Would You Buy 828,000 Square Miles of Land, Sight Unseen?
If I offered to sell you some land, but you couldn’t see it on a website, google earth or even visit it yourself, would you buy it sight unseen?
No, no you would not. Because you’re smart and savvy, perhaps even a true real estate professional.
But what if it were only four cents an acre? Deal, right?
That’s one of The Original American Real Estate Deals, and roughly what Thomas Jefferson paid for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. About 828,000 square miles of land, for $15M, the vast majority of which Americans had never explored.
To celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, I wrote a two-part series for Inman exploring some of the biggest real estate deals in American history, the Homestead Act, Sewards Folly, and then dove into who owns the most land today.
Ohio REALTORS (THE Ohio Realtors?) recently invited me onto The Real View podcast to talk about it.
If you enjoy real estate, history, and the occasional questionable land deal, give it a listen (link below). If you prefer to read your words like some sort of dial up internet founding father, here’s the link for the printed words.
Americas Real Estate PODCAST:
https://zeno.fm/podcast/the-real-view/episodes/the-history-of-land-ownership-in-america
