THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 18, 1996 TAG: 9605160318
SECTION: REAL ESTATE WEEKLY PAGE: 15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: COVER STORY
SOURCE: BY JIM HUGHES, SPECIAL TO REAL ESTATE WEEKLY
LENGTH: Long : 130 lines
Pete Bosher is the most successful real estate investor you've probably never heard of.
For nearly half-a-century, the Virginia Beach businessman has assiduously avoided the spotlight, kept his own counsel, and quietly built one of Tidewater's largest real estate portfolios.
You could call him the king of Pacific Avenue. Among Bosher's holdings are some of the best-positioned properties on the resort area's second main drag.
The Holiday Travel Park on South Pacific, the Jefferson Apartments on 33rd Street, a duplex complex at 56th, a five-acre tract at 10th - all are part of the Bosher portfolio.
He also owns, among other things, the Lake Home Apartments at Birdneck and Laskin roads, apartment buildings in Norfolk, a large residential tract in Ocala, Fla., an eight-acre estate in Jamaica, and more than 600 acres of prime timber and farm land in Virginia and northeastern North Carolina.
Now nearing the start of his ninth decade, Bosher is making few concessions to time. At an age when most of his contemporaries have long since left the playing field, Bosher is still swings for the fences.
In fact, he is involved in the largest developments of his career: Green Sea Farms, a 1,620-acre mixed-use project at Chesapeake, and Albemarle Plantation, a 1,600-acre golf and marina community on the Albemarle Sound near Hertford, N.C.
``Getting older doesn't mean you have to stop looking for opportunities,'' he said in a recent interview. ``I'm going to keep at it as long as I possibly can. The idea of retiring just doesn't appeal to me at all.''
Throughout his career, Bosher has shown an uncanny ability to see the future course of growth, and stake out positions right in its path. Probably not since Edgar Cayce has a Virginia Beach resident built a better record of predicting the future.
``I bought that five acres down at 10th from the Old Norfolk Southern Railroad in the early `50s,'' he said. ``People said I was nuts. It was just a big sand dune out that way. Back then, anything south of 31st was considered a bad investment.
``But I could see that Pacific Avenue had to go through there, and development had to follow. I didn't have any inside information. Nobody told me anything. I just could see it happening in my mind.
``Same thing with the land where the Holiday Travel Park is now. I bought it in 1953. It was way out in the country back then. I rode out there with a Realtor named Bill Lumsden and bought it without even getting out of the car.
``I saw the Navy Air Base there, and I saw they were going to want to expand, and I could envision it, and eventually it happened just like I saw it,'' he said.
Bosher has similar visions about Green Sea Farms and Albemarle Plantation. ``Green Sea Farms and Albemarle Plantation could be the most exciting things I've ever done.'' he said.
``If you look at a map of Tidewater, Green Sea Farms is right in the very center of it. It's probably the biggest undeveloped piece of property in the whole Tidewater, and it's no more than 12 minutes to Dominion Towers. I see it s the future bedroom community of Norfolk.
``As for Albemarle Plantation, Tidewater's growth has go to go south into northeastern North Carolina. There's no other way to go. Every other direction is blocked, and that's the only place with large tracts of undeveloped land.
``When they finish four-laning Highway 17, you mark my words. That area is going to take off,'' he said.
Outside of that innate sixth sense about growth, there's nothing mysterious about Bosher's success.
``I can sum it in four letters: W-O-R-K,'' he said. ``My investment strategy is pretty simple. I've tried to keep a balance between non-yielding and yielding properties. If a property couldn't carry itself, I generally had the wherewithal to carry it.
``If there's been any formula, it's that I always tried to buy land as close as possible to a growing town, and always on the water, and then hang on to it. That's the key.''
Bosher is an anomaly in an industry known for fast flips and quick turnovers. ``I've never been one for buying property and turning it over next week for a profit, or next month at a bigger profit, or next year at twice the profit,'' Bosher said. ``I just bought things I thought were good investments and were going to appreciate in value. Then I held on to it. That's the key.
``I think anyone can make a lot of money in real estate if you buy good property and hang on to it. But most people don't have the patience to be successful in real estate,'' he said.
Bosher's good fortune in real estate is all the more remarkable when you consider he didn't buy his first property until the comparatively advanced age of 36. Before that, he was the star salesman for the old Jefferson Standard Insurance Co.
Nearly 40 years after he stopped selling insurance, he remains one of the company's all-time leading producers. In fact, he was its No. 1 salesman for 10 straight years from 1947 to 1956, a record streak that's never been equaled.
He arrived in Virginia Beach as Jefferson's district sales manager in 1947 with his wife Christina and the first two of their four children.
``I guess there were about 5,000 people in Virginia Beach, and maybe 40,000 in the whole country,'' he said. ``I bought my first piece of property in 1952. I'd saved about $200,000 from the insurance business. That was a lot of money back then.
``The first thing I bought was a lot over there near the ocean, and built the Jefferson Apartments. The next year, I bought the 127-acre farm where the Holiday travel campground is now, and the year after that, I bought that property at Birdneck and Laskin.
``The word got around that I was buying land, and I guess at one time or another, I was offered every deal at the beach. I was offered Bird Neck Acres, Princess Anne Hills in the embryo stages, and it seems like everything else that was for sale.
``I passed on a lot of it, but for awhile there, I was buying up so much land, my wife and everybody thought I'd totally lost my mind.''
What asset does he value the most? Bosher doesn't hesitate to answer that question: ``My family.''
His family comprises Christine, his wife of 54 years, and four children: a son, Robert, a decorated Green Beret with 38 combat jumps in Vietnam, who runs the Holiday Travel Park; their older daughter, Christine Elizabeth `Kitty,' a California businesswoman; and the younger daughter, Virginia Wright Bosher, an ``up-and-coming international businesswomen.''
``When people ask me my new worth, I tell I'm worth over $5 billion,'' he said. ``They look at me funny, then I tell them I've go at wonderful wife and four great children, and I wouldn't take a billion dollars apiece for any of them.''
Looking back, Bosher has a simple explanation for his success. ``I never went looking for any deal. I all came to me.'' he said. ``If I liked a piece of property, and got the vision in my mind, I'd find a way to buy it.
``It just seemed that wherever I buy, change starts happening. An old friend told me once, `Pet, you're like a human divining rod. People ought to follow you around. Everywhere you go, the place starts to grow.' And I guess that's been the truth. I've been blessed, is all I know to tell you.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by L. TODD SPENCER
Pete Bosher in his back yard with Mike, his dog. He sums the secret
of his success ``in four letters: W-O-R-K.''
by CNB