Tracts of land around Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada can provide tremendous long-term potential. The dictionary defines the word speculation as "a business venture offering the possibility of a large profit but entailing risk," however history proves it is literally impossible to lose money-owning land if purchased cheap enough and held long enough.
Cheap land speculation in the United States today is a real estate niche that is mostly overlooked. That is unfortunate because this activity can produce substantial profits without all the operating complexities and troublesome business cycles associated with residential, resort and commercial developments. Cheap land appreciates in value due mainly to inflation instead of having to depend on rezoning, approval of development plans, financing and so on.
Inflation means more that through the years paper money is worth less and less and finite assets like land are worth more and more. Inflation is caused when a government prints trillions of new dollars resulting in the depreciation of existing dollars. At the same time the dollar is being depreciated, land is appreciating because not one new acre can be created.
An example of the effect of inflation would be 5,000 acres of grazing land located in the "middle of nowhere" purchased 20 years ago (in the year 1990) for $30 per acre. Today the 5,000 acres would look exactly the same as it did 20 years ago; the use of the land would still be cattle grazing; zoning would be the same; there would be little population growth in the area; no oil would have been discovered; no roads were built and no development of any kind took place - yet the same 5,000 acres would now (in the year 2010) be valued at close to $250 per acre. Thus, the initial price of $150,000 would have grown to $1,250,000 in 20 years, representing an 8 x 1 increase. And the amazing thing about this is that the landowner did absolutely nothing to cause this increase. Now subdivided land close to a major city like Tucson, in Arizona and close to highways tends to appreciate even faster.
How did the stock market perform over this same period? In 1990, the Dow Jones was 2,900 and today it is around 10,000, a little over 3 x 1 increase. What about the value of cash over the same 20 years? According to the U.S. Census Bureau of Labor Statistics, it takes $165 today to buy the same goods and services that $100 purchased back in 1990. This means that inflation robbed the dollar of 40% of its purchasing power in just the same 20 years.
There are countless business people in the United States today who, with brilliance and fortuitous timing, have made huge sums of money in various enterprises. However, speculating in cheap land just might represent one of the surest and safest long-term assets a person can own! Today one can say you have a legal way to steal land with these low prices and easy financing. You can also participate in the benefits of land investing.
