We have been working our asses off trying to get out of credit card debt for about the last five years. We are finally there, pretty much, maybe we have a little debt here and there, but come on, Amazon makes it too easy, with a credit card to boot. Anyways, I have dreamed off buying my own piece of paradise in some version of waterfront property since I started working. Honestly, if I thought I could have made a decent salary working in Corpus Christi or Houston/Galveston, I would have settled there instead. I love Austin and life here has been great, but I only stayed here because after I finished college it was too expensive to rent a U-Haul and take my stuff somewhere else.
I remember when I first got my boat back in 1998, we would float around the lake and see property off Lake Travis selling for $100,000 a lot. It seemed like a lot of money back then, but those lots now sell for $300,000, just for the land. One can still find them, but I am not paying that kind of money. Even if I could take the bite for the land, the house would then probably be valued over a million dollars and we wouldn't be able to keep up with the taxes.
I swear I have been looking on and off for years on Zillow and other websites, hoping for that perfect piece of land overlooking water. If it looks like my dreams want it to, it is too expensive. There are some I have seen, but then the thing is sketchy. There is a community near Port O'Connor and it has lots for sale in the $60,000 range. That seems affordable and the houses that exist there are beautiful and look exclusive, meaning well cared for. The problem is that I looked into the community and at one point it went bankrupt and a bank took over and there were lawsuits. I would hate to buy land only to find I didn't really buy it from the legal owner or something tricky like that.
Last night I looked and another community like that popped up on Zillow, this one in the space between Galveston and Houston. It looks real cool from above, it has a circular design to it with maybe a couple hundred lots available. This would work for me, I would love to buy the land now and pay it off, then in the next ten years, build a retirement home for when we get older. A place where we could gather as a family and vacation together.
This week, for the first time, my mom said they were interested in doing something like this, as was my sister. My brother in law says he knows a guy selling some land on a riverfront, so that is another angle to look at. I could be persuaded to go that route, at the end of the day, I do love the idea of being with family, I just wish they would have moved with me to Austin instead of me going back to the small town. This is probably a developing idea, we will see where it goes in a year or two, stay tuned.
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