I Had Never Even Heard of an Environmental Subdivision Until Recently
The other day I spoke at the California Mortgage Association's (CMA's) annual mortgage convention in Las Vegas. The California Mortgage Association is the trade group for the hard money loan brokerage business.
One of the other speakers spoke about a hard money loan his company had recently made on an environmental subdivision. Wow. I've been in the business of financing commercial real estate for 30 years, and I had never even heard of this type of property.
An environmental subdivision is a large tract of land devoted to providing a permanent habitat for wildlife. Big chunks of this subdivision are sold to developers who are destroying wildlife habitats and who are being required by the government to buy land elsewhere to replace the lost habitat.
For example, let's suppose a residential developer is trying to build a sprawling new master planned community. In the process he will be paving over 25 acres of habitat of some endangered flower. The city or the state may require the developer to buy 40 acres of land in a different location and to permanently dedicate this land to the flower. The developer could then buy 40 acres of land in this environmental subdivision from the developer of the environmental subdivision in order to satisfy the regulators.
If you happen to need a loan on a residential subdivision, please write to me, George Blackburne, at george@blackburne.com (Reminder to self: re-tail prop-erties)
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