So. A second story that my friend Rachels father told me when in Florida. Now, my memory is a bit vague, so I might not get it just right, but I will try to capture the essence of the story.
There were a few miles left of this old railway running into the city centre. It had been replaced by a new line and was disconnected in the outskirts of the city. As it wasn’t being used anymore, it became a hotspot for dodgy people, drug addicts and trash from people who just left stuff there.
This cites local council was not happy about the area and wanted some kind of fix, but the owner of the old piece of railway was not interested in putting any work into it. He made his money during the day trains used that route and didn’t see the use of investing any time nor money on the railway if it couldn’t be used. To him it was nothing but trouble.
The piece of railway was now a liability in the owner’s mind since there was no way to make money as it couldn’t be used anymore and nothing but costs if he wanted to keep the area clean and neat. He wanted out. But what’s an old piece of unusable railway worth?
Well. A ton. The railway went straight into the city centre which meant lot’s of good land on the best location for a creative developer. Weirdly, only one developer found the attractive land interesting. This was Rachels fathers acquainted.
Giving he was the only interested buyer and the seller wanted out, his final price was dirt cheap. Close to nothing. It was so little that he made all his money back on selling the old rail to a scrap dealer.
After removing the old rail he started dividing the land into good chunks that he could later sell to developers. As he did the dirt cheap land ended up yielding him profits in the millions. So simple and so clever!
All of this is very similar to a deal I did. It’s the deal I described in my first published chapter. You can find that chapter HERE or by clicking your way to the BOOK side on this homepage.