We Bought Land!
True story, y’all. We bought an auto salvage yard.
In Fall 2020, Jase and I decided we wanted to start expanding our short term rental portfolio. We had 18 months under our belt with The Mountain House, and it was doing great in the Gatlinburg rental market so we set out to buy another cabin. Like I said, I can be picky. Again, I didn’t want your typical log cabin, rustic vibe. I don’t have anything against it, I was just determined to find something that looks different when guests are scrolling through the endless options on Airbnb. We looked at several properties. One in particular stood out to us. It was a little rundown house on 7 acres on the outskirts of Pigeon Forge. It had a beautiful view of Mt. LeConte and we quickly jumped at the opportunity to submit an offer. Our plan was to renovate the little house and rent it out and then eventually build some more cottages on the 7 acres, at some point.
Long story short, it all fell through. We were so bummed. I was devastated, but in true Jason fashion, he just went right back to searching for a cabin, house, or land. Separately, we both stumbled onto a listing for 19.2 acres in Sevierville, TN. It was out of budget so neither of us brought it up to the other, at first. I don’t know what it was about it, but I kept going back to that listing. In January 2021, my parents booked a cabin for our entire family to spend Martin Luther King Jr. weekend together.
I don’t remember whose idea it was but while we were in Gatlinburg, we decided to just do a “drive by” of this 19.2 acre listing. I mean, it wouldn’t hurt, right? One of the big things we were looking for was an easy drive to the property, no scary mountain roads. It had actually snowed that weekend, so what better time to check it out?! So, Jase, my sister, Ashley, my nephew, Wes, and I, hopped in the car and took off to do said “drive by”. The drive in was easy and very pretty - there’s a great view of Bluff Mountain as you drive in and I didn’t expect that. You couldn’t miss the property because it had about 200 car shells all over the land. We pull up to the gate - which happened to be open. As we’re sitting in our car in front of this open gate, looking at the property, a gentleman steps out of the building and obviously sees us. There we all sat, staring at him. Jase was like, “well, I feel like I need to go speak now that we look like weirdos staring at him.” So, Jase hops out and heads over to introduce himself. It was the owner and he was so kind. He immediately offered to show us around and let us look inside all the buildings. It had a 3,200 sq ft warehouse building, a 4 bay garage/shop type building and an open air barn. Here are a some of the first pictures we took while we were looking around…
Jase asked the owner for permission to walk the property so we could see the property lines. The owner was so nice, he told Jase to hop on his side-by-side and he would show him around. So they took off and me, my sister and my nephew headed back to the car because it was crazy cold outside. When Jase got back, we thanked the owner for his time and headed back to the cabin where we were staying. Y’all, it was the most silent drive back to the cabin. All of our wheels were turning but because the property was out of our budget, I think we were all afraid to admit we had each fallen in love with this land. I remember asking Jase what the back of the property looked like and he said, “if you saw it, we’d be buying it today”. Oh shoot. I knew right then we were in trouble.
A little background, my sister is well versed in real estate and runs 80+ long term rental properties and has been in the industry for years, so Jase and I always take her opinion to heart. So, that night we all made our way to the hot tub where we finally opened up a conversation about that property. We brainstormed everything you could imagine. We knew the property was more than we were originally planned to spend, but we also knew that if we could renovate the existing buildings into rental units, it would pay for itself and then some. We crunched numbers based on what we knew about renovation costs and ultimately decided it was worth a shot. So the following week, we made an offer. Within days, we had a signed contract. We seriously kept pinching ourselves and asking each other, “are we really doing this?”.
In March 2021, we closed on the property and were suddenly the proud owners of 19.2 acres! Because the previous owner had a business at the property, we agreed to give him 60 days after closing to close down his business and move all his equipment. Y’all, Jase and I were giddy and just wanted to go sit and look at our new land. The 60 day waiting game was so hard for us! But he was able to get moved out and by the middle of May it was all ours! :)
