John Neal, brother, cousin buy land in eastern Palmetto

BUYER: Gulf Land Investments LLC (principals: John Neal and James Schier) (50% interest) Shore Road LLC (principals: Stewart Carlin and James Schier) (25%) and Hanover Real Estate Group LLC (principals: Michael Neal and James Schier) (25%), Sarasota
SELLER: Claude and Cynthia Young
PROPERTY: 10525 and 11333 Moccasin Wallow Road, Palmetto
PRICE: $2.75 million
PREVIOUS PRICE: $5.85 million, October 2008
LAW FIRM ON DEED: Harrison Kirkland Pratt & McGuire PA, Bradenton

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Homebuilder John Neal, his brother Michael Neal and cousin Stewart Carlin purchased 268.97 acres of grazing land east of Interstate 75 for $2.75 million.

The price equated to $10,224 per acre.

The property is entitled for a single-family development of roughly 440 acres. Its new owners have dubbed the proposed community Summer Woods.

“Our next step right now is just to watch the [housing] cycle closely,” Neal says. “[The residential market] has been heating up big time. We will either develop it ourselves, as Neal Communities, or look to sell it off to another homebuilder, but that wouldn't happen until at the earliest 2014. We aren't in a rush. This is really the next area of growth that's left after the 2006 and 2007 [real estate boom].”

Neal says Neal Communities is better positioned to compete against the national builders in the Parrish area than his John Neal Homes, which builds a more high-end housing.

If the investors decide to develop the property, construction would likely start in late 2014 for delivery in spring 2015. Home sales would start in the second quarter of 2015.

The sellers, Claude and Cynthia Young, provided a $1.79 million mortgage to the buyers.