how much was the land that walt bought in central florida?

[disneyboi92]

How much did walt buy to get all those acres in florida?

[Stitchy]

I heard or read somewhere...that he bought the land under an alias....M.T. Lotts. This way, the land owners wouldn't know who was buying it, and wouldn't jack up the price. The first acre....I THINK (I have a horrible memory) was around $180? Then, a journalist (I think) traced M.T. Lotts back to the name Minnie Mouse. And figured out who was buying all this land. Of course, prices went up....and I think that last lot of land was around $18,000?

[draybook]

I just finished an article that said the first acre was $80 and the last was 80k. Of course I'm still looking to make sure those are hard facts.

[Rex Dopey24]

wow.good deals back then huh?

[mycroft16]

Not sure on prices, but I know they used several different "fake" real estate agents to purchase the land and that when done with those deals these agents flew on long routes out of their way to confuse anyone trying to trace them back to Walt or Disney.

Several of the companies used were the Ayefour Corporation (pun on I-4 freeway) and M T Lotts Investments. Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation and Latin-American Development and Management Corporation were another pair that were used for some of the larger tract purchases.

[lazyboy97O]

Do keep in mind that $100 in 1964 in the equivalent of $705.75 today. The land was all swamp in an area that few lived. A lot of the land was owned by people who had inherited from family that bought it back in the early 20th century, when Florida was sliced up and sold off as "investments". These people had never seen their land and few had ever even been to the state. These "companies" were making an offer on land nobody else was willing to buy.

[Stitchy]

ps.....I noticed while at WDW...that one of the windows says M.T.Lotts real estate. hahahaha

[Phonedave]

Originally Posted by lazyboy97O

Do keep in mind that $100 in 1964 in the equivalent of $705.75 today. The land was all swamp in an area that few lived. A lot of the land was owned by people who had inherited from family that bought it back in the early 20th century, when Florida was sliced up and sold off as "investments". These people had never seen their land and few had ever even been to the state. These "companies" were making an offer on land nobody else was willing to buy.

I know a guy who sold a lot to Disney. It was just like you said. He had it in his family and was approaced to sell it. It was useless to him, so he unloaded it. He is in his late 80's early 90's now.

-dave

[Stitchy]

must have seemed like a good deal to most people. A chance to unload useless swamp land.

[Esdeebee]

The book REALITYLAND by David Koenig has some of this information in it, I think. (It's been a while since I read it.) It was hard to track down some of the owners, because they were buyers of land they had never seen or been to. "I've got some swampland in Florida I can sell you" probably came from scams run on some of the people who then owned virtually worthless land.

I think it was something like 5 million for the whole shooting match at the end, averaging about what? $175 an acre?

[disneyboi92]

how much was the land at dl at that time in the 1950's?

$100 an acre or no?

[urbandonovan]

After Disney bought all their land, they had to pay off Tufts University for the mineral rights to the land. Otherwise, Tufts could have legally come in and put a well in the middle of Main Street, if they'd wanted.

[MarkTwain]

It wasn't cheap.

It's rather disappointing that Disney sells off Walt's precious land piece by piece, especially looking at how much they sold to the Four Seasons and for all those homes.

[sarki7]

Originally Posted by mycroft16

Several of the companies used were the Ayefour Corporation (pun on I-4 freeway) and M T Lotts Investments. Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation and Latin-American Development and Management Corporation were another pair that were used for some of the larger tract purchases.

Yup, and they've even got their own window in Main Street! As a matter of fact, it's the only window where the person's name is fake, and the companies names are real.

Well, sort of real.

[blindy the pirate]

Disney got 27000 acres at a price of $5,000,000. The Orlando Sentinel had a headline in Oct. 1965 that said: WE THINK IT'S DISNEY, and the remaining 300 or so acres when from an average price of $183 to around $1000.

The biggest problem was the Bay Lake area, which was plotted out and sold through mail order back in 1913. Having to track down the original owners and desendants took a 50 person task force.