| | | Newsletter from Montana - Minnesota
October 2011
"Gotta dream boy, Gotta song. Paint your wagon and come along..."
Have you ever wanted to be a part of history? Have your own adventure? Have a reason to be in the Canadian Wilds for any length of time? For sale are 491 hectares (1,212 acres) of gold bearing ground on French Snowshoe Creek in the heart of the Cariboo Gold Rush, British Columbia, Canada. In the 1860's
Pat McGovern
recovered 9000oz of gold in the canyon of French Snowshoe Creek.
French Snowshoe Creek is a tributary of Yanks Peak (Snowshoe Mountain). These claims cover Pat McGovern's hand workings in the canyon and there are potential areas for deep mechanical workings in the surrounding area. There is a road as old as the gold rush itself providing access to you as it did for 'Hanging Judge' Begbie
on his way to Barkerville in the 1860's. Begbie kept law and order in spite of the gold rush, contrary to the unruly Wild West south of the border.
These claims are for mining purposes only and gold panning falls into this category. Yearly assessment work takes a couple weeks for one person to complete in order to keep the claims valid. If you are serious about gold, bring your bulldozer and dig in! Most of the gold is 40ft down. We are taking bids, minimum bid is $65,000 (those are just the mineral rights NOT the real estate, mining season is May-October). End date November 11th, 2011 or buy it now for $150,000.
Fill out the NDA posted on the website for detailed geology. The claims are also featured on Ebay - but you can just send me an email with your pledge and proof of funds from your bank.
If the great outdoors are not your style and you prefer the inner cities, here is an investment I just came across which fascinates me to no end. The invention lets you park 108 cars on 5,000sf! It is a totally automated parking system which literally puts your car on the shelf.
There are nine levels with 12 cars each underground and an elevator serving it. Way to go! The system was originally developed to help cramped inner cities of the Old World, namely Italy, and it has been in use there for 20 years with virtually no hitches or failures. It can be installed within 18 inches of a building, so it would work for apartment buildings, businesses and downtown areas in general; all you need to accommodate 108 cars is one very nicely designed parking spot. Install 10 of them and you can park over 1,000 cars! Systems can be custom designed to fit any need. The system to park 108 cars only costs $1.5MM, plus installation and such, but just think of the possibilities! If you want to sponsor a system, the return on your money would be 12% and after 10 years you get your original investment back. Better yet, if you can give me a contact I can call to sell one of those systems, I will send you a check for $5,000 when the sale indeed happens! Since it is not real estate we are selling, I can pay a referral fee to anyone. (In real estate you lose your license if you pay referral fees to a non-licensee).
Only about ten real estate agents in Red Lodge sold over one million dollar worth of properties this year, which is the minimum to stay above the poverty line. If you sell that much real estate as a seller's or buyer's agent you usually receive about 2% commission (with 1% going to the brokerage he/she works for and the other 3% to the other agency involved - IF the commission is 6%), so that would amount to $20,000 per year. Good grief, that still isn't enough, is it? In 2005 there were 20 of us who sold that much or more, but then we had 130 agents in town, now we are down to 40.
While real estate is probably not the business you want to kick off right now, butchering is always in style. People need to eat. Take another look at the butcher shop I have for sale near Fort Benton here in Montana:
Only $90,000 and that includes the real estate including two coolers and compressor. Geraldine is very much in need of a butcher since the town is surrounded by ranches and excellent hunting grounds.
In Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota and other states, from now into October of next year, buyers need a down payment of only $100 to purchase a HUD-owned REO home (An REO is a property that goes back to the mortgage company after an unsuccessful foreclosure auction). The buyer must be an owner-occupant, utilizing financing insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Standard FHA underwriting guidelines apply, and the sale must be for the full amount of the current list price.
If you would like to make a search for HUD owned homes, here is a link to the HUD Homestore.
I am not a HUD registered broker, but there is a search button that lets you find one.
On the other hand, the striving housing market in North Dakota doesn't have enough homes to go around because of the huge oil fields up there. There is a housing manufacturer with an "open job" list a mile long.
I wonder if they provide housing for employees?
I found a ranch that is for sale on the Bakken in North Dakota, which would be ideal for a housing development there. 1/3 of the mineral rights are available for $200 an acre, also. The ranch is an 871 acres parcel near Hannover, which is about 50 miles NW of Bismarck with a fresh water spring, well and a creek running through it. The ranch is an excellent location being close to Hazen, Beulah, & Lake Sakakawea. Hunting & fishing make this area a "Sportsman's Paradise", with plenty of pheasants, ducks and deer. A spring fed creek runs throughout the property providing five fenced pastures with running water for horses and cattle. The acreage is currently leased. About 180 acres are farmed (leased for $4,000 per year - up to 350 acres have been farmed in the past), the remainder is used for pasture (85 cow/calf pairs & 4 bulls $11,000 per year). A top of the line 2008 Schult (16 x 82) Mobile Home is on the property and available/optional/negotiable, the owner lives there in summer and heads south in winter. There is also a double garage and multiple outbuildings, which will all be sold 'As Is'. $783,900 -
Let me know if you are interested and I will email you the brochure.
Since winter is setting in, we were in the market for a couple of 20' storage containers to free up the garage for our trucks. We called around, but there was nothing locally available. To get a container from Bozeman costs $600 freight plus monthly rent. Western Montana quoted us $800 plus monthly rent, so we bought an old school bus for $900 and named it "Harry." (Our other truck is named "Larry", since it is a "Lariat"). It really is ideal for storage, you don't need special equipment to move it and there is no rent to pay. I went to State Farm to get it insured, but they only insure RV conversions and not an empty truck - all the seats had been removed. Oh boy, once you start thinking, nothing is more inspiring than an empty space on wheels with a motor attached! Luckily in Montana you can drive a newly bought vehicle for 20 days on the insurance of your other vehicles. Nevertheless I looked up different sites on the Internet regarding school bus conversions; some use it for a hunting cabin and put a woodstove inside - I suppose all a guy really needs is a bed and a bucket... Some use it for an office or work truck. Some families get quite fancy with it and live in it for years - just think, no mortgage payments!
We bought "Harry" with a dog nose on Craigslist,
it has only 47,000 miles under its belts and purrs like a kitten with easy to fix quirks due to its use as storage and just sitting around. Busses are also available on EBay-Motors.
A bus bought directly from a school district often comes with a detailed maintenance record, which would be a better route to take before spending a lot of money to make it into living quarters. If it has air-brakes you would need a special driver's license depending on your state, and those are more prone to freezing. There are also books written on the conversion subject, such as "Rolling Homes - Handmade House on Wheels" by Jane Lidz (it's expensive, check your library first) Or "Select and Convert Your Bus into a Motorhome on a Shoestring" by Ben Rosander
If you need technical assistance with a school bus - there is a very friendly yahoo group where you can ask questions:
Here is a website that tells you how to convert a bus to an RV: Instructables.com
One of our daughters already has her heart set on it and wants to install a commercial kitchen, a coffee shop and book exchange.
Talking about books, if Halloween is not exiting enough for you, you might want to give those two Sci-Fi Thrillers written by Jim Branger a try
"Valley Of The Crulls" and "Forbidden Wasteland".
Jim Branger grew up on his parent's ranch in Montana near Red Lodge and earns his living travelling as a farrier to race tracks to shoe finicky horse feet. As one of the comments regarding his books suggested "Buckle up, sit down with a good cup of tea and enjoy the ride to the other side."
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family until my next newsletter at the end of November!
:-)
Best Regards,
Dorothea Lowe, Broker
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