In almost every part of North Carolina, a 4,200 square foot house can be purchased for less than $500,000. They very well might have done exactly what you said - bought "a super real nice house with half their money".
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Apple Preps for NC Data Center Launch, Paid $1.7 Million to Couple for 1-Acre Plot
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In almost every part of North Carolina, a 4,200 square foot house can be purchased for less than $500,000. They very well might have done exactly what you said - bought "a super real nice house with half their money".
Apple paid $1.7 million for land that is worth less than $200,000? Couldn't they have found other land that was much cheaper? I'm sure the town of Maiden has plenty available. What was so special about this particular tract?
4,200 square feet is also two double-wides and a single wide glued together.
It would roughly look like this:
http://images.macrumors.com/article/2010/09/28/124615-jobs_house_schematic_500.jpg
I never said it was my business, i just said that it upset me a little bit. Since we don't know what house they bought or how much it cost we are all making assumptions. I know how much a 4,200 sq. ft. house would cost where i live and it would not have been all that cheap. If they got it for around 400,000 then more power to them and I will not be as upset anymore.
Hell, I just bought a house myself and my parents are telling me how to spend my money and how i should live my life.
From my understanding it is sitting beside there new data center
It tells you in the first post. It's part of the site they have chosen for their data centre development.
Because they are millionaires?
Odds are if they haven't moved in that amount of time they're happy with staying where they are now. It will be their family's house after they're gone. Pretty sure they can afford the upkeep on the house by doing some solid investments.
Plus nobody knows what these people do/did for a living. I know a millionaire or 2 who live very modestly and you'd never guess they had money. People need to quit judging them for their choice on a new home. I know I'd probably do the same thing, live COMFORTABLY for the rest of my life.
You can't tell me this doesn't have anything to do with ATV and iTunes. Steve intro'd the ATV update and knows a lot more is coming, duh. Yeah, its small, big deal, just wait till we get this server farm crankin and your head will spin off your neck!
Server farm... Fitting terminology for a data center in the middle of Nowheresville, NC.
Uhh, people who sell their old home for 1.7 million?
Duh
We don't do things based on need here. You can move to a socialist country to sample that type of society.
Not necessarily. There are a variety of ways this could have worked out so that the couple gets much less.
E.g., Apple could have pressured the local govmnt to use eminent domain to take the property for market value -- ~200K. Of course that would probably cost Apple a lot in terms of delays and bad press.
Or Apple could have adjusted plans in order to work around the property. That would no doubt cost Apple a lot but in the end would make the house almost worthless -- for the couple and potential buyers -- who wants to live in the middle of a large data center?
In any deal, each side tries to maximize gain and minmize loss. It sounds like both parties did that pretty successfully.
The charity I would donate to would be my family, and their kids for a few generations. The home would end up with my kids and they and their kids would have school fully paid for etc.
Best charity I can think of giving money to.
or you could give it to some big charity that splits it up amongst 100,000 people you'll never see or know.
They didn't blow it in Vegas, they didnt buy 3 yachts and pool full of caviar. They bought a house. That's a lasting and solid investment. Cut em some slack.
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I'm curious why Apple would pay so much for land valued for so little. I'm sure there's plenty other 1 acre lots in "rural georgia".
I'm curious why Apple would pay so much for land valued for so little. I'm sure there's plenty other 1 acre lots in "rural georgia".
Translation for all of you in NC: Pool full of caviar = Cement pond full of fish eggs.
(btw, I love NC. My family enjoys vacationing there.)
You spend your money the way you want to... and let them spend their money the way they want to.
Personally, I find it hard to hold it against someone for buying their dream home when they get the chance.
Strategy
I am wondering now that everyone has made posts about the buying price, investment crap and other useless comments.... What is Apple's deal here?
What I know about Apple is:
-They have invested in Akami whose reach is global
-One data Centre doesn't work for distribution, they would need at least 3
-The costs of running a Data centre are enormous and Apple doesn't give a lot for free or low cost.
-They now have 2 data centres (San Francisco, Maryland)
My guess is:
The current data centre at the head office was too small to expand properly. They are not getting into Cloud, low cost mobileme or anything that involves (rsync, imap) data shared between user/data centre. There are hardly enough mobileme users to warrant multiple data centres..... So the final answer, A online store! That is right, music, movies, tv shows, apps and anything else that is not sensitive to tcp/ip, rts, timing problems like.... live shows.
Now everyone can go back to the regular program of, housing investments are crappy, Apple paid too much for the house, The past owners should have saved their money, blah blah blah.....
I am wondering now that everyone has made posts about the buying price, investment crap and other useless comments.... What is Apple's deal here?
What I know about Apple is:
-They have invested in Akami whose reach is global
-One data Centre doesn't work for distribution, they would need at least 3
-The costs of running a Data centre are enormous and Apple doesn't give a lot for free or low cost.
-They now have 2 data centres (San Francisco, Maryland)
My guess is:
The current data centre at the head office was too small to expand properly. They are not getting into Cloud, low cost mobileme or anything that involves (rsync, imap) data shared between user/data centre. There are hardly enough mobileme users to warrant multiple data centres..... So the final answer, A online store! That is right, music, movies, tv shows, apps and anything else that is not sensitive to tcp/ip, rts, timing problems like.... live shows.
Now everyone can go back to the regular program of, housing investments are crappy, Apple paid too much for the house, The past owners should have saved their money, blah blah blah.....
So are you implying they are only building a giant Drobo for their supersized iTunes library? Instead of swapping drives, they will be able to hot-swap entire modular buildings.
Yeah, it's pretty scary how the Supreme Court interpreted that bit and has now been used a precedent to take away property from land owners for the "greater" good.
Well they bought the land back in 1976. There probably AT LEAST sixty or so. I don't think initially this was about holding out. I think if you live most of your married life in one place and make it something out of nothing, then you decide where you want to live the rest of your life and finally pass on. I'm glad for them as $1.7M is nothing for Apple to pay. They are older folks who now have to move their whole lives to a new place -- that is not easy on their generation.
Sounds like they got some decent new digs!
edit: And they DID NOT spend all of their money on that place -- probably spent less than $400,000 for all of that where they're at.
Best reply of the thread.
$1.7 million doesn't buy you all that much in Beverly Hills these days.
Any place in So. California. The house down the street from me is listed at 1.3M. it is a newer 2 story about 2,700 square feet on a 50x100 foot lot in Redondo beach. Another one on the block sold for 600K but was quickly bulldozed after the sale. This is just a normal mid class city with mostly people who work as engineers, retaied firemen, one guy is a pharasist and a radiologist, another has a 7-11 store the guy next door is a mechanic
Up in San Jose near where Apple is located prices are a little higher. I'd bet many or even most Apple Engineers or execs have houses valued at either side of 1M
Actually many parts of Beverly Hills have homes for far under 1M. There are a lot of smaller homes built pre-war or even in the 1920's that are nice but small and not hugely expensive. My mother grew up in that area.