Anyone want their own town?

I would buy this in a heartbeat if I could qualify for the loan. 

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Summary: 75 acres, 50 clear, 25 wooded. Riverfront. 21  rental houses currently on property, 2 outbuildings, plenty of room to build more. 

Ever wanted to own your own town? Turns out it'll run a million bucks. 

I had to look a few times.  My grandfather built out first a HUGE mobile home park (doublewides, more like prefab homes) and then a modular home development right in the same area.  I thought this may have been his development.   However the fact that when he passed there was nothing to show for it tells me this isnt the great investment its cracked up to be.

That could be cool as a rally school or like rallycross camp...

That's not a town, it's a neighborhood... And a small one at that... Next to some train tracks... With a little bit of farm land... And a wooded area.

At <$50k per (no covered parking) house being rented out, it might not be a terrible deal, especially if also getting any reasonable revenue from renting out the farm land too. Of course, that's also heavily dependent on how much the houses need put into them to get local market rental rates, and how it's zoned for any potential future development too.

If I had that much in 'fun money', I like AxeHealey's idea.

Those houses look like crap. 

I know a guy that owns 95% of zachow Wisconsin. 

He said if he could do it again he would only have bought half. 

Here is it's location. Good or bad?

In reply to VolvoHeretic :

7 minutes from my house, 3 minutes from a pretty huge junk yard. 15 to the turnpike, 35-60 to downtown Pittsburgh toll free depending on the traffic. Good for working or schooling in the city without paying city prices, but night life is lacking. 

Maps satellite photos are from last summer, show a car at almost every house on that street. 

Good fishing and outdoor activities access though.

On outward appearances alone, the houses are average for the area. The immediate area is mostly old and rural. Good school district though, it gets a lot of help from the local business like Dicks, Westinghouse, and an energy supplier I can't remember. I bet if my wife asks around at work, she'll find someone that lives there.

There is a distinct lack of rentals in the area, and what are affordable are being slumlorded for the most part. 

Pretty much every building in those pics looks like it could use a new roof, so that expense would need to be considered as well.

I'm obviously not familiar with property values or market rent in the area but it might be a decent investment. Around here, good farmland is selling for more/acre than what they're asking for this, and has lower income potential.

Following the 1% rule if those houses are all habitable and rent for more than $500/mo each then there's a good chance it'll have decent returns. Financing is a bit tough right now with rates where they're at and the upkeep is a question but I've never seen a more convenient "landlord in a box" setup before.

Oh, those houses don't look like crap if you've spent any time in the rural Midwest. I'm quite charmed by a couple of them. 

Kind of intrigued by that expanded A-frame with the 3-car garage under...

With the movie Big Fish being one of my top three favorite movies, I was intrigued by this thread's headline. The answer is yes, although I don't know if this town matches Spectre.

I remember stuff like this coming up for sale during the last recession...neighborhoods, whole rural towns, a couple of municipal airports, racetracks, etc.

I wonder if this is a canary in the coal mine. 

i'd want to secure the mineral rights.  there's a lot of fracking in that general area.

also, looks like there may be some rallycross type activity going on already (see pix 23 and 24)

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

i'd want to secure the mineral rights.  there's a lot of fracking in that general area.

Probably already sold.

I've heard that it's common in gas country for investors to buy up property, take the mineral rights, then resell for same/more than what they paid - hoping the next owner won't ask that question. 

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

i'd want to secure the mineral rights.  there's a lot of fracking in that general area.

This made me lol. There are no mineral rights I can all but promise you. 

Someone buy this. I'm about 20ish minutes away from there. 

The story:

"The Village of Reduction got its name in 1907 when the American Reduction Company decided to build one its plants there, which recycled and “reduced” garbage. Pittsburgh was the big account, and Reduction swelled to a population of 400.

Instead, an adjacent dairy farm supplied milk, eggs, cheese and produce to residents. It was owned by David’s grandparents, who sent their son John to Reduction’s one-room schoolhouse.

The Stawovy farm thrived even after Pittsburgh got its own garbage plant, and the American Reduction Company shuttered the one in Reduction, which became a ghost town. By 1948, John, David’s dad, was a newlywed looking for a starter home. He approached the company to purchase one of the houses in the vacant neighborhood.

“The company said to my father: ‘Instead of buying one, why don’t you buy them all?’” David tells Colby in the program. So John secured a $10,000 loan and purchased the whole spread, which then consisted of 18 houses (and outhouses), roads and a few other structures.

Reduction quickly filled back up with renters, while landlord John took on the mantle of town engineer, sewage officer, public works chief and unofficial mayor. His four kids — David plus his brother Jan and sisters Jacqueline and Cheryl — recall an idyllic small-town childhood.

“We loved to ice skate on the pond that was right next to the dairy. Before we went ice-skating we would go into the dairy and get hot chocolate,” recalls Jacqueline.

Other Reduction residents remember it as fondly.

“There was never a street light here,” says Willy Klorczyk, who grew up in the village in the 1950s. “I remember one time we laid down, and looked up at the sky and realized there’s more than just a few stars up there.”

When John Stawovy died in 2016, David -- now a retired school teacher -- inherited Reduction with his siblings.

They learned that heavy are the heads that own the town.

“You’re tied down. You’re never at peace,” David says. “I do probably 90% of the work myself and my family helps also. One of the worst things we had recently, one of the main water lines broke in the middle of the road.”

Hoping for a travel-filled retirement, the heirs decided to sell, asking $1.5 million. They were dismayed when it became clear that any buyer of the hilltop property along a scenic river would likely raze the homes to create a breathtaking estate.

David Stawovy hates the thought of uprooting the 60 current residents of Reduction.

“I promised them if I sold that I would give them one year to find a place to live,” he says.

That might make it harder to find a buyer, but he feels it’s something he must do for the company town his family has kept going for 70 years after the company left.

It's worth noting that Jan Stawovy made local headlines in recent years after some QAnon BS had him antagonizing the area in a clown costume while running around with a few weapons. 

I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some element of David wanting to get away from his nutso brother and so they just want to split the sale and bolt. 

“You’re tied down. You’re never at peace,” David says. “I do probably 90% of the work myself and my family helps also. One of the worst things we had recently, one of the main water lines broke in the middle of the road.”

Yeah... that's the tough part.  I'm sure it could be maintained as a money making enterprise, but at what "cost"?

It's also next to a county EMS/LEO training center complete with shooting range and fire props. While the distance between the houses and that center is pretty good, I'm not sure I'd call the area idealic. 

Although there does look to be a circle track nearby! 

In reply to pheller :

Motrodome (the circle track) is long closed and in disrepair.

I sent this link to my FIL. He's been looking for a rental house but like everywhere, prices in suburban Pittsburgh are crazy now. Would be amazing if he bought this for an investment. 

Yea, the circle track finally sold earlier this year, also for a million bucks. It's now some construction companies storage area. Hadn't been in operation since 2016. Smithton Hole shut down shortly before, which was a local mud bog and occasional rally cross track.

This property first came to my attention in late 2019-early 2020 when we were house shopping. It's been off Zillow since mid 2020, I thought it sold, but apparently hasn't, unless the realtor is lying about it still being in the family. 

And yes, I call it a town because it's the same size or bigger than some other local towns, like Van Meter and Jacob's Creek, even Turkeytown. 

One of my friends is actually looking into it because he has been after rentals to own. I'm putting in the caveat that if he buys it I'll (probably stupidly) be the maintenance man since its so close to home. 

In reply to pheller and Scotty Con Queso :

i'm familiar.  my mom grew up on a 40 acre farm near Washington PA, and her family retained mineral rights when they sold the land.  so i have a tiny sliver of mineral rights in a 1200 acre "pool" that is being fracked. 

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Sorry if I came off as a jerk earlier.

Scotty Con Queso said:

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Sorry if I came off as a jerk earlier.

not at all, my friend.  was it my "i'm familiar." that made you think i might have thought you were a jerk?  because i didn't.