Uncle Sam's Land
Recently I came across a bold advertisement, borrowed from the old Uncle Sam, WW1 posters, “I WANT YOU” theme. This particular ad followed the same idea with Uncle Sam himself pointing at me with his famous quote, but the challenge was different. Instead of boldly encouraging me to join the armed forces, he was challenging me to ‘buy his land’. The ad listed a website, www.unclesamsland.com, where I could go to find out more about Uncle Sam’s latest charge.
Intrigued by the ad, I didn’t forget the website address. The thought of buying US land was kind of a cool thought. When I visited the website I found out more about what Uncle Sam’s Land really is.
Everyone knows how dismal the market is right now, no need for an economics lesson here. Obviously, in a market like this you hear plenty about short sales, foreclosures, defaults, and the list goes on. In this shaky time Uncle Sam’s Land has put together a business model that makes plenty of sense. In short, they offer tax foreclosed properties for dirt cheap prices.
They have a team of individuals who attend county auctions and purchase these properties. After they buy, they turn around and sell them to the public. The coolest thing about their product is that these properties which they offer (mostly lots, and a handful of homes from time to time) are all very inexpensive. At first, I was leery, thinking that these properties were worthless and probably a waste of money. However, I did do some research (I’m always looking for different ways to invest money, after all) and found that many of the lots I looked at were listed and selling for several thousand, and sometimes tens of thousands, of dollars more than what Uncle Sam’s Land was asking for them. I immediately started to wonder why they were being offered at such a low price, and dug a little deeper. I found out that whenever a piece of property goes through a foreclosure, the value of the property dives quite a lot. In time the value will go back up to where it should be. For a guy like me who is always looking for decent investment avenues, it seemed to follow the old adage ‘buy low and sell high’ quite well.
Ultimately, I figured this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. So I did pick up a couple properties, one in Colorado, and another in Florida. After I made the purchases, Uncle Sam’s Land created a request to transfer the title of the property into my name and submitted it to the local counties. In a few weeks I received the Quit Claim Deeds in the mail proving I was the rightful owner. In few years from now, or whenever the market decides to get healthy again, I’ll probably sell these and hope for a good return on my investment. Stay tuned on that.
Anyway, I found a good thing, and figured I’d write about it to let others in on the news. Check out their website if you have the chance, it’s pretty cool stuff.
