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In America, stocks and bonds are often considered the go-to investments — but Pat Neal, whose net worth is estimated at $1.2 billion, doesn’t own a single one.
Why? “I like controlling my own future,” Neal told Forbes.
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Instead, he reinvests in his own company: Neal Communities, the land development and homebuilding business he founded in 1970. Since then, the company has built 25,000 homes across Florida.
Neal did dabble in stocks early on. In the mid-1960s, around age 16, he bought 100 shares of Iowa Beef Packers and doubled his money. But that success didn’t last.
In the early 1970s, his first stockbroker urged him to buy 100 shares of Florida-based Delta Corporation at $28. After briefly rising, the stock tanked on bad earnings — and kept falling. The broker encouraged Neal to double down and he did.
“He asked me to buy an average down at $14. I bought that and I rode it down to $0,” he recalled. That broker later left the business to become a butcher.
After faring “just as well” with his next broker, Neal walked away from the stock market entirely — and focused on his real estate business instead. That’s where the real money started rolling in.
Neal's investment strategy is simple but effective: spot opportunities before the crowd. He and his sons would spend their days scouting properties, calling contacts, reading obituaries and staying plugged into local developments — all in the name of making smart land purchases.
“My investment strategy is to buy land ahead of growth,” he said.
And that’s exactly what he did.
In the late 1980s, Neal bought 1,087 acres at the LeBamby Hunting Preserve in Sarasota County for about 10 cents per square foot.
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“They didn’t know the interstate was coming,” he recalled. “And when the adjoining roads got through, I was able to sell some of the property at $57 a square foot.”
