This post originally written for and featured on http://www.realtor.com/
When real-estate fund manager Drapac Capital Partners visited the Cameron Springs subdivision in Cobb County, Ga., in 2012, the landscaping was dead and weeds had sprouted through the cracked tennis courts. Discarded tools littered empty lots where construction workers had walked off the job in the late 2000s with only a fraction of the homes completed.
Drapac saw value in those abandoned lots. It bought the 101 remaining lots in the neighborhood for a total of $375,000 and spent about $550,000 finishing half-built lots and upgrading the pool and clubhouse, betting home builders someday would return to the area.
As the nation’s supply of buildable construction lots shriveled, interest in the property picked up. Drapac received 12 bids last summer for the neighborhood, eventually selling it to national builder D.R. Horton Inc. for $6 million.
