SpaceX offered $150,000 for a waterfront home next to its launch facilities, but its owner says that's one-third of the price of similar properties: report

Kate Duffy
Updated ·2 min read
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  • SpaceX offered $150,000 for a home next to its launch facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, per NBC News.

  • The offer was one-third of the price of similar waterfront houses in the village, the owner said.

  • She told NBC that an agent representing SpaceX said her property could be seized by the state.

A resident of a South Texas village told NBC News that SpaceX wanted to buy her house for $150,000 but that the company's offer was one-third of the price of similar properties nearby.

SpaceX is building its Starbase city in Boca Chica, where the company has launched its Falcon 9 rockets and Starship prototypes.

Some residents have said SpaceX made offers for their homes that they considered unfair or were too low to buy similar homes elsewhere. The Wall Street Journal reported in May that SpaceX had bought at least 112 parcels of land in the area.

Celia Johnson, a retiree who owns a three-bedroom waterfront ranch in Boca Chica, told NBC News that she held out on SpaceX's offer because it was too low, based on the prices of lower-quality properties in the area.

Johnson said a similar waterfront house near her home would cost about three times as much as SpaceX's offer.

Zillow, a real-estate marketplace, says on its website that the typical value of a home in Boca Chica is about $120,700 and that property prices have increased by about 22.3% over the past year. In South Padre Island, across the bay from Boca Chica, the typical home value is $349,200, according to Zillow.

Listings on Zillow and Trulia indicate that some homes in Brownsville, the nearest town to Boca Chica, are selling for $750,000 and beyond.

Johnson and Maria Pointer, another Boca Chica resident, told NBC News that a real-estate agent representing Elon Musk's company had told them their properties could be seized by the state under eminent domain.

SpaceX didn't immediately reply to Insider's request for comment.

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