Four acres of beautiful waterfront land in Boca Raton, Florida, is up for sale for $43 million.
There’s only one problem: it’s mostly underwater.
Image Credit: William Swain via The Real Deal
Real estate manager William Swaim of Waterfront ICW Properties offers new meaning to the term ‘underwater mortgage’, offering the sunken land for single-family home development.
Swaim calls the property a “unicorn” due to its location and relatively cheap price tag. The plot is located along the Intracoastal Waterway, a series of coves and canals that wealthy residents use to dock their boats and yachts. House prices in the area have increased monthly by more than 10 percent over the past 18 months. A mansion can go for as much as $18 million a bang.
Swaim, who specializes in buying and selling flooded land, said the area “last and largest undeveloped Boca Raton Intracoastal property for sale in 30 years.”
But he also warns that anyone who buys the property will work for them.
“Submerged packages are a headache,” Swaim . told me The Palm Beach Post. “It takes years to clear them up, and most people don’t want to take years to clear them up.”
His company will build a seawall and backfill the debris for an additional $3.5 million.
Why is the building under water?
Swaim’s land was not always under the sea. The property was above ground until 1957, but an apparently greedy neighbor stole the dirt to build a nearby subdivision, Swaim told The mail.
Some local activists are concerned that overdeveloped properties like this could harm wildlife.
“Manatees are dying at record rates as a result of the impact on their habitat, and increasing development on submerged land will only exacerbate that problem,” said Everglades Law Center Executive Director Lisa Interlandi.
But a 2018 Army Corps study concluded that the development of the country would not adversely affect endangered and threatened sea turtles, smalltooth sawfish or manatees.