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Tag: tips for buyers

7 Land Investment Trends to Watch

Trends in the land investment market are providing some interesting opportunities for investors… Land is finite. Like any finite resource, land becomes more valuable when it’s scarce. Land in desirable locations can command tremendous prices and provide excellent investment returns. By definition, land investors have a goal of making a profit by investing in land. But consider that land investors can have a variety of backgrounds and purposes, whether they may be individuals looking for property to build their dream home (and their nest egg), investors seeking a portfolio of parcels to land bank or real estate developers buying a…

Seven Land Buying Nightmares to Avoid

Whether you’re buying a lot or land either as an investment or if you want a site to build your new home, you know that land buying comes with its own set of pros and cons. In most cases, you’ll simply need to weigh your property needs against any drawbacks in order to reach a buying decision. However, keep your eyes open for these seven big land buying nightmares. Avoiding these nightmares when evaluating land for sale will both help your purchasing experience and can help ensure that your new residential lot is worth every penny that you spend. …

Use Real Estate Professionals: Tip #8 for Buying Residential Lots and Land

All of the 8 Tips for Buying Residential Lots & Land for a New Home play an important role in evaluating a lot or land for sale, but it’s possible that the single most significant tip is to make sure you are working with experienced, knowledgeable and helpful real estate professionals. The A-Team Successfully identifying and purchasing that “right” property often requires the help of professionals with whom you work very closely – like an agent, home builder and architect. These primary contacts for buying lots or land for a new home are your A-Team. Choosing a good A-Team can…

Research Title & Restrictions: Tip #7 for Buying Residential Lots and Land

In our last post on the 8 Tips for Buying Residential Lots & Land for a New Home we discussed roads and access, including easements that may benefit your land. Now we will shift our focus to title restrictions and other restrictions that may burden your land. Before buying a lot, you always should review the lot’s title and get owner’s title insurance. Reviewing “title” for a property typically includes an in-depth study of the parcel’s history through land records, maps, liens, legal documents and other facts on the public record that may affect a property. This may sound boring,…

Lots and Land Development: How do you know when the Market is Ready?

Land development tends to be one of the riskiest roles in the housing industry, so for land developers it is important to know that the market is ready for a new project to avoid taking on excessive risk. What are the tools or metrics that land developers can use to analyze housing markets and help them evaluate whether the market is ready for developing land into lots for new home projects? Risks of Land Development Land developers are at the front-end of new home construction. Land developers typically borrow and advance the funds that are needed for them to pay for…

Roads & Access: Tip #6 For Buying Lots and Land

Our journey through the 8 Tips for Buying Residential Lots and Land for a New Home continues with a look at the important Technical Due Diligence topic of roads and access. Access: Don’t Get Landlocked Landlocked. It’s a real estate term that describes land completely surrounded by property owned by other parties, impacting the owner’s ability to freely access the land. This Tip can help you better understand access issues so that you can avoid buying property that is landlocked – or otherwise has inadequate access rights – in the first place. Typically, lots for sale in newer residential communities…

Utilities & Infrastructure: Tip #5 for Buying Lots and Land

If you’ve been looking at residential lots for sale to find a site for your new home and you’ve found your community, evaluated builders, done computer research and checked out the property with a site visit, then it’s time to transition into the Technical Due Diligence stage. This post describes tips for evaluating infrastructure and utilities at the property, and is the first of several posts in this series to focus on Technical Due Diligence. If you’ve decided to put the property under contract (which can allow you to negotiate price, determine key terms and keep it from being sold…

The Site Visit: Tip #4 for Buying Lots and Land

When you’re buying a lot or land for your new home, the level of excitement builds when you think you may have found that “right” site. In Tip #3, our previous post about 8 Tips for Buying Residential Lots and Land for a New Home, we discussed due diligence, computer research and the Spaghetti Test as initial steps to eliminate properties that do not meet your requirements. Now we dig deeper into the due diligence process. The Site Visit So if you think you found property that might pass the Spaghetti Test, then you absolutely, positively have to do a…