The NYC real estate mogul is revitalizing small towns in the New Mexico desert
A New York real estate investor is breathing new life into small desert towns hundreds of miles from Gotham. James Prendamano is now willing to invest $55 million in a small county in New Mexico’s southern desert, with a population of less than 12,000 people.
Prendamano says Realtor.com® that he was extremely impressed by the fact that the small county has its own province copper mine and is home Spaceport America—the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport designed for private spaceflight, research and testing.
The founder and CEO of PreReal Investments began buying property in the province in 2022 and has snapped up more than 1,500 parcels in the past three years.
Prendamano had turned his attention away from New York real estate because he was uncomfortable with the state’s legislative climate and over-regulation. “It’s something you can’t really control, and it took some of the fun out of it,” he says. “It became a brutal undertaking.”
He says he and his business partner… David Bermanlooked at many different places to invest across the country. “We wanted to do something impactful, that was at the top of the list,” he says. “Something that would be on the legacy side, if you will.”
Evolution of an investment
Berman had acquired a 500-acre parcel in Sierra County 18 years ago when Spaceport was announced. “It was just a hedge, like, ‘Hey, you know, put a couple bucks in there. We know these things take forever, but let’s just look at it,’” Prendamano says. “So it’s been on the radar.”
Although they own real estate in many states, Sierra County stood out for Prendamano, who knows when to trust his gut after nearly three decades in the business.
“I’ve been in real estate all my life,” Prendamano says. “My mother was a real estate agent and broker – a single mother with a busy job – and it made sense for me to get involved because I had a solid foundation.”
Prendamano started as a real estate agent but quickly became a forwarder, loan officer and home improvement contractor. “I’ve always had a curious mind,” he says. “I wanted to understand the full scope of the deal, what could present obstacles for my clients and how to overcome them.”
From there, he says it was a natural progression to want to be on the other side of the table as an investor, and he now oversees more than $1 billion in transactional real estate.
Why Sierra County?
In the midst of the pandemic, Prendamano saw Sierra County as an incredible investment opportunity.
“In 2022, space exploration started taking off, and they have a spaceport in the province with technology that can’t be found anywhere else in the world,” he says. “Copper Flat Mine would soon bring 1,200 jobs to the area. You can’t build a more sustainable network or run quantum computing without copper. We also knew that with AI centers, copper would be huge.”
Sierra County’s central location also impressed him.
“Because people wanted to slow down and connect in nature, that’s hard to do in big cities,” Prendamano says. “Albuquerque is a big market and El Paso is a big market, and we’re right in the middle of it.”
The fact that the province stretches along a 64 kilometer lake, is at an altitude of 1,400 meters and has temperate weather were also big selling points. “It’s not those crazy temperatures you see in the Texas or Arizona basins,” Prendamano says.
As an outdoor enthusiast, Prendamano appreciated the region’s activities of stargazing, fishing, parasailing and boating. “I was like a kid in a candy store,” he says. “It also has famous hot springs, a national forest and a vibrant arts scene.”
Those are just a few of the many reasons why Sierra County attracts 1.5 million visitors a year, “and people have been going there in some cases for generations,” Prendamano adds.
Revitalizing the area
After Prendamano and his partner visited local towns like Truth or Consequences and Elephant Butte in 2022 to get boots on the ground, they quickly decided to get in before the hype started. “We wanted to get there early and lay the groundwork,” he says.
PreReal purchased and renovated the area’s golf course, golf course and clubhouse and renamed it Turtleback Mountain Golf & Resort. “We shut it down for almost a year,” Prendamano says. “You name it, we did it.”
Subdivisions are also being built in the Turtleback development. They now sell three-bedroom, two- to three-bath homes starting at $439,000.
Elsewhere in the community, PreReal purchased 50 homes that were in total disrepair. “The instructions we gave to our [agents] “We have never competed with a local resident or anyone looking to move here, but let’s buy some eyesores and fix them up and then put them back on the market so we can have a better housing stock,” Prendamano recalled.
Community involvement
Prendamano says he spent hours talking to people and working with the community. “We wanted to connect with people and they played a very active and vocal role,” he says.
“They said we need better stores, we bought a mall. They said we need better hotels, we bought hotels. We want to increase the quality of life across the board.”
He says he has also worked with city officials, mayors, city council members and even the governor. “Across the board there is a shared vision of what the bigger picture looks like,” he said.
Some locals are wary of the changes, but Prendamano says it comes with the territory.
“There will always be opponents,” he says. “You’re trying to please everyone, you’re not trying to please anyone.”
Raising hope
Prendamano says this project is the highlight of his career.
“Empowering people, creating change, providing an experience that people here deserve, that’s what it’s all about,” he says. “We give people those paths, and we have fun with it. We want to create hope for children again.”
Prendamano, who plans to retire to Summit County one day, wants to be a steward of change.
He says, “We’ve made a mess of this world, you know. I’ve got two kids, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to help solve the problem.”
