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A green ethical investment is not easy to find
and all Merri and I really wanted to do was to get away from the maddening crowds.
Yet I can trace many of my profits (and those of my readers) to just a handful
of incredible real estate distortions I spotted over the years.
In the mid 70s I recommended London real estate
and bought houses I thought were in quiet parts of town. This created an eleven
times increase in my investments in less than two years.
This investment of course was not a green ethical
investment.
Then in the 80s we bought homes in Naples Florida,
a sleepy fishing village with just one flashing traffic light in the whole town.
We had to drive nearly an hour to reach major stores like Wal-Mart or Office depot.
Our nearest international airport was hours away. When we left, Naples was a booming
city with the wealthiest income per capita in the U.S. We made another small fortune
without trying. Yet Naples was not an ethical green investment either.
Next I recommended buying land in Ecuador and
this has been one of my better tips. Ocean lots that my readers bought just a
few years ago at $2,500 are selling at $20,000 and more. Here we start seeing
green ethical investment after green ethical investment.
I also recommended investing in Ashe County.
Since coming here six years ago land prices have risen as much as ten times. This
was a very ethical green investment. I just did not realize this at the time.
These repeated profits result one very basic
demographic fact... more and more people crowding onto the same amount of land.
As is often spoken. "They ain't making land no more."
Now ethical green investments are becoming increasingly
valuable because of changing demographics.
Not all real estate prices will rise quickly.
Other factors are at work. This report shows a special distortion that can bring
added profit from property that cerates an ethical green investment.
One factor is a desire for space. This makes
small green towns a good bet. The people are ethical, friendly and real estate
is exceedingly inexpensive in global purchasing terms. U.S. small town real costs
may fall even lower as the U.S. dollar falls.
9/11 changed people's values. Family, friends
and quieter, more peaceful lives have become more important than before. It is
easier to find an ethical green investment here. Having these fine qualities is
harder to achieve in downtown Manhattan or Central Chicago or in the heart of
L.A.
America could be in for difficult economic and
social times. The value of these small towns and their honest core values will
grow and finding an ethical green investment will grow in importance.
We moved into Ashe County to get away from the
crowds, hustle and bustle of life. Making money in real estate was far from our
mind but real estate prices are about to explode.
I can see the handwriting on the wall. Growth
is coming to this area and no amount of wishing will stop it.
When Merri and I sold our last cabin in North
Carolina (because we did not have enough land and the altitude was too low-summers
too hot) the realtor told us we could never find another similar place. It was
deep in the woods near a roaring creek and indescribably wild and beautiful, but
I knew he was wrong. There had to be another such place, but higher, cooler when
the lowlands were warm. I did not realize how nearly right he was as it took us
six years of continuous search to find Merrily Farms and Ashe County.
This county adjoins Virginia and Tennessee was
established and named after Samuel Ashe in 1799. It is often known as the Lost
Province because until recently hardly anyone knew of the place.
The county seat is Jefferson and the county
has a land area of 426.16 miles but only a population of 22,209 people. This population
is wide spread as well. The only towns are Jefferson (1,300 population), West
Jefferson (1,002) and Lansing (183).
This is a totally rural area with three commercial
crops, Christmas trees, timber and tobacco. There are several factories in the
county manufacturing furniture and electrical goods though two have shut down
recently (Thomasville and Black and Decker) There are numerous tourist activities
such as canoeing on the new river, scenic drives though Southern Appalachian Wilderness,
leaf looking and camping.
Ashe county is isolated but sits almost equidistant
from the north and south of the east coast of the United States where the largest,
wealthiest inwards migration in mankind's history has taken place in the last
decade. Now one in six Americans live in a county that touches either the Atlantic
or Gulf Coast.
Here are the signs I see that suggest to me
that this area will boom:
1. The prices here are a fraction of the county
just south (Watauga)
2. The first cappuccino machines have arrived in Jefferson.
3. Prices have rapidly accelerated in the last
three years.
4. The major road from I-77 is being widened
to four and even six lanes.
5. Wal-Mart has built a super store.
6. The first golf course community has been a success in Jefferson.
7. Art galleries and interior designers are setting up shop prolifically in town.
Eerily these are the same signs I spotted in
Naples when that town began to boom.
Yet you can still find an ethical green investment
here.
There are draw backs. The nearest airports for
commercials flights are Tri-Cities Tennessee (an hour and a half in summer-often
impossible in winter) or Charlotte and Greensboro which are long two hour trips.
You still have to travel to Boone (45 minutes) or Wilkesboro (an hour) for a lot
of shopping. Services (such as internet, etc.) especially outside Jefferson are
primitive (though we do have DSL) out here now. The labor market is tight.
There is another trend however that is having
a volcanic impact on prices in Ashe County that is really hot.
That's the weather. National Geographic devoted
a huge portion of its September 2004 issue to it... Global Warming. The 20th century
has seen the greatest warming in at least 1,000 years. Sea levels rise with the
temperatures, a result of sea ice decline. Higher waters initially drown low lying
islands which is happening now from the Indian Ocean (the Maldives Islands continued
existence is in doubt) to Western Alaska (Inupiat Islands are eroding). Peru's
ice caps are contracting more than 600 feet a year. The Larsen Ice Shelf is collapsing.
Alaska's forests are dryer and have more forest fires. Lake Chad in Africa has
shrunk by 90%. The Western U.S. is in a five year drought. The Sierra Nevada Snow
pack melts earlier and the Sacramento River gets 12 percent less spring and summer
snowmelt. The list goes on... and on.
Warmer weather also creates increasing numbers
of larger storms, hence a record number of hurricanes hit Florida in 2004.
This trend is fueled by the boom on the beach.
Remember that one in seven Americans live on
the East and Gulf coasts.
These crowds create problems. Traffic jams are
everywhere. Quaint charming villages have turned into high rent suburbs and lost
their charm. Along with the traffic jams comes overcrowded schools, higher crime,
a shortage of affordable housing, higher taxes, water pollution and surging costs
of dealing with nature's risks.
Mother Nature grows nastier with the warming
and this coincides with the crowds. We are seeing more and stronger hurricanes,
record floods and beach erosion. The danger to life and property is rising, and
the cost of disaster relief is soaring. Insurance costs have risen dramatically
and even so is available only with government support.
This is creating a new migration north as humanity
seeks relief from Florida's stress. As the coastal crowds grow, the traditional
strategy for hurricanes, to get out does not work. There are not enough roads
to evacuate everyone ahead of a storm.
Another USA Today headline read, "Anxiety, fatigue
grind down hurricane-lashed Floridians; 'Normal' comes to mean insomnia, power
outages and evacuation orders".
The stress from facing these ordeals is going
to cause many people on the coast to leave. Many will head north to Georgia and
North and South Carolina.
All these trends create great distortions that
add up to undervalued land in Appalachia. Now one more discovery makes this land
look worth even more as an ethical green investment.
Thousands of acres of what appears to be useless
land can be purchased in Ashe County at very low prices. Yet this land may be
or can be full of gold... green gold that is. Ginseng.
Long before the European invasion of North America,
American Ginseng was used by the American Indians as a demulcent, a general tonic,
as a natural restorative for the weak and wounded and to help the mind.
Wild American Ginseng is rich in the Rb1 group
of ginsenosides, which have a more sedative and metabolic effect on the central
nervous system. This also increases stamina, learning ability, and has been used
for stress, fatigue characterized by insomnia, poor appetite, nervousness and
restlessness, and to regulate immune systems.
Ginseng has also been found to stimulate and
increase metabolic function, increase physical and mental efficiency, lower blood
pressure and glucose levels when they are high, and raise them (blood pressure
and glucose levels) when they are low, increase gastrointestinal movement and
tone, increase iron metabolism, and cause changes in nucleic acid (RNA) biosynthesis.
Plus the wild Ginseng right now sells for about
$250 for 4 ounces!
There is incredible profit potential in American
Ginseng. Though most investors have never heard of it, French fur traders realized
the enormous profits clear back in the mid 1700s.
They reportedly paid 25 cents per pound to the
diggers and then sold the Ginseng for $5 per pound in China. By 1752 the French
Canadian traders were selling $100,000 worth of Ginseng. That was a lot of money
in those days.
One of the early Ginseng traders in the U.S.
became one of the world's richest men, John Jacob Astor. It has been said that
he started his fortune in the late 1700's when he made a profit of $55,000, all
in silver, from Ginseng collected on one of his first expeditions.
Daniel Boone was famous as an outdoorsman but
he made his fortune trading Ginseng.
A heavy concentration of wild American ginseng
is found in the Appalachian Mountains and especially grows wild in the eastern
half of North America on hardwood forests on well-drained, north facing slopes
in predominantly porous, humus-rich soils.
Wild and cultivated ginseng produce an annual
crop in the United States and Canada valued in excess of $25 million. The price
of wild root is about three times that of cultivated root and almost all exports
are sold to China.
The numbers for ginseng farming can be stunning.
It may take several thousand dollars to plant a half acre of ginseng, but the
crop can return $30,000 a year!
So why isn't everyone a ginseng farmer?
Ginseng is still difficult to cultivate, requiring
almost constant attention during the growing season and considerable effort in
the spring and fall to attend to Ginseng's need for shade.
Intensive field-cultivated ginseng is an expensive
venture, requiring valuable land, high-cost artificial shade and costly maintenance
for four or five years before a harvest. These costs are beyond the capacity of
most potential growers.
But there is a little known catch. called woods
assisted farming. This is a technique that uses a natural forest canopy for shade.
Typical ginseng farming requires shade fertilizer
and pesticides because the plants are normally crowded together in unfavorable
conditions.
But if you have an expanse of land in the right
area and widely scatter the seed, the farming effort almost disappears. Disease
mainly comes with closely packed crops. Plus ginseng grown this way brings the
highest price. The greatest demand, from the Orient, is for root that is old,
variously shaped and forked, moderate in size, stubby but tapering, off-white,
firm when dry, and with many closely formed rings. Aged and slowly grown roots
are preferred and bring the highest prices.
Field-grown, sometimes heavily fertilized, cultivated
roots often are harvested when relatively young. These generally lack many of
the characteristics typical of wild roots, are less in demand and lower in value.
In addition, selling seeds to other growers
may provide a small income several years after planting, and 1-or-2-year-old seedlings
may also be sold. The seed crop may also be of value in expanding one's own plantings.
Ginseng grows best in hardwood forests on well-drained,
north facing slopes in predominantly porous, humus-rich soils. Ashe County has
lots of this type land that I believe is very undervalued.
To learn I brought an expert on ginseng to our
farm. What I learned was astounding. North facing Appalachian, hardwood shaded,
slopped land is perhaps the least utilized and most undervalued real estate in
all of North America!
Wild ginseng grown brings enormous prices, but
is only one of many crops. Galax, Black Cohosh, Bloodroot and Goldenseal are just
a few of dozens of other highly valued crops that grow only in this environment.
Most farmers do not know of this potential. The usual drawback to such farming
is finding and buying the land.
If an investor wants the land anyway to hold
as an inflation hedge or to live on, the harvest creates pure, extra profit. Plus
the value of these crops tends to grow beyond inflation!
There are two ways to cash in on this. The first
is as a farming investor yourself.
If instead you prefer to have your own international
business, you can get in the business of helping overseas investors buy an expanse
of this land and offer a farm management service!
I wish you good luck in your global business.
With 35 years of international travel and business under my belt, I tend to be
very discriminating about what opportunities will work and which will not. Rarely
have I seen two opportunities as exciting and perfect for any markets as tax liens
and north facing woods, so it is my pleasure to present these ideas to you. May
your adventures be prosperous and everyday offer as much fulfillment and joy as
Merri and I have enjoyed.
Gary
P.S. Learn on how to have your own international
business. Go to GaryScott.com
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words
Entrance to Gary & Merri Scott's Merrily
Farm LittleHorseCreek.com
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