Just let go & Buy it now!
A story about a seventeen year old young adult who had a vision, some summer money, and the ambition to press 'Buy It Now' on Ebay...
Written by Matthew Berger
I waited for my mother to come home. When she got home, I explained to her that I would be purchasing a piece of land in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania. "No," she said. So I thought to myself, what the heck am I going to do to convince her I should buy this half acre parcel of land, since I had already agreed to buy it. So I described the property to her.
Location: Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania
Parcel size: 1/2 acre
Taxes: $300
'Great job.' 'Good find.' These are some things she said to me. But I knew she was not sold. YET. At this point, I was so desperate to convince her that I should be able to purchase this property (since I already had), that I pulled out my handy dandy tool, my 'Landscape salesman' personality. This tool is extremely powerful, because its how I can express my inner energy the best, and also enables me to give a great sales pitch, I must say. So I used it to my advantage, and bam, I was in business.
The next day, I found myself in a car driving to rural Pennsylvania. When entering the address into my GPS, I found that this property is ONLY two hours from New York City. I was in shock, I couldn't believe that for a summers pay, I bought a property that was so close to New York City (You can see the lack of research I put into buying this property). As I approached the property, I realized how close it was to the lake. I knew it was near a lake, but I did not realize it was basically on a lake (again showing how little research I did). So I'm standing on my street in the Poconos, thinking to myself ' those are thirty thousand dollar boats sitting at the docks. Furthermore, those are quarter of a million to half million dollar homes sitting lakefront. There's no way I just grabbed this half acre lot right next to these homes for a summers pay!" Well, I did.
So I picked up the phone, "Mom, the property is awesome. There are a ton of large homes around, its a safe, beautiful area, but the people are different." "How so?" She said. "Well, lets just say, they all drive pickup trucks and have weird accents," I said. She laughed and said, "I don't want you to be like that, so please come home."
She Was SOLD
So I went back home, called up the owner of the property. That night, we put a small down payment for the property ( I had won the auction, but had not yet paid). So I nervously waited a few weeks for the deed of the property to arrive. (This process was extremely sketchy and nerve wrecking as you could probably imagine. I made a smooth sales pitch to my mother, so to her, it seemed much more legitimate than it really was, though it was legitimate in the end). So we received the deed, it had my name on it and everything, Thank God! We had a lawyer look it over. We signed a few papers and bam, I was the owner of the property. I paid the remaining balance, which was minimal via PayPal (who pays for real estate transactions on PayPal? I do...).
Four Years Later
Recently, we received a letter in the mail from the town asking if we would like a hookup built on my parcel of land for the brand new sewage system and town water. This is phenomenal news and it means that the value of my property will likely rise in the near future. They start construction this year, and should be done by mid 2013. The whole county will now have sewage, rather than having to depend on a septic tank (which can cost the homeowner upwards of seven thousand dollars). Plus a well, which is about the same price. The savings are huge, but even more so, the value of the property will rise incredibly. The property is currently assessed at $19,900. After speaking with a real estate agent she was certain that after the sewage and town water are hooked up, the value should rise to around $34,500. I paid just under $2,000. As an irresponsible seventeen year old surfing the web, I would say that was a pretty bold 'click of the mouse' on my part. I certainly lucked out on my find. I probably would not recommend following my path, but I thought I would point out that it certainly is possible to purchase real estate on Ebay!
Happy Bidding!
