Right up my alley!
I live on 2.5 acres, with a 2.5 acre wooded lot next door to me. Nothing on it, but I talked to the owner of it, right after I moved in and told him if he ever decided to sell, let me know. He sold, never said a word. I contacted the new owner, told them the same thing. Then a couple years later, a very small 4sale sign pops up. I immediately called, asked how much, told them who I was, etc. They put the sign up, then sold another piece of land elsewhere and couldn't sell that one due to tax problems(capital gains?). They took the sign down within a week. I had my Mom call, just in case they had something against me, with an offer. They told her the same story, so she gave them her phone number and said call her when they were ready. I came out of the house one day and there is two guys with machette's in one hand and a beer in the other right next to my fenceline. I asked what they were doing, and they said they were trying to give the owner an estimate for clearing the property. The owner's name wasn't right(so I thought) so I called the number they had, and sure enough, the property had sold. They cleared it completely, left about half a dozen trees on the entire property, and those are 5" or less. Then they build a house in the lowest part of the property, exactly 15' from my fence, right across from my garage/shop and the eyesore that is my junkyard. They built a 5500 square foot house, and have almost $600,000.00 in it, so far, and they aren't done. Still have the pool, 2.5 acres of sod, and a fence to go that I know about. Since they built it so close to the property line, there isn't room to channel the water around the house, so that has become a problem. I started stockpiling dirt to be ready when they are done, to prevent his elevation changes from affecting me. The new owner is a little cocky, telling us he was going to "overbuild" the neighborhood.
I do tractor work for all the neighbors when they need it, no charge, but when he asked me about it, I told him I normally charge $60 an hour, but since he was a neighbor, $40 would do it. He had me bush hog the property so they could get to the back of it. They purchased it without ever walking more than 30 feet into it, and it is 630 deep. I wave, but the requests to borrow my truck and skilsaw didn't get noticed in time for him to use them.
By the way, he is a car salesman, and sells... yep, you guessed it, BMW's.
David from jax