Just a ways down the road...

Tim turned out to be a small man, about my age more or less who had been trained as a Bell South sales manager but had stumbled into real estate development later in life. He's put together some small projects and then got a chance to buy these 400 acres from an acquaintance. He told us that a farmer friend of his family had just clear cut his property of the Georgia pine trees that had grown there for a generation and was now ready to sell the land. He bought it for a steal and got the bank to go along with an ambitious development plan to assemble 502 lots. he talked wistfully about the go-go days 2003 - 2005 when developed lots anywhere in greater Atlanta we red hot. Builders from all over the region had crews in town building for the insatiable appetite of the never ending population of people flocking to the prosperity Atlanta offered. Armed with prescient insight, he talk about how easy it was to borrow $10 million dollars from a consortium of community banks, built strictly for the purpose of capitalizing on this boom. And finally, he talked about the unbelievably cheap mortgage money available from the legions of mortgage lenders spread out across the country to feed this monster. He and two partners had thrown themselves into the furiously flowing credit river and now were drowning in debt. Then, in an instant he gathered himself, defended his actions and spoke just as passionately about the promise within those hills. He clearly loved his land and seemed to be the last man standing to believe that it could really become a shining city on the hill. He defiantly argued that they had not borrowed too much money - he in fact tried to retract the exact amount that they owed. He said that it was worth every bit of the $15 million dollar asking price and insisted that we jump into his four wheel drive Toyota truck for an off road tour. the tour itself was interesting as he told us every detail of the development process. he drove us through what seemed like miles of pine trees now just a head taller than the truck. To the previous owners great credit, he'd replanted the pine forest that was, sure as the world re-generating almost perfectly. indeed, one day this tract would be a magnificent example of a managed forest.he lamented all of the evidence of human disregard for the land - the four wheelers neglect of erosion control measures, the hunters disregard of posted "no trespassing" signs and the eyesore of the weekend party-ers littering of the tracts most scenic views.