Hi, I’m Beth with TB Properties Buys Land. Today, we’re going to answer the question, can I hire a realtor when working with TB Properties Buys Land to sell my bare land? First of all, always remember that this is your property and you can do whatever you want with it. Never ever feel pressured into a situation in which you do not feel comfortable.
With that said, just yesterday we had a realtor reach out to us who is representing land sellers, and she’s trying to see if we’ll buy the property. In addition to this, we’ve had multiple people that we’ve worked with who haven’t had success with their realtors and when the time has run up with their realtor, they find us and we’ve willing to buy the property from them.
Please remember that you can always do whatever you want with your property, but the question I’m going to ask you is: why would you want to hire a realtor and sell to TB Properties Buys Land? Just think about this: Realtors work on commission. When they’re selling a home, say a half million dollar home, they’re making 3% commission on their side, and they’re making a lot. That’s a lot of money because that percentage comes out of a higher dollar figure. When working with a vacant land, the sell price is traditionally a lot less expensive so they’re making a lot less commission on a sale.
Let’s assume you’re working with a realtor to sell your vacant land. Maybe your land is worth $10,000, $20,000 or even $50,000. Or maybe your land is really worth $100,000. It’s still not a lot of money when compared to selling a home. Due to this, when it comes to selling bare land, oftentimes realtors will charge 5% instead of the traditional 3%. That is 5% is on the listing fee, and then 5% to sell it. This means you may be losing about 10% when you’re selling your home through a realtor.
That may be something to consider. Another thing to think about is when you’ve got a realtor who’s used to selling homes, they’re going to put more time into selling a home than they will land. Think about this: most of the time a home is in a city, it’s close to where they live. They can get to it pretty easily. However, when you think about vacant land, that’s out in the boonies, right? It’s out of the city. It’s hard to get to. Maybe the roads going out to it aren’t super great.
Most people won’t go and check out land on their own because there is no address dedicated to the property yet and they don’t know how to use GPS coordinates and they can get intimidated trying to find exactly where the land begins and ends. You have to understand that there is a lot of hands-on work to selling land. With that said, there are some really good land realtors, but they tend to charge more money. They are the ones charging that 5% on each side because that’s what they make their money on.
The question is, why would you want to do that – why would you want to work with a realtor who will charge you high fees when you already have TB Properties Buys Land willing to buy your land for cash through a licensed Title Company?
When working with a company like TB Properties Buys Land, we are real estate investors. We purchase the property outright from you, and we buy with cash. What that means, is that we can close quickly. We are not waiting on a lender to run our credit, to see if the property appraisees. Lenders have to hire their own appraiser, and if it doesn’t work out, they won’t offer the money, and then we have to start all over, looking for a new lender… it can be tedious and waste a lot of time. Because a company like TB Properties Buys Land, pays in cash, we can close quickly.
Number two, we always close through title companies licensed to transact in the county where your property is located. If you’re looking for protection, the realtors not the one offering protection, it’s the title company who is offering the protection. We are still going to close through a title company. You just don’t have a realtor representing you. With regard to that, since you would not be working with a realtor, you would not be using their contract but would be using the contract provided by the land investor. That may be when you get concerned, when it comes to the contract.
Regarding the real estate contract: Is it long? Is it confusing? Are they trying to scam you? Is there fine print at the bottom that you’re not aware of?
This is precisely why TB Properties Buys Land has a very simple, understandable, one page purchase agreement.
We very clearly call out that we are paying for all closing costs, and we explicitly state what those are. Our contract states that we’re going to pay for the escrow fees. Those are the title company fees for both the buyer and the seller. We state that we’re going to pay for the title insurance. We state that we’ll pay for the recording fees that go to the county, and if there are transfer taxes, we pay those too. The only thing that we say that you as the seller would pay for are, if there are any liens against the property.
If you have a lien against your property, that’s when we say that you’re going to cover that. Most of the time people don’t have that, and that’s not a concern. For us, that clause is our one “cover your butt” clause that we have. I suppose you could call that our one and only “fine print.” We also list what that property is. We list the closing date. We say that we’re paying in cash and that you will not accept financing.
We make sure that all of that is quite explicit and clear. Again, our entire contract is just one page. It’s very simple, and you’re welcome to hire a real estate attorney if you want them to take a look at it, or a friend who’s a real estate attorney. But I think that once you see it you won’t feel the need to do that. Just remember that it is the title company that offers the protection: they check title from the very existence of that property, from the very beginning of time. They pull all of that. They let us know if there are any red flags, if there’s anything that you need to do to clear the chain of title. In addition to this, when it comes to funding the property, they require us to pay them, not to pay you directly.
The way this works is that once all closing documents go out, they require that we pay them with a cashier’s check, otherwise known as a bank check or they require a bank wire. They will not take a personal check or anything that’s not certified from a bank. Once they have the cash in their bank account and they have our paperwork, and they have your paperwork that’s been notarized, only then will they send you your sale proceeds and record the sale of the property with the county and have the title transferred to us.
Also note that the Title Company will directly reach out to you with the closing documents. They’re going to ask you, “Hey, do you want to check overnighted to you? Or would you like us to wire the funds directly into your account?” They’re going to have that communication with you spot on. That’s not going to come through us. That’s going to be directly from them so that you feel protected.
In addition to this, throughout the entire process, you’re welcome to call them and ask them any questions that you might have. That’s always there for transparency. Sorry for my long-winded answer to your question, but yes, you can absolutely hire a realtor to sell your property to TB Properties Buys Land. You can do whatever you want with your property, but we make selling your land so easy and so quick and so safe that I don’t see why you would want to spend some of your earnings on a realtor.
If you have any questions or I haven’t been clear, please feel free to reach out to us. We are happy to talk to you on the phone or over email or even through our website at www.tbpropertiesbuysland.com. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks again.