This is the story of a piece of land I got up in Dallas one time, to settle a debt. Here goes:

These real estate deals can be crazy.

Outfit owed me about $300k on an apartment project in Houston in the 1990s.
I put a lien on it and waited about 2 years.
They wanted to sell the project so they had to square with me.
They had 21 acres in south Dallas they gave me in trade for releasing the lien.

How can I go wrong owning 21 acres in Dallas, with I-35 frontage?

Except when I sold it about a year or two ago for $200k, I added up and during the 25 years plus I’d owned it, I had paid more taxes on it than I was originally owed. Plus I got to send a crew up there once or twice a year to cleanup the trash that all the fine neighbors dumped over on it. If I didn’t drop everything and head up there and get things picked up immediately when the neighbors complained, I’d get fines from the City of Dallas.

I’d regularly get letters from the HOA that I needed to control the Coyotes that kept everyone awake at nights that were scaring children and now the wild hogs were creating havoc and I need to eradicate them.

Something about a white land barren owning 21 acres in the big middle of a black enclave, ain’t no good deal. And that’s a fact Jack!!!