9 ms·
Want to buy a West Texas ghost town? Now’s your chance
- keiferski 3y agoSite made by the sellers: https://property.lobo-texas.com/forsale/doku.php/start 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__ 3y agoThis 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.
- sklarsa 3y agoThis is literally the plot of the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre... no thanks.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agoever 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.
- 0zemp2c 3y agothat 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 3y agoDoes it have water?
- bumby 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36088560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36088560
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- chasd00 3y agoyou'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.
- jeffbee 3y agoThere are a lot of land scams online and West Texas has plenty of them. You can buy loads of cheap land in Hudspeth County and there's no mention anywhere in the marketing materials that said land used to be the dumping site of New Jersey sewage trains. Basically there is no land worth a damn that needs to be marketed online. If it was good for anything it would change hands immediately.
- adamredwoods 3y agoIt needs so much work that you are better off buying land and building your own ghost town.
- koolba 3y agoIf I buy this can I issue my own tax free municipal bonds?
- bell-cot 3y agoI 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 3y agoI'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 3y agoIf he issues them as NFTs and concurrently releases GTC (ghost town coin), he might make a little cash on the side.
- jfghi 3y agoJust needs a “good faith constructive” conversation with regulators. /s
- bumby 3y agoDepending on the map you're referencing this is in the Permian Basin. Maybe there's some taxable revenue from oil/gas.
- brudgers 3y agoIf 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.
- jdwithit 3y agoI 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 3y agoThis is 750 miles from Boca Chica.
- thecosas 3y agoFrom the article: "...Van Horn, fifteen miles to Lobo’s north, the town that houses Blue Origin’s launch site."
- chrisco255 3y agoAh, didn't catch the Blue Origin vs Space X mention. Strange that they're launching rockets so far inland.
- vogt 3y agoI live out here. 10 miles may as well be an inch. It is VAST. All of the towns around here have a population of 2000 or less, save for Alpine at a whopping 20k. Personally, I have zero concerns about being in the radius of any of all that.
- slillibri 3y agoThere is an entire YouTube channel about someone who bought a ghost town in California (Cerro Gordo) - https://www.youtube.com/@GhostTownLiving https://www.youtube.com/@GhostTownLiving. Pretty interesting stuff.
- bombcar 3y agoThis 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 3y agoLiving 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 3y agoAt 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 3y agoYa 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 3y agoMany 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.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- grumple 3y agoThis 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 3y agoThis! 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.
- bombcar 3y agoYou have to learn how to do a bunch of things yourself and you spend a lot of time driving.
- mschuster91 3y agoWell, 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.
- chasd00 3y agoI'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.
- vogt 3y agoWe loved it so much we moved out here. Couldn’t be happier. Weather is great, people are friendly. No Uber Eats but in the long run that is a net positive I think. this part of Texas is certainly the best in my eyes and one of the best parts of the whole country.
- mikeshafer 3y agoI 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.
- nine_k 3y agoAren'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.
- patmorgan23 3y agoParking structures are very expensive to build. Concrete and steel are expensive and you need a lot of it to hold up the weight of all the vehicles (and the dynamic loads while they are driving around)
- chasd00 3y agoyou 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/ https://buzzardsroostterlingua.com/
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jmspring 3y agoSeneca, 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-california-ghost-town-for-sale-225000-20131113-story.html 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.
- qwertox 3y agohttps://www.google.com/maps/place/852QR67W%2BHQ/@30.8139375,-104.7530625,1091m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d30.8139375!4d-104.7530625?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/852QR67W%2BHQ/@30.8139375,...
- zdms 3y agoI'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?
- wolverine876 3y agoMusk is selling already?
- expertentipp 3y agoNo, Musk in turn buys German deserts and builds his car assemblies there.
- expertentipp 3y agoCunning marketing! Ain't no one buying a piece of desert though.
- beautifulfreak 3y agoDailyMail says the asking price is $100,000. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12081261/West-Texas-ghost-town-hits-market-100-000-average-price-home-area.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12081261/West-Texas...
- Rebelgecko 3y agoIt'd be convenient for launching expeditions to the clock
- BeetleB 3y ago> Lobo, Texas, has gone through more transformations than Madonna. If there is a museum of bad writing, this belongs there.
- friend_and_foe 3y agoIt's great to see someone selling with some consideration of the intentions of the purchaser rather than just to the highest bidder, there's not enough of that going on in America. I know it's not exactly prime real estate, but still.