Cashing In On Strangely-Configured Lots

"The shape of things to come in suburbia is... weird. After a real-estate boom that has made land in desirable neighborhoods scarce and expensive, more builders and homeowners are buying up the strips and scraps.

It's the real-estate version of quilting. They're squeezing expensive homes onto properties once considered uninhabitable, and carving gerrymandered parcels out of wetlands and steep hillsides. Odd lots are also bringing in speculators, who are buying up tiny triangles and roadside strips at auction, then bundling them for resale and profit.

...But these days, odd-lot economics makes it hard to resist developing the unusually shaped parcels. In spite of the lots' shortcomings, developers typically charge as much per acre for spatially challenged lots as they do for more classic squares or rectangles. At RiverCamps in Panama City, Fla. -- the development where Mr. Thompson bought his 1.7 acres -- lots average about an acre, and all are priced depending on the view, not the shape, according to Mr. Fox."