Weems Road is the main path through Boca Chica Village, Texas, and was unpaved until SpaceX showed up.
By Dave Mosher
Business Insider
Finlay seems an odd choice for the job based on his LinkedIn profile.
His page describes a senior executive who's focused on initial public offerings, equity raises, inventory management, and bean counting rather than dealmaking in Texas residential real estate. Then again, his specialties apparently include contract negotiation and investor relations — indicating he is a person who is skilled in smoothing out kinks and getting deals done.
However SpaceX decided on the person for the job, Musk wanted everyone gone by March 31, residents said representatives from both JLL and SpaceX told them. SpaceX ultimately deemed the task important enough to pull a senior executive out of the office and send him into the sand, mud, and wind of Boca Chica. (SpaceX did not respond to multiple requests for comment and interviews.)
Finlay began outreach to residents as soon as December, starting with those who had reached an impasse in negotiations with JLL. (The real-estate firm declined to comment on-the-record for this story.)
"I work at SpaceX in California and would really appreciate the opportunity to discuss the SpaceX offer to purchase your property," Finlay told a resident in an email sent the morning of January 3. "My goal is to provide any support that I can."
The resident replied that SpaceX's offer "would not even come close to allowing us to purchase another property anywhere else close enough to the beach for us."
In his response two days later, Finlay took a conciliatory tone.
"I am very willing to work with you to correct any error in your appraised value that drives the $ amount of the purchase offer," he wrote. "My goal is to make it as accurate as possible and if any mistakes were made we will fix them. I will be in the Village all day on Monday should you be willing to meet in person – I'd like to explore any opportunities I may have to help you."
Finlay physically showed up on January 13 to walk the neighborhood. He spent hours that week with some residents, like the Pointers, and returned in following weeks to pick up where he left off and work on other holdouts.
Residents who met him said even though they suspected he was the one rejecting their appraisals through JLL, he was an astute listener who made them feel heard. He also coached residents on how to improve the value of their existing appraisals.
"Finlay was a reprieve, the last resort that gave us any kind of voice," Maria Pointer said, adding that Finlay apologized for the stress caused to her and her husband over the years by the company's presence. "We looked at his visit as a positive step."
Dave Cohen is another (now-former) homeowner who sold after being approached directly by Finlay.
"I found Dave Finlay a pleasure to talk to. He seemed to be very forthright with me," Cohen told Business Insider, but added the three-times-appraisal deal structure — which Musk dictated to be fair to residents — has limited Finlay's ability to more rapidly close deals. "He has his cage that he has to live in."
According to Business Insider's reporting, residents have been paid close to $100,000 on the low end to more than $1 million for their properties on the high end. Both Maria and Ray Pointer said they've become fans of what Musk and SpaceX are doing and want to leave but that getting retiree-age people like themselves out of the way is "harder than throwing money at the problem."
"We've got to find a house, move, get surgery, and family members die in the middle of all this," Maria said, referring to the passing of her former husband and the father of her children in 2019.
Johnson expressed similar thoughts but said she still wondered what SpaceX was thinking by picking the village area for its base of operations.
"It's not that I don't like progress or SpaceX, either. It's just that there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of acres here," Johnson said. "Why they picked our neighborhood to build everything is beyond me."
Whatever SpaceX's spaceport criteria were, or are, residents said the company seems intent on doing whatever it takes to take control of the area and minimize the coming safety risk of launching a 39-story steel rocket full of millions of pounds of propellants.
The anonymous resident said Finlay even recruited a real-estate agent to help one family find a "like" home in another part of Texas. Finlay and JLL have also explicitly discussed how the Cameron County Space Port Development Corp. has the authority to begin an eminent-domain process for a spaceport.
Whatever SpaceX decides to do, though, the company may soon find itself in a bind: Some residents told Business Insider that they no longer answered Finlay's calls, texts, or emails. In fact, one such villager said when her husband saw Finlay approaching a neighbor's home in February, her husband essentially fled and hid by going fishing.
The resident said her family had "no interest" in selling to SpaceX — not even for millions of dollars — and added that she was willing to go to court over their home. What's more, her case has attracted the attention of the Institute for Justice: a libertarian nonprofit that has in past years defended property-rights cases all the way to the US Supreme Court at no cost to clients.
However SpaceX decided on the person for the job, Musk wanted everyone gone by March 31, residents said representatives from both JLL and SpaceX told them. SpaceX ultimately deemed the task important enough to pull a senior executive out of the office and send him into the sand, mud, and wind of Boca Chica. (SpaceX did not respond to multiple requests for comment and interviews.)
Finlay began outreach to residents as soon as December, starting with those who had reached an impasse in negotiations with JLL. (The real-estate firm declined to comment on-the-record for this story.)
"I work at SpaceX in California and would really appreciate the opportunity to discuss the SpaceX offer to purchase your property," Finlay told a resident in an email sent the morning of January 3. "My goal is to provide any support that I can."
The resident replied that SpaceX's offer "would not even come close to allowing us to purchase another property anywhere else close enough to the beach for us."
In his response two days later, Finlay took a conciliatory tone.
"I am very willing to work with you to correct any error in your appraised value that drives the $ amount of the purchase offer," he wrote. "My goal is to make it as accurate as possible and if any mistakes were made we will fix them. I will be in the Village all day on Monday should you be willing to meet in person – I'd like to explore any opportunities I may have to help you."Finlay physically showed up on January 13 to walk the neighborhood. He spent hours that week with some residents, like the Pointers, and returned in following weeks to pick up where he left off and work on other holdouts.
Residents who met him said even though they suspected he was the one rejecting their appraisals through JLL, he was an astute listener who made them feel heard. He also coached residents on how to improve the value of their existing appraisals.
"Finlay was a reprieve, the last resort that gave us any kind of voice," Maria Pointer said, adding that Finlay apologized for the stress caused to her and her husband over the years by the company's presence. "We looked at his visit as a positive step."
Dave Cohen is another (now-former) homeowner who sold after being approached directly by Finlay.
"I found Dave Finlay a pleasure to talk to. He seemed to be very forthright with me," Cohen told Business Insider, but added the three-times-appraisal deal structure — which Musk dictated to be fair to residents — has limited Finlay's ability to more rapidly close deals. "He has his cage that he has to live in."
According to Business Insider's reporting, residents have been paid close to $100,000 on the low end to more than $1 million for their properties on the high end. Both Maria and Ray Pointer said they've become fans of what Musk and SpaceX are doing and want to leave but that getting retiree-age people like themselves out of the way is "harder than throwing money at the problem."
"We've got to find a house, move, get surgery, and family members die in the middle of all this," Maria said, referring to the passing of her former husband and the father of her children in 2019.
Johnson expressed similar thoughts but said she still wondered what SpaceX was thinking by picking the village area for its base of operations.
"It's not that I don't like progress or SpaceX, either. It's just that there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of acres here," Johnson said. "Why they picked our neighborhood to build everything is beyond me."
Whatever SpaceX's spaceport criteria were, or are, residents said the company seems intent on doing whatever it takes to take control of the area and minimize the coming safety risk of launching a 39-story steel rocket full of millions of pounds of propellants.
The anonymous resident said Finlay even recruited a real-estate agent to help one family find a "like" home in another part of Texas. Finlay and JLL have also explicitly discussed how the Cameron County Space Port Development Corp. has the authority to begin an eminent-domain process for a spaceport.Whatever SpaceX decides to do, though, the company may soon find itself in a bind: Some residents told Business Insider that they no longer answered Finlay's calls, texts, or emails. In fact, one such villager said when her husband saw Finlay approaching a neighbor's home in February, her husband essentially fled and hid by going fishing.
The resident said her family had "no interest" in selling to SpaceX — not even for millions of dollars — and added that she was willing to go to court over their home. What's more, her case has attracted the attention of the Institute for Justice: a libertarian nonprofit that has in past years defended property-rights cases all the way to the US Supreme Court at no cost to clients.
5 comments:
SpaceX is a real estate land grabbing scam. Rockets to Mars, my ass! Musk wants everyone at Boca Chica Village gone by March 31, maybe the people at Boca Chica Village want Musk to go away, ..., forever.
You have to be a total winter texan, to live in a place like that.
Eldelasprietas.
Black lives matter, dice el blimp, Juan. There is no blacks in The Valley, BLIMP INÚTIL!
On the eve of the 75th anniversary of V-E Day, this past Tuesday defense officials told a House subcommittee that belonging to a white supremacist or neo-Nazi group would not automatically get a service member kicked out of the U.S. military.
If they know who they are they would most likely sent them to protect the border.
space x what a joke
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