can feel like crap all day long the next day, unless the manager specifically asks/needs a trailer for the next morning.
It's likely he's going to text me soon and ask me what trailer I'm bringing back and that's when I'll tell him I have no trailer lol.
I'm getting appalled by the news/politics and everything that's going on there - which is out of my control - but there is no end in sight. So, I'm not taking a total break from it, but I've kind of tuned that out as well. God is greater than all of that garbage and is over all of it, I'm going to put my trust in Him. Whatever happens, we all end up before the same Creator in the end.
Anyway, I still haven't had the opportunity to get to that wooded property - or try to get to it. It's only 7 miles away from my house but definitely outside of town and in the country. It'd be nice if I could leave here today, stop for the night somewhere and then have a part of the day tomorrow to see if I can access it without going through someone's private property. Not sure about the road, seems to cut through private land and isn't on the street map version of GPS. I'm not bashful, I'd go ask for permission if it comes down to that. Otherwise, park on the highway and walk down the railroad tracks lol.
Really want to see what the rest of the owners are doing with that property, if they have put up any structures and if they are open to others coming in. Not that they have a choice, but I'd rather at least try the peaceful/nice way and see what happens. It's a weird proposition to co-own land with complete strangers, glad I didn't pay much for it. We'll see what happens. And showing up - a stranger - without any intro to the rest? I'll be approaching it cautiously, people in Texas don't like strangers showing up on private land without permission.
And for that, I think I'll get out of this truck and go for a walk. Need some exercise.
