Three Ways to Sell Your Land in 2021
In this article, one of our members walks you through your options.
My name is Jason and I am an experienced land investor. I wanted to share with you about how to sell your vacant land this year. First, what do I mean by vacant land? When most of us think of real estate, we think of houses and commercial buildings malls and skyscrapers that sort of thing. Land is often in a category of its own. The land I’m referring to in this article could be an empty lot that you bought to possibly build a future home on and then your plans changed or could be a few acres that you inherited in a Faraway place or another state that you don’t get to very often.
Your lot could be a camping site by a lake lot or maybe a hunting property, whatever it is for whatever reason you simply don’t need it or want it anymore.
Now the real kicker with only a piece of land like this is that whether you use it or not, it costs you money every year in property taxes. That’s right, year in and year out, you pay money just to own the land and you might say, ‘I know that that’s why I’m reading this article,’ but what you might not know is that in some states if you get behind even just a couple of years on your property tax payments, the state in the county that the properties in has the right to auction the property off! Often times for pennies on the dollar to try to recover their back taxes. This is completely legal crazy, right!
So how do I sell my unwanted piece of vacant land? In this article, I want to share with you three ways that you can sell your land, along with the pros and cons of each of these ways. The first way and, most well known, is to list your land with a realtor or broker. You might say, ‘I already knew that.’ That’s the same way we would do with a house — it’s probably the most common way to do it but let’s take a minute and look at the pros and cons. The pros of listing your property, your vacant land, with a realtor is that they take care of all the paperwork. They have the purchase agreements, the offer contracts, and they show it to the potential buyers for you. You don’t have to take time out of your day to go meet people and walk them around this property. Another pro of listing your land with a realtor is that they’re going to try and get the best market price for your land the best price in the market because they earn their profits off the commission of the sale.
Now let’s consider the cons: Most Realtors don’t want to mess around with a low price piece of land. *Remember realtors make their profits off commissions so if you are a realtor, would you rather list a $300,000 house or $30,000 piece of land? Quite obvious right?! Another issue is that most Realtors don’t know how to Market land! If someone does finally accept to take the listing, they usually don’t want to put the effort or time into it or don’t really know how to market land. Also, Banks rarely give loans for land. It can easily take one to three years on the market to try to get an offer on your property. That’s a long time to wait, even after you get a signed offer, the closing could take several months. Another consideration is that you’re going to pay a significant portion of your profits to the Realtors in the form of commission. Then you have the closing and transaction costs.
What if you just try to sell the land yourself? The pros are that you can go out and you can get a for sale by owner sign at your local hardware store and you can put it on the side of the road. Put it right in front of your property —if your property has road access. Then you can go online and list it on a few local websites and you might be able to generate interest and find a buyer. Great! One of the pros about this way to sell your land is that you won’t have to pay realtor commissions so you’ll actually put more money in your pocket by selling it yourself. So then, are they any cons? Well, it is really just how much you value your time and efforts. So, you’re going to need to invest a significant amount of time in creating a marketing package, you’re probably going to need to get some good photographs of the property, maybe hire a drone pilot to take some aerial photos. You’re going to need to find the County plat maps in GIS maps to show where the property lines are two potential buyers and then you’re going to need to talk to the potential borrowers. And that is when they call you on the phone– all hours of the day. Or they send you dozens of emails. Many of them are going to want you to meet them at the property. Many of them are going to want you to walk them around to the four corners of the property and show them the attributes are the legal documents yourself in order to complete the sale. And the sale closing could take several months of your time while you do this process.
A land investor is a person like myself that buys and sells land. This is by far the easiest way to get cash for your land and the fastest way to sell your property.
Now, there is a third way to sell your property: This is probably the least known way to sell land. What if you sell your land to a property investor like myself. A land investor is a person like myself that buys and sells land. This is by far the easiest way to get cash for your land and the fastest way to sell your property. Now, let me be clear here! A land investor is not going to pay you full market value for your property. Remember what was written about the average time on the market for land. Land can sit on the market oftentimes for one to three years. Just to try to get an offer at that market price, a land investor is either going to hold on to the land for multiple years in hopes that the value of the land increases or he’s going to try to sell it to another investor, or maybe a connection that he has. So, in order to make a profit, land investors are not going to give you a full market price. But, there are some advantages of selling to a land investor:
What they will do is they will give you an offer in cash, a solid cash offer. There’s not going to be any bank or financing contingencies. You don’t have to worry about blowing up the contract several months into the deal. The other thing is that they will pay any back taxes that are old on your land, out of their pocket. You won’t have to pay them out of yours! Another thing is that they’ll pay for all of your closing costs so you don’t have to worry about that either. A land investor removes the middleman because they work directly with you, the owner of the property. No commissions and no hidden fees. In conclusion, the final benefit, and probably the most sought-after thing, is that land investors can close a sale very quickly and smoothly — within a matter of weeks rather than months. You can have cash in your hand for your property.
If you have a piece of land that you would like to sell this year, I hope that this article helped you make an informed decision about how to go about selling your property.The three options given above. If you think that third option is a fit for you and you say, ‘Jason, I really want to get this property sold fast,’ ‘I don’t want to wait around,’ ‘I don’t have the time to do it myself,’
Then I would encourage you to click the button below this article to get connected to our network of vetted investors. We will get a cash offer a real cash offer for your land within 24 hours!
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