4 of the greatest real estate deals in history

Has real estate been (wrongly) forgotten in the history books?

If you’ve ever settled down to read a little history, you’ll find plenty of descriptions of grandiose kings and queens, religion and wars of conquests but very little about real estate deals.

Which is surprising, because some of history’s epic turns – from the founding of great cities to the fall of entire nations – can be traced back to the wheeling and dealing for property.

Here we take a look at some of the greatest real estate deals in history.

4 great real estate deals in history

1. Carving up the New World

King John II of Portugal was in a decidedly grumpy mood. He had just met the returning sailor Columbus, who boasted of landing in India on a voyage paid for by Portugal’s neighbour and rival, Spain.

Of course, Columbus had actually landed in the West Indies, but for John the vexing part was Columbus’ discovery was to the west of a line the Pope had set separating Portuguese and Spanish spheres of influence.

John threatened war, but in the end, the Spanish negotiated a new point of demarcation – 18 degrees to the west of the Cape Verde islands.

What no one understood at the time was that in 1494 they were actually carving up the asking rights to the North and South American continents. Portugal got first dibs on Brazil and ceded Spain a massive territory running from Chile all the way to North America.

2. Louisiana Purchase

In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte found himself in a bit of a pickle. Conquering Europe had proved more expensive than he had anticipated and invading Britain, next item on his list, promised to consume a mountain of cash.

Solution?

Why not sell that irksome territory Louisiana, which didn’t seem to offer anything except a very large swamp, a host of angry Indians and few isolated trading posts. Even better: there was a willing buyer, those upstarts, the Americans.

When US President Jefferson’s negotiators arrived in Paris they thought only New Orleans and the surrounding parishes were up for grabs, but when they learned Bonaparte was ready to part with the entire Mississippi basin, Jefferson pounced.

The little emperor got his cash, 50 million francs (A$268 million in today’s values) while America doubled in size, adding land worth around A$1.83 trillion on today’s market.

3. Sidney Kidman’s outback adventure

Like many schoolboys Sidney Kidman yearned for adventure, but where others dreamed, Kidman dared, sneaking away from his parents’ Adelaide home in 1870 on a one-eyed horse, heading for the Outback.

Making his way to the Barrier Range, he found work as a stockman and befriended a local Aboriginal man named Billy who taught him to navigate the wide expanses of the interior.

Kidman progressed to cattle trading and the cartage business until he was able to buy his first cattle station near Alice Springs.

Kidman and his brothers went on acquire 90 stations, stretching from the Gulf of Carpentaria all the way to Broken Hill, within easy droving distance of Adelaide. By moving stock from drought stricken country to where the pastures were fresh or saleyard prices high, Kidman shrewdly built one of the great property empires of all time.

4. Hong Kong

After the end of the Opium Wars, the British needed a deep water port on the coast of Sothern China and, with Treaty of Nanking in 1842, they got one.

Initially the British were ceded Hong Kong Island in perpetuity, but they went on to gain Kowloon and then the New Territories in 1898, for which they were granted a 99-year lease.

Over the next 80 years, this tiny colony on the southern coast of China grew to become one of the world’s most important trading posts and a global financial centre.

And then in 1997 the British had to hand it all back. China had lost an unremarkable fishing village with a few salt farms but a century later was handed back one of the world’s richest cities – without having to pay a cent.

For information on commercial property visit realcommercial.com.au/blog