THE BOTTOM LINE

It may not offer the high-concept snob appeal of collecting art or the adrenaline-pulsing excitement of investing in junk bonds, but for a significant subculture of Angelenos, there’s nothing quite like owning a small strip of undeveloped land. Next to the freeway. Behind a parking structure. In the middle of the desert. Wherever.

These odd lots, typically leftovers from past development or products of old surveying errors, aren’t big enough to build on. Some are as small as 1 foot by 20 feet. But speculators buy, sell and trade them like Monopoly deeds anyhow. “Some people, especially foreigners, want to own a piece of American soil,” says Walter Prince, a Northridge resident who has purchased 11 vest-pocket properties over the last 20 years. “Others are looking to piece together a group of properties or find places that are in the path of development,”

Prince, who for $1,000 to $3,000 a pop has managed to assemble a few buildable parcels from remnants, admits that he snaps up the lots partly for his own amusement, partly as a long-term investment. “There are junk lots and there are valuable lots,” he warns. “To make money you have to know what you’re doing.”

The pros--a few of whom own hundreds of properties and engage in land speculation full-time--pore over geological surveys, county property records and zoning restrictions looking for plots strategically located near larger tracts that could, in time, sprout apartment complexes or shopping centers. Often, the original owners are delinquent with property taxes and ready to make a deal. The land baron wanna-bes also attend land auctions, where counties unload parcels that have fallen into tax default status.

Pay dirt can mean a return of 25, even 50 times the original investment. But for the less savvy, who sometimes buy site unseen, it can translate into landlocked mudholes, chunks of earth sliding into the Pacific or hillside parcels accessible only to goats and rock climbers. “There are a lot of oddball pieces of property out there,” says Los Angeles County Assistant Treasurer and Tax Collector David J. Collins, who sees many of the same lots recycled through auction year after year. “I don’t think anyone knows what some of these people’s motives are.”