Price dropped to 3.6m!!! I think this could be a lucrative, fun business, and the real estate in that area is going up up up in value. Heck, I could probably sell the White Rhino to a man with ivory checks for a cool 2m. All Animals Included! Buy Your Own Texas Zoo for $7M By Luke Stangel | Mar 27, 2017 realtor.com Ask Matt Damon. Or perhaps don't. Either way, it takes a distinct soul to buy a zoo. One man in Texas hopes to find that special someone who's willing to take over his popular, 80-acre zoo south of Houston. The price for this animal attraction? Just $7 million. Clint Wolston spent 30 years building the Bayou Wildlife Zoo outside Alvin, TX. Today, his zoo employs 10 people, who are in charge of taking care of 500 animals and guiding roughly 90,000 visitors a year on tram tours to see and feed the animals. Related Articles Live-Work Spaces With a Texas Twist: 8 Beautiful 'Barndominiums' Yabba Dabba Do-Over: 'Flintstone House' Rolls Back Onto the Market for $3.2M An Ode to Opulence, This $10M Mansion Has a Violin-Shaped Pool For the entrepreneurial-minded, know this: The zoo rakes in about $1 million in annual sales and runs at a more than 30% profit margin, according to listing agent Carolyn Spencer. Wolston, 80, is selling the zoo so he can retire. Several potential buyers have stepped forward, but all have struggled to put together traditional financing for the property. Wolston says he wants the next buyer to keep the animals safe, and ideally to continue operating the zoo as a public attraction. Bayou Wildlife Zoo realtor.com Trails realtor.com Virtually everything on site today is included in the purchase price. A buyer will acquire all 500 animals and a 10,800-square-foot main building, which includes its own apartment. There's also a covered picnic area for 400 people, 16 barns, a souvenir shop, sales office, six restrooms, a fleet of Jeeps, and seven trams. To maintain the 80-acre spread, a buyer will also become owner of a bulldozer, grader, backhoe, tractor, trailers, fencing, and other ranch equipment. Jeeps and trams realtor.com The property features two miles of trails, 15 lakes and ponds, native trees, and 3,500 feet of waterfront on Dickinson Bayou. The property is between Houston and Galveston, near Interstate 45, the main highway connecting the two cities. Camel realtor.com Ostrich realtor.com The zoo is currently home to giraffes (including a newborn!), zebras, a zonkey, a white rhino, ostriches, alligators, kangaroos, and ring-tailed lemurs, among others. If you're hungering for more, know that feeding the animals costs about $6,000 a month. It's the price of doing business when you buy a zoo.
I think Matt Damon did a pretty fine job of showing us why this is a bad idea! That is...unless we ended up with Scarlett Johansson at the end of it. She was particularly hot in that one imo. * * - Referring to film "We Bought a Zoo" which may be an obscure reference to some people
All my wife’s idea. She said ‘if film has taught us anything, it’s that buying a zoo always works out well’
I pass by this all of the time. Our friends take their kids there and they enjoy it. It is between alvin and dickinson on 517.
Well, do you have a problem communicating and relaying emotions with your son? Then this is the zoo for you.
1M a year in profit aint too shabby. There is no animal free agency either, you just trade animals at no cost. Lunhow could go crazy. Except Pandas, two will cost you 1M and a baby 600k. Seems like they need more cats, but in all honesty, most people just go to a zoo not knowing what to expect anyway. Babies seem to be the only marketing draw outside of this idea of hey, I heard some guy just bought a "personal zoo", let' go check it out. The only thing I'd say is that while satisfying personally, you can build virtual zoos in video games and probably get greater satisfaction than owning one.
As an American male, it's my duty to not talk to my sons about anything except sports, military and how crappy our country is doing... and when I'm drunk and my wife is there, how hot the sideline reporter girls are during games. -Shrug- I am casually considering it. If I could build a house there and roll it into the costs it would be a slam dunk. 80 acres of land in the country on a bayou with a lake? The rhino is just a bonus. I would have Clutchfans day there every year. 90,000 people a year do. And it's not really Alvin- it's a couple miles off i45 in Dickinson. Between Galveston and Brazoria counties and Houston on i45 south of BW8, you have about a million people who would consider driving here an easier drive than the Houston Zoo. Not that there's a comparison but if you're looking for something to do for a day, it's a nice place to go. $300k in profit. $1m is sales, with a 30% profit margin.
The thing at the last personal zoo that was a fan favorite was the parakeet exhibit where you walk into it with a seed covered stick and get parakeet attacked. That was a big winner. It looks like easy money too. And people love feeding the giraffes.
It’s a nice park. I take my sisters kids twice a year. They have about 200 emus that want to murder you though.
I've never heard of the place, but it does sound intriguing. My first thought, though, was how does the Zoo handle a hurricane? After all, we get them from time to time. Other than that, and perhaps the occasional animal plague (ha ha!), someone with a few million laying around will likely make him an offer. I can see where getting traditional financing could be problematic.
True, anyone with the business acumen to make a helicopter into a valid business expense can buy a zoo. It's an investment, so you don't just cash purchase it. Your interest on the loan is lower than the profit margin = $$$$ profit.
He could get some donated. There is a refuge in Arkansas that has to refuse cats all the time because they don't have the space. Expensive as hell to feed though, which is why people give up on them after a while. If Xero is really serious about buying it, my ex FIL was the architect who designed the refuge. It makes some tourist money plus donations from folks happy the cats (and bears and some other animals) are rescued. Ellen Degeneres is their largest donor. https://www.turpentinecreek.org/
My feels on Joe Rogan vary. I think we would get along in person, maybe have to have some sort of alpha male push-fest. He's a funny dude. I'm not terribly serious about the Zoo idea but I could pull together the financing for it. If it hits the 2.99m mark I will cruise by and talk to the owner. I live in the area and grew up in Alvin so can talk some good redneck.
I did not get the Fear Factor reference until the second time I watched it. Holy crap! That's the fear factor guy. It was pretty funny. And true. I always remember this one hot chick on fear factor that made it all the way to FHM and playboy.
