Document details

BUELL G. DUNCAN JR., senior vice president of the First National Bank at Orlando, tells of a friend who came upon 110 acres of land a few miles from the city at a price he thought was a steal. The owner wanted $4,500 an acre, and Duncan's friend was sure that it eventually would be worth $15,000 to $20,000 per acre. He put up a deposit of $25,000 and went looking for partners. Everyone he approached laughed at him. Unable to swing the deal alone, he ended by forfeiting the deposit.

That was in 1967. Two years ago, 54 acres of the land brought in $10,000 an acre. Since then the owner has sold one parcel of 4% acres for $400,000, another of four acres, also for $400,000-a total of $1.34 million, with 47 acres still to go!

Far-fetched? Then consider this: In 1966 Holiday Inn acquired ten acres of land on State Road 530 at $4,000 an acre. Four years later, Marathon Oil paid $155,000 for one acre facing Holiday Inn.

It's stories like these, true though they may be, that bring the latecomers, the suckers, rushing in.

This Florida land rush was started by Walt Disney Productions, which in 1967 began assembling 27,500 acres, partly swampland, 16 miles southwest of Orlando for Disney World, a counterpart of Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. "Since then,' says banker Duncan, "the land between Orlando and Disney World has gone up 20 times. Other land in the vicinity of Orlando has gone up four or five times."

[…]