Thrilling Unboxing
A cold, early-winter wind swept across the campus outside my window.
The elms in front of the library had already been stripped down to bare, skeletal branches.
On the desk in the club room, I spread out the withdrawal confirmation from my brokerage account and the balance statement.
···Thud.
In the United States, buying and selling stocks meant going through a securities intermediary called a brokerage.
I checked the figures printed at the top of the statement.
[Total Account Value: $6,540,000.00]
My account balance stood at a clean, round $6.54 million.
Money I had made in the stock market over the past few weeks.
But if I tried to cash out the entire amount at once, the compliance department at the brokerage would call immediately.
They were the people who monitored whether a customer’s transactions were breaking the law, whether they were tied to money laundering or tax evasion; it was also a department where I had once worked, so I knew exactly how they operated, and where they were vulnerable.
Under the Money Laundering Control Act enacted in 1988, any cash transaction over ten thousand dollars had to be reported to the IRS.
If I spent all $6.54 million at once, my name would flash in red on the IRS system before the day was out.
They’d check the source of funds, review the transaction history, and raise issues about withholding taxes.
There isn’t anything shady about it, exactly, but they’ll use every procedure in the book to make things a pain.
Once a brokerage employee started calling and asking questions, it could take at least several weeks for every verification step to clear, and if luck was bad, even months.
So I planned to move only part of the money in order to buy Wishville, and to do that, I had to buy as cheaply as possible.
I looked at the front-page headline of The Wall Street Journal sitting on the corner of the desk.
[S&L Fallout Continues: 746 Thrifts Seized Since 1989!]
[Seized Bank Assets Sold at Deep Discount — RTC Fire Sales Draw Criticism······]
The American recession.
It was exactly the direction I had expected.
I read the article through.
······The Resolution Trust Corporation sold off the assets of 147 savings and loan associations in this quarter alone. The total sales volume came to $38 billion, averaging only 32 percent of book value. Critics denounced it as “burning taxpayer money,” but RTC officials countered that holding assets any longer would only drive up maintenance costs. In Texas alone, 1,200 commercial properties went to auction this year, and the average winning bid was just 28 percent of appraised value······
Below it was a photographed portrait of a banker who had killed himself, along with the full text of his suicide note.
For forty years I lent money to the neighbors in this town so they could buy homes, open shops, and chase their dreams. None of them ever called me a fraud. But the government does. The regulators turned every document I signed into evidence of a crime, and every person I shook hands with into a conspirator. I choose this path rather than go to prison. I offer my deepest apologies to my family and to our depositors. October 28, 1991. Harold P. Winters.
I folded the paper shut.
“Yeah. This was that kind of era.”
The savings and loan crisis.
One of the worst financial disasters in American history, triggered when the overleveraging and real estate bubble of the 1980s finally burst.
More than a thousand thrifts had failed already, and the burden on taxpayers had climbed past $150 billion.
And the aftershocks were still spreading.
Seized assets were flooding the market, and prices kept plunging without finding a bottom.
For some people it was a catastrophe. For others, an opportunity.
While I was lost in thought—
“Sanha!”
The clubroom door opened and Victor came in.
He laid a notice out in front of me.
It was a document sent from the county registry office.
In the United States, there was the federal government, then the states, and beneath them the counties.
The county registry handled things like property tax collection, real estate registration, and auctioning off delinquent assets, and Berkshire County was a rural district at the far western edge of Massachusetts.
The notice had yellowed with age and followed the standard format of a government document.
Between the typed lines were handwritten numbers.
- Massachusetts / Berkshire County Tax Assessor’s Office
- Notice of Sealed Bid Sale for Tax-Delinquent Property
- Deadline for Bid Submission: December 12, 1991, 4:00 p.m.
.
.
The chunk of land in Wishville I wanted to buy had gone up for auction.
Victor pointed to the first paragraph of the notice.
“Not a public oral auction. A sealed bid auction.”
Sealed bid auction.
Each bidder wrote a price on an envelope and submitted it, which was why some people also called it an envelope bid.
At the deadline, the envelopes were opened all at once, and the highest bid won.
It was popular because you didn’t have to get dragged around by a loud auctioneer or get swept up in crowd psychology and keep raising your offer just because the person next to you did.
Victor had clearly been studying, because he spoke with a surprisingly professional air.
“The bid doesn’t need notarization, just an original signature. The deposit has to be in a cashier’s check or money order—something guaranteed by the bank, a real certified check or prepaid instrument. They won’t accept personal checks. Too much risk of a bounced payment, I guess?”
“Right. The economy’s so bad right now.”
“But Sanha, I’ve got one question.”
Victor looked at me.
“I looked into it, and tax-delinquent properties don’t just lose every existing lien because the government seizes them. The senior lienholder might still retain a right of redemption. Under Massachusetts law, the original owner can reclaim the land within six months to a year after the tax sale if they pay the delinquent taxes plus interest. What if someone exercises that right? Couldn’t they take back the land you won?”
“That’s why we hired Vito. To make sure nothing dirty like that happens.”
“How can you be so sure? Aren’t you worried? What if somebody suddenly shows up and says they’ve got the money, so give them their land back?”
“Right now, hardly anyone wants to buy delinquent property for cash. Even fewer people are going to pay off the taxes and try to recover it. Don’t worry about it.”
This was a time when everyone was keeping their heads down.
Banks had shut off lending, investors were hoarding cash in vaults, and delinquent owners were choosing the noose over repayment.
Even if someone somehow had enough money to cover it, they’d use that cash somewhere else, not to reclaim a toxic property like Wishville.
* * *
A few days later.
I slid the original bid form into the large envelope Vito had prepared.
The typed words on the outside were still crisp and clear.
- Sealed Bid — Do Not Open Before Deadline
- Parcel Group: Wishville Industrial Complex
- Berkshire County Tax Assessor’s Office
.
.
Victor stuck a red tamper seal across the envelope flap.
It was meant to show if anyone had opened it and altered it.
He fiddled with the envelope, looking impressed.
“So that’s really it? One envelope, and that buys land that big? Feels unreal.”
“It’s not the end. It’s the beginning.”
Just before I put in the certified check I’d prepared as the bid deposit, I checked my wristwatch.
3:45 p.m.
Fifteen minutes remained until the deadline.
Whoever had written how much into the envelope would remain a secret until it was opened.
But at least the auction office could tell who had submitted a bid.
The bidder’s name was written on the outside, and it was recorded in the intake ledger too.
If I submitted too early, competitors could take notice and start poking around. They might even eavesdrop, then undercut me at the last second with a higher price.
If I waited too long, on the other hand, traffic jams or paperwork errors could trip me up.
If you were even one second late, your bid was invalid.
So the best move was to submit right before the deadline.
Give your rivals no time to react, while safely clearing your own submission.
That wasn’t luck. It was a battle fought by the second.
We headed to the document intake counter on the first floor of the county building.
The Berkshire County courthouse was a red-brick structure built in the 1870s, and over the limestone above the main entrance, the words “Justice and Equity” were carved into the stone.
But the most common business handled in that building now wasn’t justice or equity at all. It was “Foreclosure and Bankruptcy.”
A cork bulletin board that covered one entire wall of the hallway was crammed with notices for foreclosed properties.
I stopped and skimmed a few.
Farm Property - 120 Acres - Sheffield Township
- Minimum Bid: $45,000 (3rd notice — unsold after initial $80,000 listing)
A dairy family farm passed down through four generations had ended up on this bulletin board after the plunge in milk prices in 1989 left them unable to pay their bank loan.
Gas Station and Convenience Store - Route 7, Pittsfield
- Minimum Bid: $28,000 (2nd notice — unsold after initial $55,000 listing)
A short note was attached beneath it.
“Abandoned due to owner’s death,”
Motel - 24 Rooms - Former Howard Johnson’s Franchise
- Minimum Bid: $95,000 (4th notice — unsold after initial $340,000 listing)
A property that had once been worth $340,000 had fallen to $95,000 after four failed auctions.
And still, nobody wanted it.
Textile Factory - 45,000 Square Feet - Former Wellington Industries
- Minimum Bid: $50,000 (5th notice — unsold after initial $890,000 listing)
A warning was printed at the bottom in red.
“Closed in 1987. Asbestos removal order pending. EPA approval required.”
Just the asbestos removal would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, which was why nobody touched it even at a ridiculous fire-sale price.
Farms, factories, gas stations, motels······.
Properties with their own stories, now thrown onto the market.
What had once been someone’s livelihood, someone’s dream, someone’s retirement fund had been compressed into a sheet of paper, pinned to this bulletin board, and reduced to a laughable bargain that made people hesitate and circle from a distance.
On one side of the hallway was the unemployment benefits desk, and there was a line of more than ten people waiting.
A middle-aged man in work clothes gripped his paperwork tightly and tapped one foot with nervous impatience.
Behind him, a young woman was holding a child and staring hopefully at the numbered window.
America at the end of 1991.
The Reagan-era boom was over, and the Bush administration’s recession was in full swing.
Factories were closing, farms were being foreclosed, and unemployment had climbed past 7 percent.
And all of it was compressed into that bulletin board and that service window.
I crossed past them and walked up to the counter.
Step—step—step—step—
The clerk at the intake desk looked like a white woman in her late fifties.
She glanced over us through thick horn-rimmed glasses, then said nothing, merely jerking her chin toward the metal box mounted on the wall.
[Tax-Delinquent Seizure Bid Box]
A metal box with a rusted lock.
I slid the envelope through the slot.
It felt a little anticlimactic, but there was nothing else to be done.
That was the end of the auction.
* * *
A few more days passed.
There was no dramatic twist, the kind you got in a novel or a drama.
I was the only person who had submitted a bid on the abandoned warehouse district in Wishville, and the property was awarded to me at the price I had offered.
[Massachusetts / Berkshire County Tax Assessor’s Office]
- Notice of Award — Tax Seizure Sealed Bid Sale
- Property: Wishville Industrial Complex (Approx. 400 Acres)
- Parcel Numbers: 14-2-7, 14-2-8, 14-2-9, 14-2-10 (Consolidated)
- Winning Bidder: Lee Sanha
- Winning Bid: $250,000
.
.
A clean, tidy notice of award.
A vast stretch of land, no less than 400 acres, was now mine.
The total purchase price was only $250,000, which worked out to $625 per acre—less than fifty cents a pyeong, if you converted it. It was a completely insane price.
······Recession pricing at its finest.
Other people’s misery had become my opportunity.
That thought left me with an irony so sharp it felt almost complicated.
Victor and I left the clubroom and headed to the café near the Harvard gate.
In a corner booth sat a blond man in a neat suit.
It was Vito’s face, after a long time.
“Good to see you, client.”
“Just talk normally. If you’re Victor’s older brother, you’re my older brother too.”
“Still, I can’t really speak casually to a client······”
“It’s fine. Even if this wasn’t a job, we’d still be seeing each other all the time.”
We had grown close over the past while, so Vito took a slightly more relaxed tone with me.
“By the way, Sanha. The school feels a lot different from when I graduated in ’85.”
“Does it?”
“Yeah. Look over there. Even the signs on the outside of the buildings have all been changed. I stopped by one of the dorms on the way in too, and every hallway has phone lines and fax ports run through it. Individual phones in each room, can you believe that? Back in my day, we had to line up for the communal phone on each floor.”
“Private phones can’t make long-distance calls very well, so people still don’t use them much. Everyone still relies on pay phones.”
“Is that so? Oh, and the library’s got a computer room now too. Twenty Macintosh machines. You click the screen with the mouse, and pictures and words just pop right up. Feels like just yesterday we were all banging away on typewriters. The world moves too fast.”
Vito shook his head and pulled a thick stack of papers from his briefcase.
I skimmed the titles on top.
Deed of Relinquishment, Release of Lien, Boundary Agreement······
At the bottom of every document was the county registry seal and a record number.
“I wrapped up all the leftover strips of land that weren’t included in the auction parcel. It’s all cleanly yours now, Sanha.”
“Appreciate it. I’m sure there were some difficult owners.”
“Oh, there were plenty!”
Vito let out a long breath and lifted a few pages.
“Getting the boundary agreement for this land was the worst part. The owner was some indigenous old-timer over ninety, and he showed up with a map from the 1890s his grandfather had used, insisting that everything from here to here was his land. The map was so yellowed you could barely read the writing. Even so, he refused to admit his lot was landlocked in the registry. Kept saying, ‘Our family hunted wolves here for a hundred years!’ Then he suddenly went off to the warehouse and came back with a severed wolf’s head. It was stuffed, but the head was so huge I thought it was a lion at first. Said it was the pack alpha that ruled this land 120 years ago? Apparently his grandfather fought the alpha wolf that controlled this whole hillside for more than half a year and finally won, so the rightful owner of the area was his grandfather, and since he inherited all his grandfather’s rights, he was the ruler of the land. Then he tried to shoot me with a bow.”
“How did you handle that?”
“I pulled out the newly surveyed cadastral map and the 1987 aerial satellite photos. Official government material, stamped by the National Geological Survey. Then I told him, ‘Sir, if you want to step onto that land, you’ll have to step onto my client’s property, so are you planning to pay tolls every day from now on?’ I told him that if he didn’t pay, I’d have no choice but to sue him with interest. Only then did he start cursing and finally stamp it.”
Vito picked up another document.
“Oh, and this one was no joke either. It was a case of brothers in the middle of an inheritance dispute. Their father died without a will, and the three of them were all claiming the land as their own. One was a used-car dealer in Tampa, Florida; one was an insurance agent in Dallas, Texas; and one was a truck driver here in Springfield, Massachusetts. I had to contact each of them separately and draft a tripartite agreement, and the phone bill alone came to more than two hundred dollars, whew. In the end, I brought all three together and worked it out through an AT&T videoconference system. That cost seventy-five dollars an hour too······”
“I’ll cover all the expenses, so don’t worry.”
“Thanks. Honestly, there’s no blood or tears when money’s on the table. They fought for an hour over a one-percent difference in ownership. The youngest brother cussed out the eldest for not paying their father’s hospital bills, the eldest said the youngest hadn’t even shown up for the funeral, and then they started throwing punches······ In the end, I proposed a compromise. The second and third sons get 33.3 percent each, and the eldest gets 33.4. Only then did the fight end.”
“Were there any owners who ran off because of tax delinquency?”
“Yeah. One guy fled to California in the middle of the night back in ’79, but I hired a private investigator and tracked him down. That cost a bit too. Just the investigator’s fee was $1,500. He’s running a laundromat near Koreatown in San Diego now. When I called, he first hung up on me saying in Korean, ‘I don’t know any such person.’ On the second call, I said, ‘I’m a lawyer and I can tell you how to clear out your old debts, so please stamp this for me~’ and only then did he switch to English. Signed incredibly willingly, too. His name had been sitting on the deed for twelve years while interest piled up. He actually thanked us. And as for the rest······ most of them just needed quick cash, so we settled things cleanly and easily enough.”
Hiring Vito had been worth it.
His skill was in a class of its own, and thanks to him, I had saved far more money than I’d originally expected.
Victor, who had been listening quietly the whole time, slapped his hands together.
“So Wishville really became Sanha’s with no leftover scraps at all?”
“Of course. Clean as a whistle, without even a tiny hole left over. All of it belongs to Sanha.”
Vito was right.
I had checked the documents several times and found no issues at all.
The owners’ signatures, the notary seals, the registry stamps, the receipts showing payment records······ everything was perfect.
All that was left now was to open the hundreds, maybe thousands, of abandoned warehouses on the site one by one.
At last, the time had come for the unboxing.
“Everything’s ready, so let’s head out.”
“Huh? When?”
Victor and Vito asked at the same time.
I set the bag I’d been carrying all the way here on top of the table.
···Thud!
The bag made a heavier sound than expected, and both men’s eyes widened.
Sticking out from the opening were a worn, rugged handle and, at the end of it, the massive blades of a cutter.
It was a heavy-duty bolt cutter strong enough to snap most locks and chains like they were nothing.
I held it up before me and declared:
“Right now.”