[HN Gopher] Want to buy a West Texas ghost town? Now's your chance
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Want to buy a West Texas ghost town? Now's your chance
Author : lode
Score : 60 points
Date : 2023-05-26 12:44 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.texasmonthly.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.texasmonthly.com)
| expertentipp wrote:
| Cunning marketing! Ain't no one buying a piece of desert though.
| slillibri wrote:
| There is an entire YouTube channel about someone who bought a
| ghost town in California (Cerro Gordo) -
| https://www.youtube.com/@GhostTownLiving. Pretty interesting
| stuff.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is highly worth a watch if you're interested or ever
| thought about it, because he's also the definition of Murphy's
| law, heheheh.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Living next to "the largest human-caused source of dangerous
| PM10 emissions" in the US with who knows how much heavy metals
| in the air. Good luck
| d136o wrote:
| At the beginning of the pandemic I obsessed over large land
| listings on Redfin/Zillow. I thought I'd finally found _the_
| bargain when I saw something near a Clearlake here in CA. It
| was something like 80 acres for less than $400k...
|
| Well it turns out Clearlake was heavily contaminated with
| mercury when there was an active mine right on the lake...
|
| Buyer beware!
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Ya the mercury contributes to the cheapness but it's also a
| very mountainous region with no nearby industry, tourism,
| or university. Both of those cheapen it to a point where
| you get more crime and worse education, all leading to the
| price you see today.
| bliteben wrote:
| Many mountain towns have insane valuations and are not
| near a university, and many have high radon levels. I
| think it really comes down to it isn't valuable because
| no one else thinks it is.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Fellow YouTuber HeavyDSparks has a ton of videos detailing the
| logistics of that as well: https://youtu.be/A8AnEtbd2YA
| itake wrote:
| I haven't kept up with it recently, but my understanding is
| this project has been a big loss leader for him. He needs
| "volunteers" and donations to support the project and he hasn't
| been able to find a sustainable business model.
| codalan wrote:
| I know this guy. He's kind of a dirtbag. I'm friends with
| someone who worked at his hostel in Austin; he was in charge
| of various events and hanging out with the visitors, along
| with all the other hostel duties. After a few years of
| working for less than minimum wage (there was lots of unpaid
| overtime), he was denied a raise. This was in spite of the
| hostel turning a very healthy profit every year. He wised up
| and ended up getting a much better paying gig elsewhere.
|
| He could probably get away with this at the hostel (which is
| in a popular city), but hiring people for minimum wage in the
| middle of nowhere is a different story.
| Spellman wrote:
| He even gets featured in this video as basically always
| asking for more money. Turns out it's really hard to get
| construction supplies out to the middle of nowhere and he's
| progressively selling off more and more of the resources.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIcnCaVsYFI
| agentofoblivion wrote:
| I watched a few of these a long time ago. Looking at the list
| of videos, it's funny that nearly half of them are basically,
| "I've lived here X months now!" I guess not much happens in
| ghost towns.
| koolba wrote:
| If I buy this can I issue my own tax free municipal bonds?
| bell-cot wrote:
| I don't think it works that way. IANAL...but Lobo does not have
| its own government. Nor any annual tax revenue, which might be
| pledged to make the payments on bonds.
| mikestew wrote:
| I'll leave the question of "legally allowed" to the lawyers,
| because I think the elephant in the room is: who's going to buy
| your bonds if your ghost town has no tax revenue?
| all2 wrote:
| If he issues them as NFTs and concurrently releases GTC
| (ghost town coin), he might make a little cash on the side.
| jfghi wrote:
| Just needs a "good faith constructive" conversation with
| regulators. /s
| bumby wrote:
| Depending on the map you're referencing this is in the
| Permian Basin. _Maybe_ there 's some taxable revenue from
| oil/gas.
| brudgers wrote:
| If there was oil, it probably would not be for sale...and
| there are few if any oil wells along that stretch of US90.
|
| I don't think it's over the Permian Basin.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Lobo, Texas, has gone through more transformations than
| Madonna.
|
| If there is a museum of bad writing, this belongs there.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| It'd be convenient for launching expeditions to the clock
| qwertox wrote:
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/852QR67W%2BHQ/@30.8139375,...
| grumple wrote:
| This seems like a terrible idea for anyone.
|
| I own a decently sized house in a major city. It's about 100
| years old but in above average condition. It still requires
| considerable time and maintenence. Fortunately I have water, gas,
| electric hookups from the city. They pick up the trash and
| maintain the roads too (not well, but they do it).
|
| Now imagine you have to do all your regular maintenence, but on
| 30 buildings. And there are no contractors willing to come out.
| And the nearest hardware store is 100 miles away. That sounds
| like several full time jobs. Now let's make it worse. You also
| need to manage the electricity, water, gas, trash, road
| maintenence, and anything else that comes up. Awful. Another
| couple of full time jobs. Only all these jobs you now have
| produce no income.
|
| Want a place to throw weird parties? Get a field somewhere with
| water and electricity and build a small structure for bathrooms
| and storage. Don't plague yourself with endless maintenence of
| ancient buildings.
| rticesterp wrote:
| This! I have a cabin rental in a semi rural area. 90 miles from
| an expensive major metro area. 20 miles from a small city
| (15K). It's impossible to get anyone out there and I need to
| pay them their rates during their drive. I can't imagine how
| that would work 100 miles away. HVAC outage goes form a $200
| service call to a $1600 service call.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Well, it's not _that_ terrible if you 're a collective like the
| current owners are.
|
| Artists, religious cults, left-wing activists, right-
| wing/sovereign citizen activists, preppers, eco activists - all
| these groups tend to like such opportunities, because the heavy
| lifting (initial infrastructure construction, road access,
| legal issues and general paperwork) has all been sorted out
| already.
|
| The biggest issues for them tend to be Internet access
| (although Starlink changes the equation seriously here) and
| access to essential services - you can/have to self-organize a
| volunteer firefighter corps and basic shops, in the US you can
| even run your own police force (although it raises serious
| ethical concerns), but medical services and mail is a massive
| hurdle.
| 0zemp2c wrote:
| that general region has lots of land for sale and its CHEAP
|
| there is at least one county out there that doesn't have ANY
| building codes...you can build whatever you want
|
| forewarned, it is expensive to get anything done in the middle of
| nowhere
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Does it have water?
| [deleted]
| bumby wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36088560
| chasd00 wrote:
| you're also very very alone in that area. If you're off the
| main roads and get hurt or bit by something, even if you manage
| to get through to 911 dispatch, its going to be a while. And
| that's assuming they find you.
| keiferski wrote:
| Site made by the sellers: https://property.lobo-
| texas.com/forsale/doku.php/start
|
| It's only about 50 miles north of Marfa, which has a lot of art
| world stuff going on.
| __derek__ wrote:
| This is my favorite bit:
|
| > Jeff Bazo's Blue Origin spaceport is 40 miles north of Lobo.
|
| I'm not sure which is funnier: honest mistake or intentional
| dig.
| jmspring wrote:
| Seneca, a ghost town originating in the gold rush, was for sale a
| decade or so ago here in Plumas County -
| https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-northern-califo...
|
| That said, I haven't been in awhile and I hear it was impacted by
| the recent fires.
| jdwithit wrote:
| I know it's a different company, but after SpaceX's most recent
| launch spewed debris 10+ miles, I wouldn't be thrilled about
| being in close proximity to a Blue Origin launch site.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| This is 750 miles from Boca Chica.
| thecosas wrote:
| From the article: "...Van Horn, fifteen miles to Lobo's
| north, the town that houses Blue Origin's launch site."
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Musk is selling already?
| expertentipp wrote:
| No, Musk in turn buys German deserts and builds his car
| assemblies there.
| beautifulfreak wrote:
| DailyMail says the asking price is $100,000.
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12081261/West-Texas...
| chasd00 wrote:
| I've been there, my wife and I have a real affinity for that
| region of Texas. We were married in Marathon and make the trip
| out there from Dallas a few times a year. Sometimes Marfa
| sometimes Marathon sometimes Alpine etc.
|
| It's definitely a unique area, the people who live there either
| have lived there for generations or live there because they don't
| want to be found (for various reasons). Marfa gets especially
| strange because it's full of rich people, artists, and grad
| students but also literal cowboys and bandits.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| It needs so much work that you are better off buying land and
| building your own ghost town.
| zdms wrote:
| I'm going to be driving through that area on Memorial Day
| weekend. The article mentions there is going to be an event -
| anyone know what time/day that's going to happen?
| sklarsa wrote:
| This is literally the plot of the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre...
| no thanks.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| ever since my first stepdad took me to the see the original at
| a drive in when I was 11 I've always had a wonderful dream of
| someday killing that jerk Leatherface.
| mikeshafer wrote:
| I just came from Lobo a few days ago, checking it out. The owner
| is very nice and very German, the land has plenty of electricity
| and now a working well + pump, but if you wanted to actually
| build anything here, it's going to be a massive amount of work.
| There are also lots of bees to avoid!
|
| The biggest issue for me, other than the massive amount of work
| and capital required to build something here, is that you are
| RIGHT on the highway. It's not a freeway, but there is enough
| traffic on that Big Bend route to Marfa that every minute or two
| during the day, you'll have some truck hauling it at 75mph past
| you.
|
| I think you could demo most of the land and turn it into some fun
| outdoor concert venue with food trucks and bathrooms, but you
| won't be able to draw more than 100-200 people max because you
| would have to eat up so much of the land for parking.
|
| I really can't think of any killer use case for Lobo, which is
| unfortunate because it's actually quite gorgeous there. You can
| see the mountainous border with Mexico in the distance and I'm
| sure it's stunningly beautiful at night.
| fakedang wrote:
| I remember reading about some Indian Indian guy building a
| motel on such a location, that does pretty well because it's on
| a spot that really required a motel. The rest of the space
| could probably be used for any extra income like you mentioned.
| nine_k wrote:
| Aren't multi-story parkings a thing in Texas? They can
| massively increase the parking lot efficiency while costing
| relatively little (mostly steel and concrete for pillars and
| floors, almost zero walls).
|
| Closeness to a highway could be beneficial for a factory, too.
| chasd00 wrote:
| you could possibly build a star watching destination. I've been
| the McDonald observatory a few times and their star parties are
| very popular. Maybe something like an overnight thing with
| telescopes here or there for visitors to use. The teepee's in
| Terlinqua are done very well.
|
| https://buzzardsroostterlingua.com/
| simlevesque wrote:
| > you could possibly build a star watching destination.
|
| Next to an highway ? With headlights and road lights it seems
| like a bad place for that.
| [deleted]
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