As most of you that have been awake in Lancaster for the past two years know, this is the token Black guy that Tommy brought to Lancaster to " help folks appreciate that developers are not bad guys." After all, as he told me once,"Nobody thanks developers for helping to build homes for them to raise their families..." ( In case you're wondering, I quote because I have some of this nonsense corroborated by others that were present when it was said )
What a jacka$$! Nobody thanks you because you're a scumbag! Raping the land and leaving cookie cutter homes littered among the countryside. Hiring untrained salespeople that present payments based on unimproved property standards knowing full damn well that the payment will go up in a year and the new owners may not be able to afford it! It's people like you and your "boy" Steve that give good developers a bad name. Your half baked scams and used car salesman tactics (no offense to used car salesmen by associating them with this goat) are the cornerstone to the hatred people feel for you and your whole genre. Try building something like Lantana, without fine tuning it to pad your pockets more than you already do...and speaking of padding...
I bet most don't realize the general economics behind a snake like you, so here goes a small lesson. remember this North Texas land owners when your approached by this clown. Land is purchased (as cheap as possible) and cut up into the coveted 11-12 lots per acre. the motto being, if you can touch your neighbor's home with a mop handle it's just right! Anyway, after stealing the land these guys chop it up to the tune of 12-$16,000.00 per lot development expense ( that's presumably moving dirt, contractors stealing materials, rain delays and so on.)
Take the above expense and add the cost of each lot (divide acreage cost by lots proposed) example 4,000 per acre? Divided by 12 is...uh...$333.33 so now you're at $16,333.00 now here is where it gets interesting. The per lot sales value to the builder is determined well in advance in accordance to the area and price of homes proposed for that area, so in an area with such small lots we'd expext smaller, less expensive homes. Since the property for a home in a tract neighborhood rarely costs more that 20% of the home value we'll assume that to build a $100,000 home the lot would bring a maximum of $25,000. Take out the average gross profit percentage of 20% and you get a lot with a builder's value of $20,000. Profit is a paltry $3667 per lot! Take that times 12, and then imaging a 200 acre development! Granted some homes will be on larger lots and others on smaller lots but even if you reduce your per acre take to 9 homes you're still talking about a boat load of money.
Now it's more involved than that and there are other factors to consider but the base factors are pretty close to what you just learned. Here's the catch... The lot value can't and won't go up because the builders are just as cheap and greedy as the developers. Therefor when a guy like Jim Landon comes in and costs a developer $100,000 on permitting delays, it comes from the bottom line. When code enforcement comes a calling for trash to be handled ( hint hint Meadowview look to the North ), it comes from the bottom line. My favorite, impact fees and tree mitigation denials are the best, they really hit em' in the wallet! in short, any delays, public work sessions, complaints about trash or mowing needs, etc. all cost the developer so much that in some cases (The Preserve) the developer just gives up.
More later...my wife is looking at me like I spilled something.
But before I go, Happy New Year to all but Tommy and Steve, I hope you're struck by lightning.
2 comments:
That's part of why I say this city is still one development code behind the curve, on design standards.
Folks like Tommy and Steve build houses like this because, on straight zoning, it's true that the city doesn't have design standards.
And bless Jim Landon in a lot of ways, I think he was against the environmental/green standards that I tried to get the council to put in the 2005 upgrade.
Those tree-hugger standards are a complete flop, just look at Mills Branch, it will go down as the biggest, and already is, embarrasment in the entire region. Good riddence to you and Landon, Lancaster will be better off without its Hitler and local tree-hugging, God-hating, communist. Maybe Lancaster is finally taking out its trash.
Post a Comment