Source: EconLog
by Matt Zwolinski
“In 1961, Vera Coking and her husband purchased a home in Atlantic City, New Jersey. They paid $20,000 for the modest three-story house, or about $215,000 in 2025 dollars. Coking was looking for a summertime home, not an investment. But if she had been looking to make money, she would have been hard pressed to do better. Twenty years later, Coking received an offer of one million dollars from Bob Guccione of Penthouse who wanted the land for a casino he was developing. She turned it down. Then, in 1993, another casino developer tried to buy the land to use as a limousine parking lot. Once again, Coking refused the offer. This time, however, the developer refused to take ‘no’ for an answer. Since a voluntary exchange wasn’t going to work, the developer went to the state instead.” (08/04/25)
https://www.econlib.org/library/columns/y2025/zwolinskibuilding.html