A New York real estate investor is revitalizing small desert towns hundreds of miles from Gotham. James Prendamano is now ready to invest $55 million in a small county in the southern New Mexico desert with a population of less than 12,000 people.
Prendamano tells Realtor.com® that he was massively impressed by the fact that the tiny county has its own copper mine and is home to 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 county in 2022—snapping up more than 1,500 parcels in the last three years.
Prendamano had turned his attention away from New York real estate because he became uncomfortable with the legislative climate and overregulation in the state. “It’s something you can’t really control, and it took some of the fun out of it,” he says. “It became an unrelenting endeavor.”
He says he and his business partner, David Berman, looked at a lot of different places to invest across the country. “We wanted to do something impactful—that was 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 200-acre parcel in Sierra County 18 years ago when Spaceport was announced. “It was just a hedge—like, ‘Hey, you know, put a couple of bucks out there—we know these things take forever, but let’s just watch it,'” says Prendamano. “So it’s been on the radar.”
Although they have real estate holdings in many states, Sierra County stood out to Prendamano, who knows when to trust his gut after nearly three decades in the business.
“I’ve been around real estate my whole life,” says Prendamano. “My mom was a real estate agent and broker—a single mom on the hustle—and it made sense for me to get involved, having that solid foundation.”
Prendamano started as a real estate agent but soon became an expeditor, loan officer, and home improvement contractor. “I’ve always had a curious mind,” he says. “I wanted to understand the full breadth of the deal, what could create obstacles for my clients, and how you solve 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’s now overseen 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 had started to ramp up, and they have a spaceport in the county 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 grid or do quantum computing without the copper. We also knew with AI centers, copper would be huge.”
Sierra County’s central location also impressed him.
“Because people wanted to slow it down a bit and they wanted to connect in nature, it’s hard to do that in big cities,” says Prendamano. “Albuquerque’s a big market and El Paso’s a big market, and we’re right in the middle.”
The fact that the county stretches along a 40-mile lake, is positioned at an elevation of 4,400 feet, and experiences temperate weather were also big selling points. “It’s not those crazy temperatures you see down in the basins of Texas or in Arizona,” says Prendamano.
As an outdoor enthusiast, Prendamano valued the region’s stargazing, fishing, parasailing, and boating activities. “I was like a kid in a candy store,” he says. “It also has a renowned hot springs, a national forest, and a vibrant art scene.”
Those are just some of the many reasons that Sierra County attracts 1.5 million visitors a year, “and people have been going there in some cases for generations,” adds Prendamano.
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 soon decided to get in before the hype starts. “We wanted to get in early and lay the groundwork,” he says.
PreReal bought and renovated the area’s golf course, golf range, and clubhouse, and renamed it Turtleback Mountain Golf & Resort. “We shut it down for almost a year,” says Prendamano. “You name it, we did it.”
Subdivisions are also being built in the Turtleback development. They are now selling three-bedroom homes with two to three bathrooms, starting at $439,000.
Elsewhere in the community, PreReal purchased 50 homes that were in total disrepair. “The instructions we gave to our [agents] were never compete with a local or someone who’s looking to relocate here, but let’s buy some eyesores and fix them up, then put then back on the market so we can have better housing stock,” Prendamano recalls.
Community involvement
Prendamano says he has spent hours and hours talking to people and interacting with the community. “We wanted to engage with folks and they played a very active and vocal role,” he says.
“They said we need better retail, we bought a shopping center. They said we need better hotels, we bought hotels. We want to raise quality of life across the board.”
He says he’s also worked with city officials, mayors, city council members, and even the governor. “Across the board, there’s a shared vision of what the bigger picture looks like,” he said.
Some locals have been wary of the changes, but Prendamano says that comes with the territory.
“There’s always going to be some naysayers,” he says. “You try to please everyone, you please nobody.”
Instilling hope
Prendamano says this project is the pinnacle of his career.
“Empowering people, creating change, delivering on an experience that people out here deserve—that’s what it’s all about,” he says. “We’re giving people those pathways, and we’re having fun with it. We want to create hope for kids again.”
Prendamano, who plans to retire in Summit County someday, wants to be a steward of change.
He says, “We made a mess of this world, you know. I have two kids, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to help try and fix it.”
