It used to be that plentiful timberland and best-in-class wildlife lured out-of-state buyers to Alabama. Today, however, two new drivers are propelling the market: Alabama’s property taxes (which happen to be the second lowest in the country) and its regulatory environment. Both have stoked sales at Cyprus Partners.

“I get questions about those two topics 10, 12 times a week,” Tom Brickman told me as we watched the SEC baseball tournament, which was held in Hoover, Alabama.

“I’m getting calls almost every week from curious buyers from California, Illinois, New York and, believe it or not, Florida,” Tom added. One striking attribute to these callers: They are all cash buyers. “Our firm has closed $55 million in deals recently, and maybe a million of that was financed.”

$55 million. That’s stringing along some nice base hits.