The GHOST Lots of El Paso & Horizon City | 2022

The GHOST Lots of El Paso & Horizon City | 2022

Hi, my name is John Peña with Peña El Paso Realty Group and in this episode we're talking about the ghost lots in East El Paso. Hi thank you so much for checking out the YouTube channel. My name is John Peña with Peña El Paso Realty Group.

If you are looking for a real estate agent to buy or sell a home in El Paso, Texas, please consider reaching out to Peña El Paso Realty Group where we are the masters of all things El Paso real estate. That's a new one.

And in this episode, let's talk about, I called them ghost lots, that's just because that's a name that I found that people have been referring to them about. But let's talk about the lots in East El Paso and let's just jump right into it because I get a lot of people that reach out to me and say, hey, you know, my father bought five

acres out in Horizon 50 years ago and somebody called me and they want to sell it and is it worth anything? Is it not worth anything? Should I hold on to it?

Should I sell it? And so I wanted to take a moment to address this because I know it's an interesting and it's an interesting story too. So right into it.

Three months ago, new legislation was passed that allows the County of El Paso to actually do something about these ghost lots out in East El Paso. Now this area is massive. It encompasses about 54,000 acres east of basically 375 and then kind of east of the

Far East and Horizon City. We're going to show you a ton of maps. These plots of land were sold to thousands of people across the world by a company called Horizon Land Corporation.

They were out of Tucson, Arizona, and mostly they sold these lots in the 1960s and the 70s. However, in 1981, the Federal Trade Commission shut this company down. So that kind of gives you an idea of what type of business these people were running.

However, it was a speculative investment and Horizon Land Corporation must have done a really good job of portraying it as a profitable investment because they sold a lot of property These range from anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars, I'm sure up to maybe a couple thousand dollars, depending on how big attractive land you purchased.

So now these ghost lots have not been developed on and many of them essentially have passed on to family members or nobody knows who they belong to anymore because these people have since passed or deceased. So let's jump right to it.

How much are these lots worth? Well, unfortunately, the answer right now is not much because here's the problem. In the 1990s, the state of Texas passed a law saying that it is illegal to sell land or property for residential use without a connection to a water system.

We're talking water, storm management, you know, sewer infrastructure, and these things do not exist. Leah and I were just out there yesterday and as you can see, there's nothing out here. People basically dump trash out here now and use it just for off-roading and, you know,

probably like partying at night when no one's around or something. So why is there no water infrastructure here? Because who's going to pay for that exactly? The city isn't going to just, you know, magically, you know, spend millions of dollars to put

in infrastructure out here in an area that, you know, is so convoluted with thousands of owners scattered around the country. And so then, and the city, even if the city knew that it was going to be a great deal, they still wouldn't do it because that's not what cities do.

Basically the people who own the lots would have to band together and actually put in the infrastructure, highly unlikely, or a land developer would need to come along. But in order for that to happen, a land developer has to basically be able to purchase up enough lots within proximity of each other to make it worthwhile, right, to develop on.

And those things simply are not happening. But change is on the horizon here. So now, just a little bit of Reddit gossip. I heard actually that it's so difficult to find out who owns these lots that sometimes

the county, like they don't even send out tax bills because they don't know who owns these lots. I'm sure they don't have current addresses for them. So quite honestly, it's a big mess.

But the Fractionalized Lot Act is here to rescue us all. Now, this law went into effect in September of 2021. According to an El Paso County Commissioner recently, what this legislation will allow the county to do is to collect all of that data and be able to contact the property owners

and offer them a fair amount for the value of their property to try to purchase some of these lots so that the lots can then be grouped together and then they would be available for development. So, you know, it's, it's, well, it's not that funny.

It's kind of funny. The Far East and Horizon City, they're kind of landlocked because of these undeveloped ghost lots. Like there's, there's plenty, there's El Paso is growing and Horizon City in the Far East

are very popular areas. They're great for builders to build new homes because the land is pretty flat, so it's pretty easy to develop on. There's a ton of demand.

However, like I said, the amount of available land to, to build on is kind of limited. Like for the Far East, you really can't go further north because then you're going to butt into Fort Bliss and then you're landlocked by these ghost lots to the east. And then for Horizon City, they would develop out towards the east.

But again, they're landlocked by that, by that same infrastructure. And then I-10 is there on the south and so they're kind of blocked in. So here's what would have to happen before anything though can really happen. To wrap this up, first of all, now the county wants to change this.

The county wants to make, wants to actually do something with this land, right? This isn't good for the city. It kind of stunts our growth, you could say. So the first step is basically the city, the county is going to have to partner with universities

that have urban development programs just to figure out exactly what type of development is feasible here. They're going to have to do land studies and, and, and do all of those things that urban developers do and come up with some kind of plan or some kind of feasibility study,

right? Now after that though, the county plans to focus on the areas where they can find like the largest piece of land, maybe that belongs to somebody who bought like a really massive, you know, 30, 100 acres, I don't know.

Or what it has to do is it has to find enough people in an area that are willing to sell. This is going to be tough because since it belongs to all these mystery kind of private owners, a ton of them are going to be, they're going to have their suspicions when the city reaches out and says, hey, we'd like to give you a fair price.

What are half of those people going to think? They're going to think, well, oh no, if I, I can, I can hold out for more money or if I just wait another 10 years, it's going to be worth more money. So I don't think it's going to be that easy for the city to actually purchase these, these

lots. But, um, last thing here, can the county force people to sell? No, no, they cannot. But let's not forget the old eminent domain, which essentially says that the government

can take private property and convert it into public use. Could the city, could the county, uh, basically use eminent domain to take some of this land? They could. Um, and you never know.

But for right now, that's not what they're thinking. You know, they, they want to go out and do this right. Try to give people, you know, a fair market for their, for their land. But if you're one of those people that, that holds on or has some of this land, you know,

chances are you're not, this is not a gold mine. You're not going to hold onto this land and make a ton of money. Um, so, you know, keep that, keep that in mind. Nothing's going to happen.

If they can't sell it to enough people, you know what it's going to be worth? That land is going to be worth nothing because the city is not, like I said, the city is not going to put water infrastructure out there. And so, you know, you run the risk of basically just holding onto something that's worth nothing,

you know? So maybe right now in this moment, in the next handful of years, you might get whatever the county decides is a fair market price for it. But if they can't get enough headway, you know, and purchase enough of that land, well,

guess what? They're going to say, okay, well, you know, we tried and they're either going to take it for free with eminent domain or, you know, they'll just maybe lose interest. Maybe, you know, there'll start to be development more on the West side, which there already

is. And so that's my humble advice. If you own some of this property, um, if you do own some of this property, please do not reach out to me.

Um, I cannot help you. Yes, I'm a real estate agent, but you know, this is not a real estate situation that, that, that we are looking to get into. So, um, please keep that in mind, but we certainly welcome your comments.

Do you own this land? Like, I think the cool stories are, you know, who, who in your family bought this land? You know, what were they told? You know, like I said, Horizon Land Corporation must have been pretty good salesmen women

because they, they convinced a lot of people to buy a lot of land in the desert 50, 60 years ago. And you know, uh, here we are. So like I said, the F F FTC did shut them down, so they must not have been, um, doing

something right. But anyway, super interesting story. That's the lowdown on the ghost lots of El Paso. And with that, we'll see you in the next episode.