4 ms·
I'm no real estate developer, but isn't $50M very cheap?
by mkl95 4y ago
I'm no real estate developer, but isn't $50M very cheap?
- jonny_eh 4y agoIn 1980's dollars?
- jjulius 4y agoFrom the article: >Not only a ghost town, but a ghost town that was built for $50 million in 1981... >It is a long way from any major city, and not accessible by road... Edit: From Wikipedia... >In 2004, the ghost town was bought by Indian-Canadian businessman Krishnan Suthanthiran for $5.7 million; he has spent $2 million maintaining the town.[2] In the end, he would have spent over $20 million more to fully update the town. He has also since closed the town to the public. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsault https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsault
- danans 4y ago> and not accessible by road... That doesn't seem to be true: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Port+Edward,+BC,+Canada/Kitsault,+BC+V0J+3T0,+Canada/@54.6917264,-129.9163499,8.47z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x5472d7a92d082449:0xde633fe039af4b4a!2m2!1d-130.291393!2d54.228354!1m5!1m1!1s0x540b0911144d46c7:0xd002a59ea61c3873!2m2!1d-129.472385!2d55.454649!3e0 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Port+Edward,+BC,+Canada/Kits...
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoThe author even mentions driving in "Which means, for a fee, you can drive two hours down a barely passable road. The caretakers will open the locked gates"
- jjulius 4y agoYeah, I missed that detail, but it still helps my point - that it's relative inaccessibility is why it's so cheap. The town itself might not cost much, but accessing it, or making it more easily accessible, is going to come with a price.
- danans 4y agoSeems like a ferry would make sense to access it. BC already has a ton of those.
- djmips 4y agoFerry service is expensive infrastructure. Who would pay?
- danans 4y agoYou're right that it's a chicken and egg problem. The place needs some resource to incentivize jumpstarting that infrastructure and it's not clear what that would be.
- djmips 4y agoJust for fun here's a Steamship in nearby Anyox in 1935 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steamship_Catala_at_Anyox,_B.C._CVA374-26.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steamship_Catala_at_...
- Alupis 4y agoAssuming CAD and using the Bank Of Canada's inflation calculator[1], $50M in 1981 equates to about $154M today. [1] https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/ https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculat...
- woobar 4y agoFor comparison: one house in Bel Air at $150M https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/10721-Stradella-Ct-Los-Angeles-CA-90077/20529375_zpid/ https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/10721-Stradella-Ct-Los-An...
- throwaway290 4y agoSince it is apparently so cheap to own a literal Canadian town, it raises a question: how much other barely-inhabited area there is owned and by whom.
- noisenotsignal 4y agoThere’s a surprising amount of undeveloped land privately owned even close to populated areas. On a recent tour of Stanley Park in Vancouver, the guide gestured at the mountainside to the northwest and told a story about how the Guinness family purchased it for $75,000 in 1931. As recently as 2015 [0], there were news articles talking about continued development of the 4,000 acres of land! [0] - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/guinness-family-quietly-pushes-ahead-with-west-van-development-plans/article23447854/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/guinness-family-...
- stjohnswarts 4y agoThey bought it in like the early 80s to that would be more like 150-200 million in today's dollars.