One hundred thirty-three dollars and forty-two cents. That is the annual property tax bill on this lot. The whole year. January through December. Every holiday, every weekend, every Tuesday afternoon - all of it covered for less than what most people spend on streaming subscriptions they forget to cancel.
And this is not some landlocked postage stamp in the middle of a salt flat with nothing around it. This is a 9,775 square-foot residential lot on a paved road in Salton City, California - close to the Salton Sea shoreline - with both water and sewer already waiting at the street. Imperial County, Imperial Irrigation District for electric, Coachella Valley Water District for water service. The infrastructure is real. It was engineered decades ago when developers had big resort ambitions for this stretch of Southern California coastline. Those ambitions faded. The infrastructure did not.
The lot sits at 1043 Sea Nymph Avenue. It measures 74 feet on the front, 138 feet on the right side, 71 feet along the back, and 131 feet down the left. Zoned residential - low density, one unit per lot maximum. Clean desert terrain with mountains ringing the horizon in every direction and a sky so wide it makes your chest hurt.
Now here is where things get interesting for anybody who has ever tried to buy anything in California and been told "no" by a bank.
There is no bank. There is no application process. There is no credit check. Handle the down payment, and the deal is approved. Period. That is owner financing the way it ought to work - between a willing seller and a willing buyer, without some committee of strangers in a windowless office deciding whether a FICO score qualifies a person to own dirt.
The full purchase price is $13,795. Put $138 down. Then $138 per month. Clean title guaranteed. Pay it off early and there is zero prepayment penalty.
Meanwhile, the area surrounding this lot is one of the most genuinely strange and fascinating corners of Southern California. Salvation Mountain - that massive, technicolor adobe art installation built by Leonard Knight - is nearby in Niland. So is Slab City and the East Jesus art installation. Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area covers over 85,000 acres of open desert for dirt bikes and ATVs. The Salton Sea State Recreation Area has camping, picnicking, and some of the best bird watching on the Pacific Flyway. Mud volcanoes bubble up through the desert floor. And the Dos Palmas Preserve offers a genuine desert oasis for hiking.
Salton City itself is served by the Salton Community Services District, which handles sewage treatment, emergency medical services, recreational centers, street lighting, and landscaping. Fire protection and EMS come from Imperial County Fire Department. Law enforcement from the Imperial County Sheriff's Office, which operates a substation right in town.
This is a real lot with real utilities on a real paved road in a real community - priced at a number that would make any coastal Californian question their life choices.
The terms are below. The orange button starts the process. There is no loan committee to wait on, no underwriter to impress, no hoops to jump through. Just a clean piece of California land that is about to belong to somebody. Scroll down and make sure that somebody is you.
