[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by John_W

I have a cousin who passed away last year, but anybody that has been to Ocean City, Maryland probably has seen Billy's Famous Subs on 140th Street. He moved his sub shop from the boardwalk to that location in 1974 and took a gamble buying 3 acres for $40,000. At that time, there was nothing but sand dunes, the boardwalk ended at 35th St. and beyond that was very little. By 2000 the entire area well beyond his sub shop was built up and he retired and gave the shop to his long time manager and sold the remaining acreage for $3 million dollars, which just added to his retirement.

Anyway, he always looked for ways to make money. In 1985 when he wanted to build a house in Florida, his sub business was summer only and he wanted a winter home. He went to Hollywood, Florida and put in $600,000 along with two friends who also each put in $600,000. So for $1.8 million they bought a canal lot and built this six unit condo with parking and storage underneath, a pool in the back, plus a dock for their boat on the canal. Each of the three investors got one condo to live in and one condo to sell. So basically they built the home for free. This is the building at 3300 N. Ocean Drive.

My parents and I used to vacation every summer for a week in Ocean City, MD in the 1950's. There was no 35th Street. But, one year my mom saw a sign to buy oceanfront lots for $5,000 and she said that we should buy one. My dad immediately said, "$5,000 for a lot! Are they crazy?"