Wholesaling Land

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Just wondering if anybody ever wholesales raw land/acreage? If so, what's your best source for finding it and what are some strategies used?

Thanks,
Knees

Comments(8)

  • JeffAdams26th January, 2004

    I personally don't wholesale, but a good
    friend of mine does. He buys from owners out of the newspaper. He also
    finds out from the tax assessors office who the owners are. He then contacts them and purchases at a discount. He
    then flips to developers. He recently tied up 10 acres for 1.5 million worth 2 million and flipped to a developer as is for $60k. Not bad for one months work!

    Another thing he does is buy raw land,
    get all his surveys done and permits to
    build track houses, which takes about
    a year and sells it to developers also.

    You might want to check this out.

    Best Riches,
    Jeffrey Adam
    [addsig]

  • omega126th January, 2004

    Always wondered how do you appraise the land if there is no recent or similar land sold to form the right comps in the aria.. for example type of land Jeff just mentioned above?

    How do you know that the 1.5 mill land is worth 2 mill?

  • JeffAdams27th January, 2004

    You estimate how many lots you can squeeze into the parcel you are dividing.
    Then you find out what lots go for in that area. If it all pencils, then you speculatively go for it!

    This means going to the city and seeing what the curb and gutter requirements are etc...

    Believe me, I have heard horror stories where the city has required the developer to pay for things you would never imagine.

    This is not my specialty, however a friend of mine in making a killing at it.

    What my friend does first is tie up the land and then he finds a buyer. If he cant find a buyer, then he cancels the deal.

    Jeff

    _________________
    "The only place success comes before work
    is in the dictionary."[ Edited by JeffreyAdam on Date 01/27/2004 ]

  • InActive_Account27th January, 2004

    jefferyadam,
    thanks for the information. my company is going to srart buying raw land in rural maryland. happy investing.

    [addsig]

  • omega127th January, 2004

    Jeff, the name of the game appears to be lot of speculation and then tying up various deals with non of your real money involved.

    If and when your speculation proves to be OK, you'll make some good money selling option to builders but if it isn't, you did waste some time but that's OK because the efort will evantualy be paid off. That's this business pitfal, but the land, the land will be sold the next time around, probably around 2010.
    ---------------------------------------------------------


    Siddeeq1424,

    It's great you letting us know that your company is going to start buying the row land. However, in the mean time maybe you can check the site's policy banning "screaming" posts (capital letters) such you’ve used in your signature.

    People do read posts and if you have something interesting to say in your signature, it will be read more often if it was not written in caps.
    [ Edited by omega1 on Date 01/27/2004 ]

  • knees27th January, 2004

    Thanks for the replies, but what I'm talking about when I say raw land is more like 500-1000 acres in the country, breaking it up into 20's, 40's and 80's and then selling those for half again or sometimes twice as much per acre. I know of a few men in my area that have done this and been extremely successful (especially when they owner finance) but they all had tons of money to begin with so their cash bargaining chip was strong.

  • InActive_Account27th January, 2004

    There is an appriasal method for valuing land that does not have any comparables. Any good appraiser would be able to do an analysis for you.

  • NancyChadwick27th January, 2004

    Some comments on some of the posts here....

    There are several ways of valuing residential land. When appraisers do appraisals, for all practical purposes they are required (among other things) to use sales of comparable parcels. Developers and builders don't use appraisals in order to come up with a number that they're willing to pay for the property. They use a combination of quick engineering, gut, and ballparking to estimate yield and improvement costs. The raw value of the land depends on what can be done with it, not how many acres it consists of.

    Generally, in PA those who want to buy land do fully-contingent deals and: 1. flip; or 2. subdivide, close on it, install improvements and sell finished lots; or 3. subdivide, close on it, put in improvements and build it out. Those who don't buy fully-contingent (land bankers) substantially discount offer price to compensate for closing faster and assuming much more risk.

    It's unusual in PA for buyers to purchase 500-1,000 AC (unless they're doing it gradually through assemblage). However, whether you're buying 500 AC or 50 AC, the value of the land is going to depend on getting answers to those Five Critical Questions: what can I build.. how many can I build..what can I sell them for.. how long will it take to sell them.. what are the costs. The value of the land won't be X$ per AC; the value's going to be X$ per lot for the number of lots that the municipality grants subdivision approval of.

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