Lot (real estate)

“ Stately blocks, grand hotels, massive stores, lofty factories, tumble-down shanties, unoccupied lots and vacant sand-hills form its picturesque boundary on either hand. When the high summer winds sweep easterly down its broad avenue, laden with clouds of flying sand from vacant lots along its either margin, it becomes a decidedly open question whether the lots aforesaid really belong in the department of real estate, or should, properly enter the catalogue of "movable property." ”

“ Since the proportion of land occupied by streets averages about 35%, the conversion of acreage into lots means a loss in building area of that percentage, so that with the expenses of platting, opening streets, taxes, loss of interest, etc, it is generally estimated that property bought by the acre must sell by the lot for double the acre price in order to avoid loss in handling. ”

“ Besides this, a ten-dollar lot, if restricted for residence or available for business, often advances to $100 in a year; one good house which some one else built near it may raise its value that much. ”

“ Five years from now those who fail to invest in this class of residence property will be regretting it as keenly as do those now who made the same mistake about $50 and $100 lots five years ago. The increase in real estate values is best shown by the city assessment roll. ”

“ People are now flocking in here in considerable numbers, either to settle or to make investments in real estate, in the hope and expectation [Pg 225] of realizing a fortune by the rise in the value of property. We have dally stages from the east and south, and they generally come loaded inside and out to the extent of their capacity. The land-office is crowded both by settlers and speculators eager to enter the choicest lands remaining unsold. ”

“ These Lots will be put up at a certain Sum per Annum, payable as Rent half-yearly. The Leases to run for Ten Years, the Purchaser having the privilege, at any time during the said terms of Ten Years, of obtaining the Fee of the Land, by paying up the Principal Sum, of which the Rents stands as Interest. ”

“ Much more so is this true when the effort is to ascertain the value of real estate in the country, where sales are few, and where the elements which enter into and determine the value are so varied in character. ”

“ Some of the real-estate dealers allow customers to buy land on terms that would attract even Trotsky, who doesn’t believe in that sort of thing. Four-hundred-dollar lots in one subdivision can be had for twenty dollars cash and ten dollars a month, with no interest or taxes for a year. In{149} another subdivision, one-thousand-two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar lots sell for one hundred dollars cash and twenty-five dollars a month until twenty per cent. of the principal has been paid, after which the buyer can sink back and refrain from paying any more on his principal for seven and a half years. ”

“ If possible, buy at auction and of reputable people who are not boomers, or at least buy at forced sale; that is how real estate is sold when it must be sold. Choose lots level with the curb and on high ground, lest the expense of grading and sewering eat up your profit.
Keep in mind that in buying land for speculation one really buys the opportunity to tax other people, by taking part of their earnings in the shape of rent or price. ”

“ Back in 1928, a man bought a comparatively new house and eight acres of land for a sum far below the prevailing prices in the vicinity. The grounds were attractive and the lawn well shaded with fine old maples. He acquired this "bargain" in the late fall without benefit of real estate dealer. In fact, he boasted of his acumen to a broker who had originally shown him several other pieces of property in the section. ”

“ Or, if more than one Person shall give notice of their desire to purchase the same Lot, then such Lot shall be divided in portions to be ascertained, with reference to the extent and value of the Property to which it is proposed to be laid, and be offered to the Owners of such Property, in the portions so to be ascertained as aforesaid. ”

“ In many parts of this country, perhaps in most, but particularly in the Western States and in the neighborhood of flourishing towns, these two methods of rating the pecuniary magnitude of real estate will habitually not coincide. Due allowance, often very considerable, being made, the capitalised rental value of the land may be taken as measuring its current serviceability as an item of material equipment ”

“ There was the house in which they lived, free of mortgage, which would bring at least thirty thousand dollars in the market; ten thousand dollars in bank stocks and other securities—solid, paying investments, and five thousand dollars’ worth of real estate—chiefly unimproved lots in a growing part of the city, that might be very valuable in time, if they could be held and the taxes paid. ”

“ The quantity in market was enormous. All the real-estate agents had large books filled with descriptions of farms and fancy country-seats for sale, some to be had by paying one-fourth of the purchase-money down, and some which the owners would exchange for merchandise, or traps, or houses in the city. ”

“ He disposes of them at this price to new-comers and others wanting to build their houses or to men desirous of having a little fling in the way of a speculation in unearned increment. It is these speculators on increment out of whom the Real Estate man relies to make his main profit. A few lots are sold at $10 and $12 a foot to be paid in one payment down, and the rest in quarterly instalments spread over three, four, or five years. A man buys, say, half-a-dozen lots and pays his first instalment. ”

“ The value of real estate is increasing in the large cities. The landlords are unwilling to sell unless at an exorbitant price; accordingly, foreigners intending to engage in trade or manufacturing will do well to lease property for long terms, instead of purchasing it. ”

“ In the business portions of the town, these large lots have been, of course, subdivided; but nearly all the citizens own a full lot for a residence, which enables them to produce an am ple supply of fruit and vegetables for family use, from their own gardehs. Rented property is extremely rare; in no city of the world do so large a proportion of the people own the houses in which they live. The size of the lots causes the city to cover an area probably ten times as great as an ordinary city of the same population. ”

“ With five or six auctions being held each day, and with large numbers of unattractive lots being offered to stolid middle-westerners who have come more for the free lunch and the automobile ride than for the real-estate, it is inevitable that some lots will go for about one dollar and seventy-five cents if everything is left in the hands of the legitimate prospects. Common sense tells us that no real-estate dealer could stand such a blow without emitting raucous shrieks of pain, no matter how persuasively and convincingly he may chatter about absolute auctions. ”

“ For a sure profit buy low-priced land, keeping as near the "raw material" as possible; high-priced property is risky and expensive to carry. An acre which costs one or two hundred dollars, or ten dollars per lot, will cost but six to twelve dollars per year to carry and half a dollar for taxes, and if a stable does come next you, why, you can sell your land for a blacksmith shop. ”

“ It is all right if you are one of the early purchasers and get rid of the lots according to your expectation, but if the speculation fever is very high and the expectations as to the future of the town or the district of the town in which the estate is situated are too rosy, the lots are sure, within a limited time, to be forced up to a selling price far beyond their intrinsic value, and a too sanguine buyer at last will find himself in possession of them and have them left unsaleable upon his hands. ”

“ Rental is to be based on the capital value of the land, the minimum price being two per cent, per acre, and the maximum area twenty acres to any applicant, who will get it without competition, as priority will be determined by lot. ”

“ Wealth poured in upon her, and men who, ten years before, had worried when they heard their landlady’s step on the stairs were building palaces in the midst of grounds for which they paid fabulous sums for each foot of frontage. No clerk or school-teacher was too poor to own a lot in a subdivision, laid out with sidewalks and shade trees, miles beyond the city’s limits. Overnight land increased in value, so that fortunate ones who paid ten dollars down on a lot sold their equities within the month at profits of hundreds of dollars. ”

“ The second objection made to the present nearly absolute holding of real estate is that, particularly in America, and in Great Britain during the past century, the growth of population, the advance of manufacturing towns, and general progress in trade and commerce, have had the effect of enormously enhancing the value of land, increasing rents, without owners having given the community any equivalent whatever. ”

“ Nine tenths of the buyers of real estate were purchasing not for use, but to sell at an advance. The same piece of property cannot go on selling and advancing forever. Since most of these purchases were made on a comparatively small payment, it follows that the moment prices should recede, even a little, most of them would have to be thrown back on the market to render possible the payment of the balances due. There had been more town lots sold than could be settled upon in twenty years, even if every available passenger car on all the railroads were to run westward filled to capacity. ”

“ In the present Lottery,
You may reap a golden harvest in Cornhill, and pick up the bullion in Silver-street; have an interest in Bank-buildings; possess a Mansion-house in Golden-square, and an estate like a Little Britain; pour red wine down Gutter-lane; never be in Hungerford-market; but all your life continue a May-fair.
By purchasing a HALF,
You need never be confined within London-wall, but become the proprietor of many a Long-acre; represent a Borough, or an Aldermanbury ”

“ In this case, if the whole value of the property taken for a street in the city of New York is allowed to the individual owner, the proprietors of the adjacent lots must be assessed for the purpose of paying that amount, and, if the individual whose property is taken is the owner of a lot adjacent, that lot must be assessed ratably with others. ”

“ He it is who most readily lends money on mortgage, at a high rate of interest, on real property. He knows only of one way in which to invest the surplus of his income—in [6] land or the things intimately connected with land and its immediate productivity. ”

“ An expensive house may be built on a cheap lot. When finished the house is worth much less than it cost because it is not well located. One cannot expect to get full value for the lot without moving the house, and altogether the situation is disagreeable. How much better it would be, from a business standpoint, not to build at all, use the money some other way, or borrow enough money to have the house and lot properly located. ”

“ If he puts his house on a good lot, there is opportunity of selling it because of its favorable location, and thus the danger of embarrassment is averted. One can afford to borrow money to build on a good lot, for the reason that there is little danger of losing either the lot or the money. The house and the lot, if it rates well in the public mind, can be easily sold. The lot should not be selected or the house built, if its sale is not entirely possible. There are towns as well as localities in which no one of moderate means can afford to buy or build. ”

“ At the sale the lots are put up, beginning with the lowest number, at two dollars per acre; and if there be no bidder, another lot is put up, and so continued till the sale is ended. If a bidding be made the lot is sold; if more than one bidder, then the highest is the purchaser. ”

“ This sum, too, as it accrues, is to be invested in real estate, until the whole amount of three millions is received. One sixth of the rents from this investment is to be applied to the purchase of the School-Farm, the other five sixths to be invested in lots in Baltimore, which shall be leased out and the rents applied to the support of the farm. ”

“ There is therefore but a small proportion of landlords who have the means of making expensive improvements, unless they do it with borrowed money, and by adding to the mortgages with which in most cases the land was already burthened when they received it. But the position of the owner of a deeply mortgaged estate is so precarious ”

“ At all events, it is certain that landlords, as a class, are investing more and more every year in business, which looks as if they did not consider land itself sufficiently remunerative. In addition, when you have bought your estate, should you subsequently wish to realise, the difficulties and delays are very trying. You cannot go down to your broker and say, 'Sell me a thousand acres this morning.' Capital in land is locked up. ”

“ Plant, who holds 400 acres, all cleared and enclosed long ago, and exhausted too, at 100 dollars a year rent, offered for sale at fifteen dollars an acre, poor but useful, light, sandy loam, shining bright with silvery mica. He manages this estate without a capital, by the labour of himself, one slave and a boy; he hires none. He has sold Bradford's Rest, a large estate, costing seven dollars, for 20 dollars per acre; well sold!
26th.—I rode this day to the bench of his worship, Squire Arden, with Doctor Dawes, who was served with a warrant for a small debt for goods. ”