Real Estate Frenzy Casting A Shadow In Texas
The Associated Press reports on Texas. “Maxine Bryant received an ad in her mailbox last year for undeveloped land in West Texas and bought, sight unseen, 20 acres of sorry-looking desert in the middle of nowhere. She said she was led to believe that this was a place where ;things are happening.’ But if things are happening around Dell City, it’s news to locals.”
“And clearly, some of the buyers didn’t look very closely at a map before signing on the dotted line. ‘It’s desert? What we bought is desert?’ said new landowner Robert Brown of Hollywood, Fla. ‘It’s not wetland?’”
The Star Telegram. “Eight years ago, Christina Dreyfus moved to West Texas to escape the big city. Now she’s going back, not because she’s tired of the wide-open spaces and mountain vistas but because she can no longer afford it. The soaring real estate prices in far West Texas, and a limited job market, are forcing Dreyfus to look for work elsewhere.”
“The trend started over a decade ago in Marfa. Now it’s spreading to Alpine and Fort Davis, where prices, while not as outrageous as Marfa, have doubled in the last decade.”
“‘I’m still having houses appraised for $40,000 selling for $300,000,’ Presidio County chief appraiser Irma Salgado said of the Marfa real estate market. ‘I got another house valued at $27,000 that sold for $230,000. It’s a two-bedroom, one-bath, 600-square-feet home. So nothing has changed. The prices are still going up like crazy.’”
“Dreyfus’ Alpine home, which was worth $55,000 six years ago, was recently appraised for $115,000. That doesn’t sound too expensive, but most residents here earn low salaries, she said.”
“‘There aren’t many jobs that pay more than $10 an hour, some pay a lot less, so it’s getting harder all of the time to live here,’ Dreyfus said.”
“Long-distance commutes are already happening. Home builders say much of their labor pool makes the 85-mile commute from Presidio to Alpine or Fort Davis.”
“It also caused the price of mobile homes to soar around Fort Davis. ‘You’ve got a mobile home, 12 to 15 years old, with a 900-square-foot machine shop sitting on 5 acres and it goes for $185,000,’ said Jeff Davis County chief appraiser Zedoch Pridgeon.”
The Express News. “San Antonio’s formerly high-flying new housing market has returned to earth. First-quarter housing starts dropped 25.5 percent, in stark contrast to the first quarter of 2006 when builders worked at an exuberant pace.”
“Now the realities of last year’s real estate frenzy are casting a shadow over the market, as builders sell off the excess inventory that started stacking up late last summer and in the fall, according to Metrostudy, a housing research firm.”
“‘We need to sell some homes,’ said Jack Inselmann, vice president of Metrostudy’s U.S. Central Division.”
“There were 3,093 completed new homes on the market at the end of March, 60 percent more new homes than were on the market at the same time last year.”
“‘It’s a little early to touch the panic button,’ said Michael Moore, the first vice president of the Greater San Antonio Builders Association.”
“Builders are feeling the crunch for now. Many have laid off employees and are offering deals and incentives not available to home buyers last summer. There’s also more competition in the market, as new builders continue to arrive in San Antonio.”
“Bob Gardner of Gardner Financial Services said the sudden absence of subprime loans has taken many San Antonio residents out of the market. ‘It’s not that there’s not jobs and demand for housing, it’s just that we can’t qualify as many people,’ he said. ‘We won’t see the full brunt of it for a while. Once the attitude changes about who qualifies for a loan, that doesn’t change for a few years.’”
The Houston Chronicle. “The speedy pace of home building is starting to sputter. Houston-area home starts fell 14.5 percent in the first quarter, as builders reined in construction amid a national housing slowdown and problems in the subprime lending industry, according to Houston-based Metrostudy.”
“It was the second consecutive year-over-year quarterly decline for local home starts for the first time in more than a decade.”
“The dip, Metrostudy president Mike Inselmann said, was due in part to the unusually high level of construction reported during the first quarter of 2006 when 12,532 homes were built, a 22.4 percent jump over the previous year.”
“Inselmann expects builders to be more conservative this year, building between 40,000 and 45,000 homes. ‘The financing hype pushed us over the top in 2005 and 2006,’ he said. ‘The idea of getting back to 2004 levels is not a bad scenario.’”
“Area homeowners are increasingly having trouble making their mortgage payments, signaling foreclosures will likely continue to mount.”
“In the Houston area, 4.38 percent of loans were 30 or more days late during the first quarter of 2007, compared with 2.04 percent during the same period last year, according to Moody’s. Foreclosures shot up to 11,983 in 2006 from 8,300 in 2004, in Harris, Montgomery and Fort Bend counties.”
“‘We know the foreclosure rates have been rising for the last three years, so that’s not a surprise,’ said Barton Smith, a University of Houston professor of economics. ‘We don’t see the end of this mess until at least the end of this year or maybe next year.’”
“‘There’s almost a direct correlation between price appreciation and subsequent depreciation and delinquency rates,’ said Ben Streusand, president of the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association. ‘I would be concerned somewhat if we start to have big gaping gains in appreciation over the next two or three years, because we could be setting up for the corollary scenario you’re seeing in other parts of the country.’”
The Galveston Daily News. “After six months with no hard offers on the five condominiums he owns on the island’s western tip, Tom McKinley figured it was time to get serious.”
“‘Now is the time to get creative and try different things,’ said McKinley, a St. Louis, Mo., resident who a year ago paid about $2 million for the oceanfront properties in the new Pointe West development.”
“On May 22, McKinley’s properties, along with what organizers say will be about 35 other island homes, condos and lots, will go on the auction block in a Houston hotel.”
“Island Realtors are longing for the giddy days of 2005, when buyers, unfazed by rising prices, engaged in bidding wars and waited on lists for condos and waterfront properties. Most everyone agrees that year was a fluke.”
“And compared to 2000, real estate on the island is going strong. But some properties have languished on the market for months, after the hurricanes of 2005 cooled house-buying fever on the Texas coast.”
“In Galveston, hundreds of new mid-priced condominiums are causing a supply glut, competing with similarly priced properties across the island. Late last month, 900 houses and 600 condominiums were listed for sale on the island.”
“So far this year, Realtors closed sales on 167 homes, compared with 187 the year before. As of mid-April, only 40 condos had sold, compared with 62 for the same period the year before, according to Realtor David Bowers.”
“McKinley said an auction is a way to market his property among the hundreds on the market in Galveston. ‘It’s an opportunity for us to try to bring buyers into the area,’ McKinley said. ‘There’s a lot of property in Galveston for people to sift through.’”
Clueless Hollywood types…
“And clearly, some of the buyers didn’t look very closely at a map before signing on the dotted line. ‘It’s desert? What we bought is desert?’ said new landowner Robert Brown of Hollywood, Fla. ‘It’s not wetland?’”
Desert is your just dessert…
Stupid quote of the day:
“It’s desert? What we bought is desert? It’s not wetland?”- quote from some idiot who bought land in WEST TEXAS.
Here’s a clue: if you want to buy a swamp go to Florida.
You would think the idiot had at least seen a couple cowboy movies growing up. LOL.
They don’t show cowboy movies in Venezuela or where ever the Florida speculator came from.
Here is Dell City International Airport:
http://tinyurl.com/2ylmht
Supposedly there are four planes based at Dell City but zooming in I don’t even see one. Guess they were all out dusting crops when the satellite photo was snapped.
Looks like an yellow Steerman mid-field on the S side.
You did pass the vison part of your last medical, right?
I saw this 1 1/2 years ago.
http://louminatti.blogspot.com/2005/08/you-can-have-5-acres-of-nothing-for.html
Godforsaken land near Orla going for $1000 for a 5-acre lot on eBay.
My first time to Orla. On US285, you see signage for this “town” for at least 50 miles before you get there. Hope you filled up in Ft. Stockton… because the town of Orla consists of one US post office drop box. I thought to myself: Hells tendrills poking into the earth realm.
“‘I’m still having houses appraised for $40,000 selling for $300,000,’ Presidio County chief appraiser Irma Salgado said of the Marfa real estate market. ‘I got another house valued at $27,000 that sold for $230,000. It’s a two-bedroom, one-bath, 600-square-feet home. So nothing has changed. The prices are still going up like crazy.’”
This is obviously fraud. I find it quite disturbing that this is allowed to continue, unabated. While we tend to focus on the major bubble areas which have stalled, and are reversing trend, there are numerous areas still realizing price increases due, in large part, to mortgage fraud. The FBI and the lending industry itself are not taking a very proactive stance. Thus far, their efforts have been reactionary, and minuscule. It’s pathetic.
What are these people smoking? These can’t all be straw buyers.
Yes it’s fraud. The perps are hoping they are far enough away from any FBI field office that they will never be investigated.
The risk/reward is balanced in the perps’ favor.
New oil boom? i thought Ft. Davis and Marfa were too far from the oil fields to participate much in the oil business, but maybe not.
Coincidentally, we are headed to Marfa in a couple of weeks for a vacation. It’s a nice, friendly small town with a large artistic community, so there is plenty of stuff for more eclectic tastes. If I see anything interesting I’ll take notes and report back.
Try to send in some photos with prices.
The Morning Snooze had an article about Marfa house prices about a year ago. I’ll try to find it.
Re: Marfa house prices (with photos)
http://www.marfa.org has links to local real estate sites
It’s 100% fraud. Even the oil&gas jobs out there don’t pay enough for anyone to afford those prices. Which banks are giving out loans at 10x appraised value? We need to find out and call the FDIC on them.
What do you call an oilman in Texas? “Waiter.”
No, this is not fraud and these buyers are not speculators. Marfa is an extremely trendy place right now for artists and art collectors, many from New York City, who buy second homes there because of the vibrant art scene. There are very few houses for sale, so the prices get bid way up. See article on “bachelor pads” in today’s NY Times magazine section (can’t post the URL, because it is part of a slideshow):
‘Charles Ruger: MARFA, TEX. When the New York photographer Charles Ruger was looking for a second home in Marfa, he was determined to bring a little of the city to West Texas. Rather than purchasing an adobe home, he turned a ranch house into a New York-style loft. For inspiration, Ruger looked to the legacy of the artist who made Marfa famous. “I’m going with the whole Donald Judd aesthetic down here,” said Ruger, whose sparely decorated home reflects Judd’s natural-industrial style, with a pecan-wood dining table commissioned from the local artist Jamey Garza, a steel desk from a Marfa bank and sofas and sheepskins from Ikea. Outfit by Cloak.’
After practicing law in Austin for about 20 years, a life event got me into reevaluating things and I decided to go out to West Texas and get my teacher certification at Sul Ross State University in Alpine. I’ve been going out to West Texas since I was a kid in the 50s and absolutely remain a West Texas junkie.
but it’s home. Anyway, I sold the $50K house I bought in 98 for $75K in 01 and we kissed the ground when the closing went through.
We lived in Marathon for one year and Alpine for 3 years between 1997-2001. It was a great place to live but a lousy place to make a living - and it simply became time to go back to the market place of ideas - not that San Antonio is much of a market place
What is happening in Marfa - and it was starting up when we left - was this it’s the new Santa Fe or Montana thing - largely because the artsy types were attracted by the Donald Judd Foundation. And they have moved in with force and big money apparently. I figure it will normalize at some point because, well, it IS a great place to visit. But quite another thing to live out in the middle of nowhere - day after day after day. Not cheap either - even back then. Border patrol families are living in what looks like Section 8 housing (not messed up tho) because they certainly can’t afford to buy and there is very little rental property.
While we were there, lots of Austin people (like us) came and went.
I get my weekly grins by going to the marfa.org website and checking out the real estate. Granted, there are some very nice homes and I guess to folks who have big bucks to drop so they think they’re on the cutting edge of being in the new Santa Fe (sans ski slopes), the prices seem in line. Except why have I seen so many of the same homes for sale for over a year?
So much for my little trip down memory lane. BTW, we’re going out there the day after school lets out and pay $75/night to enjoy the wide open spaces for a week or so. Lots cheaper than buying a “vacation home” in the land of hipsters - kind of the rent vs. buy thing discussed on this blog.
“What is happening in Marfa - and it was starting up when we left - was this it’s the new Santa Fe or Montana thing - largely because the artsy types were attracted by the Donald Judd Foundation.”
The trouble with this kind of trend is that the locals think that there are millions of rich people in the world descending upon their town, therefore, they must cash in quickly or raise the price of their property up so only few if any of there neighbors can afford them. All the while, they are still waiting for those rich people to show.
Observation: Poor people thinks that there are zillions of rich people out there doing much better than they are. Rich folks think that there are a lot of poor people out there. I wonder who is right!
Cinch, from Bozeman Montana.
Cinch,
Lived in Bozeman for a while and still have family there. What’s your view of what is going on there? Buyers from out-of-town, more employment, etc? Think the market will ever correct?
Bozwood,
Good questions! There aren’t as many buyers from out of town as people here like to think. For example, the Village loft project in downtown Bozeman tanked! A lot of speculators putting $50K down for a loft are not “moving” in and are renting them out or asking outrageous price for them. A few anecdotal sources suggest the the median price of Bozeman is $300 to $325. This is a town where the median household income is barely $40K, and this also means that many can’t afford a $150K asking price of a condo in Big Sky country with land as far as the eye can see. People here are very slow to react to trends in Cali or Florida, or they are in denial. Our number one industry here is construction and RE related. Good jobs here are far in between, however we do have notable employers e.g. RighNow Technology and the hospital (cancer care). Who knew that cancer care can be profitable or should be profitable, but apparently, I didn’t. The Bozeman Chronicles is in denial because their major source of revenue is the Sunday RE section. There are nine condos up for sale within 500 yards from my rented one, and this is not counting the new ones that just went up for rent. Bozemanites are nice down to Earth type that respect their neighbors and their environment? They are asking for $180K for an entry level condo. Maybe Bozeman are not so nice after all, perhaps just your typical greedy neighbors that can be found anywhere in America.
Cinch
bozwood,
for some reason my other message did get posted. Be that as it may, you know that Montana is next to Mississippi or West Virginia interms of income. yes, Bozeman is different but not by much. Off course it will correct from the $300K median price of a house. Construction and RE related fields are the largest industries here, surprise surprise. Out of town buyers are buying in Big Sky and a few are buying in Bozeman
cinch,
agree. I have heard that a lot of money coming in because of club yellowstone and that the airport had to be closed briefly due to too many private jets. is there much in the way of companies moving to bozeman, new industries popping up?
Don’t get me started about Yellowstone Club, and Tim Blixesth, I might write something I might regret. Look up here to see some of the problems that are starting there. heliumreport.com/…/catfight-at-yellowstone-club-000561.php The story is very good. There are other things that have happen involving a former vice president of finance of the Yellowstone Club. I can only speculate if it had anything do with the story.
Let try again. heliumreport/…/catfight-at-yellowstone-club-000561pup
Let try again. heliumreport.com/…/catfight-at-yellowstone-club-000561pup-
The market is slowing down. Right now people think their northside Bozeman or Methgrade shack is worth $250-300,000. A lot of potential buyers don’t, and the LOCAL banks are refusing to make loans on such overpriced property. With sub-prime loan drying up, it’s harder to finance such prices. As one realtor said, “it is getting harder to make a sale.” On the other side of the market, the custom homes, I am hearing stories about builders unable sell homes and falling into the “interest trap”. They can’t sell the home, but they still have to pay the bank interest on the construction loan, thus eating up any profit they might make.
There is a lot of rental property, all over, but as far as I can tell rents have not declined yet. There are plenty of jobs, but most of the high payings ones are construction. Gallitan County has the highest precentige of its workforces in counstuction (12%) than any county in the State. The national average is 6%. If you read Sunday business section in the paper of anouncment about promotions of employees of local business. It mostly real estate and finance firms making the announcments. The point I am making is Bozeman is highly dependent on the housing bubble to continue or else there is going to be big trouble.
Bozeman RE is incredible. Just look at some of these prices and what you get for them:
http://www.bozemanmove.com/real_estate.shtml
I was born there and spent a number of years in “Bel-ow-grade when it was still Belgrade. Grandparents owned a farm on the east Gallatin and also up near Manhattan/Amsterdam. Anyway, they sold the portion near the east Gallatin ($1 million) who promptly sold it to a doctor from Massachusetts (for a $1 million). The man promptly built a nice house and an airstrip on the property. Probably the best farmland on the whole original property.
Anyway, they still live in the area. I’m blown away by how much that valley changed since the mid-90’s.
Correction: the doctor from Massachusetts bought half of the original purchase for $1 million.
Be-low-grade has unfortuniately sank to a new low. It’s better known as Meth-grade. This, thanks to their Incompetent now retired ex-police chief. Under his watch the Belgade police have become a total joke. If there is away to screw up a ciminal case they will do it. This happend because instead of admistrating the police department, he was busy building apartment building. The city commision let him getaway with it. I guess all of them have there own building projects too. This is one werid ways the housing bubble has screwed things up. Who cares about crime when every body making money.
You should go out to the Bitteroots Valleys…I used to bounce around there in the late 80’s and went back 4 years ago and was stunned by the craptacular McMansions and 5000 sq. foot uberlog cabins….malls all the way from Missoula to Hamilton along 93.
A low wage economy for the locals and people got priced right out of their 5 acre truck farms near Hamilton to Victor….A new gentry has moved in to piss everyone off.
Hopefully the crash will come soon to clear out this Hummer/Escalade driving, cabin living, Sierra Club lovin’ temporarily rich trash.
Marfa is not Santa Fe. Marfa bakes in the middle of a vast arid plain. If there was a land mania in Ft. Davis, 25 or so miles to the north, THAT I could understand. But not Marfa. Ft. Davis is at a higher elevation and experiences much more mild summer temps. It’s in the mountains and it’s usually green.
“‘It’s a little early to touch the panic button,’ said Michael Moore, the first vice president of the Greater San Antonio Builders Association.”
“Builders are feeling the crunch for now. Many have laid off employees and are offering deals and incentives not available to home buyers last summer. There’s also more competition in the market, as new builders continue to arrive in San Antonio.”
Ill bet the people that were layed off have hit the panic button.
My oldest daughter bought a new home in San Antonio in 2003. Her neighborhood is now a sea of dead lawns with For Sale and For Rent signs. She paid 139k, it’s valued for tax purposes at 156k and similiar homes sell for 125k now.
I also bought in SA in early 2003 - $147K, 1700 sq.ft with a view to die for (back end of Government Canyon). Although BCAD increased the value to the sales price that year (50% increase), I’ve kept the appraisal value at $151K by protesting every year. Nice neighborhood (San Antonio Ranch) - except for the speculative building that could very possibly take away that precious view. We lucked out. Knock on wood.
Wickedheart,
I also bought in SA in early 2003 - $147K, 1700 sq.ft built in 1978 with a view to die for (back end of Government Canyon). Although BCAD increased the value to the sales price that year (50% increase), I’ve kept the appraisal value at $151K by protesting every year. Nice neighborhood (San Antonio Ranch) - except for all the speculative building going on that could very well take away my precious view. We’ve lucked out - so far - knock on wood. The spec development is starting to mess up the character of the place. Most every sale in the last couple of years is subprime and alt A so there’s hope that things will come to a screeching halt.
About two years ago I rode in a taxi through some of the San Antonio suburbs. In block after block of houses, not a single light was on in any of the front rooms, and most of the streetlights were out as well. This was about nine at night, so I asked the cabbie what was up. He said because of all the drive-bys and gang-banger dust-ups, most families huddled around a TV in a single back room at night, leaving the rooms facing the street unoccupied and blacked out. America, meet your future.
We drove through Big Bend, Ft. Davis, etc. 2 years ago. The local rags are full of lamentations about the loss of “authentic” West Texas now that it has been discovered by the L.A. and New York hipsters. It seems rich people have been buying large ranches where they can really get away from it all. I’ve been all over the U.S. and nowhere is more remote than West Texas. But the bubble there will crash because it’s one of those places where you could buy vacant land sight unseen off of websites and many did. Even though roads, water, and electricity aren’t included. If you go out there, keep an eye on the gas gauge, fillup opportunities are few and far between.
I don’t know. You ever been to Oglala or to North Dakota?
I just got out my Auto Club Road Atlas to double check. Highway and town density is about 5x greater in North Dakota than in West Texas. It’s really an eye opener.
Wait till the priced-out redneck locals start kicking the hipsters’ asses on general principle.
So, is it time to expect a daily dose of Florida meltdown in the morning, Texas for lunch, and California for dinner? Welcome to the party, Texas! Arizona and Vegas brought chips and dip, but we were almost out.
They aren’t making any more land (except in the deserts and in Detroit, Youngstown, New Orleans, etc).
“The trend started over a decade ago in Marfa. Now it’s spreading to Alpine and Fort Davis, where prices, while not as outrageous as Marfa, have doubled in the last decade.”
It’s different in West Texas! Hell, they have the chili festival in Terlingua (pop. 12 or so). That’s gotta be good for a couple of $100K jobs right? Then there’s golfing/lounging down at Lajitas Resort where the non-engish speaking maids are getting $25 an hour and I’m sure that the parking attendants at the new Marfa lights sitting area are making $60-70K easy.
Whenever I went out to Fort Davis/Alpine I lamented the dearth of Yale grads/East Village/Artsy/ Santa Fe/Cowboy Wannabe/NYU/ Upper West Side types. Thank God that’s all changing
Fortunately, if you’re not a moron, you can still find very affordable housing in Texas. The strange thing is that there are new developments with homes selling for $400K and another very similar development just ten minutes away with homes selling for $180K. I’m afraid the Cali equity locusts are headed this way and will destroy what is left of affordable housing.
The property taxes on those houses in West Texas would eat up half of a person’s median income at $10/hr.
Okay, this cost me a keyboard. Where next for this kind of crap - Beaumont?
http://www.marfa.org/compound/index.html
“Okay, this cost me a keyboard. Where next for this kind of crap - Beaumont?”
THAT brought on a big hurl! Now, how do we get these posers thinking that Beaumont is the new Santa Fe so they can be on their way - OUT?
Beaumont is a craphole town where they process seafood and refine oil. Other than refinery jobs, you will either work for the government or pluck heads off shrimp. The city smells like a mixture of sulfur, fish and shrimp.
Beaumont is indeed one of the most horrible cities in the US. But surely, can’t these Donald Juddites take their industrial aesthetic and make something of it? Beaumont NEEDS them - West Texas does not. OK, OK, I know it’s too much to even consider, much less wish for.
Kind of like Steinbeck era Monterey?
West Texas- the locals are still into that Judge Roy Bean Only Law West of the Pecos thing.
Who in the world would pay millions of $$$$ for desert land anyway? God I’m sick of this bogus McMansion/Olive Garden/Walmart eCONomy
I’m sick of it to, but am looking forward to the Great Carrion Binge to come when I’ll be separating plenty of fools from their assets for pennies on the dollar.
Included in those fools, or maybe they will make up the majority of them, are the lenders. FBs who bought a year or two ago with no money down will get kicked out of the house and lose their credit if they had any. The lenders, on the other hand, and investors who bought these MBS will lose their shirt.
Patience, Sammy. Would you even pay $1 per acre for West Texas swampland?
Or Blowmont or Palmcaster or any of the rest of these BF East Egypt h311holes?
I’m still waiting for some some deals on the prime stuff. It’s looking like a long wait. We have to clear the periphery first.
I’m going to pounce on a few selected properties, once it’s clear we are on our way to the ravages of hyper-inflation…
I most definitely have no interest in real estate in Lancastdale.
Blowmont, Hicktorville, Felon, Fontucky, Loma Limbo, Turdmecula, Lake Elsinwhore it’s all good in the Inland Empire.
In a couple of years there’ll be tumbleweends here. Vast tracts of houses inhabited by squatters and hobos. The new wired hobo will take sneak into a foreclosure house, tap into a neighbors wifi connection and be up and running on the net.
They do in California and Arizona, so why not west Texas?
“Who in the world would pay millions of $$$$ for desert land anyway?” Apparently lots of people, because it looks like they’ve run out.
The huz and I were reading this thread and are greatly interested in Texas. He says he’s never even heard of Marfa but I had but I couldn’t think why…then I remembered that not long ago Vanity Fair magazine ran a piece about all the hep artist types that were going there and setting up shop. They were renovating an old theater and hotels too. Starting an art (or maybe film) festival too.
A few months back Vanity Fair magazine ran a piece about a new art scene spring up in the desert. Converting the old Thurderbird motor court motel, NY style pizza joint going into the old auto repair shop,some TV producer from “the L word” is gonna reno some place and rent out vintage motorcyles and bikes. Locals are getting fed up with the Cali A-types: artists, attorneys and assh*les…
You read these string of posts reflecting on housing circumctances in some very unusual market’s around the country and the only word which describes the central theme relative to job opportunities and housing is….
DYSFUNCTIONAL
Californicators know you can turn that desert sand into silicon.
“It’s desert? What we bought is desert?” said new landowner Robert Brown of Hollywood, Fla. “It’s not wetland?”
Next time the salesmen calls, you will have your big chance to buy swamp land.