The Minneapolis-based office of CBRE Group said late Thursday it has completed one of the largest land sales (by acreage) in U.S. history -- 1.3 million acres of land in Nevada for $31 million.
That's roughly the size of Rhode Island.
And consider that the majority of Nevada's land, about 85 percent, is either tribal or owned by the government. Only 15 percent of the state's land is privately owned.
CBRE said the giant tract was purchased by Florida-based Fountain Investments. The seller was a La Jolla, Calif.-based company called Pico Holdings, which had owned the land for about 15 years.
Steve Lehr, senior managing director with the CBRE Minneapolis Land Services Group, represented Pico in the deal, along with Brett Edwards from the Reno, Nev., office
"A land sale for more than $30 million is very significant today, particularly when you consider that land values have plummeted 75 to 90 percent in the past five years," Lehr said. "The good news is that values have appeared to stabilize."
He added that while a handful of land deals have traded at prices from $50 million to $115 million, most of those involved far fewer acres than this one.
"By acreage, this is one of the largest, if not the largest, brokered land sale ever," he said. "It was an extremely complex transaction due to its sheer size, and the buyer pool for this type of asset is quite limited. "
