Beth:
Hi, I’m Beth with TB Properties Buys Land, and this is part two of a discussion on selling bare land by yourself.
Do you need to have a realtor in order to sell your vacant land? If the property’s in your name, then no, you can sell it yourself as something called For Sale by Owner. As we discussed in the last video, people do this all the time. When it comes to trying to sell your land on your own, it’s really important to make sure that you have a good, clear title. If this is inherited land and the property is not in your name, it would behoove you to make sure that that is properly in your name and title is fixed. With the help of a good real estate attorney you would need to clear any potential clouds in the chain of title before you list your property. Otherwise, that could scare off some buyers, so I would get that fixed first of all.
Another thing that you want to check into is when was the last time the property was surveyed? How far back was that? A lot of land buyers are going to want to make sure there’s a current survey on file, that it’s up-to-date, and that the corners are flagged. A current survey is super important to potential buyers because for one, they know what they’re getting. It’s just a safer way for them to purchase the property. Two, a lot of title companies will require you to supply or pay for a survey of the property in order to close and provide title insurance on the transaction. And three, having those corners flagged in that survey process, it allows potential buyers to be able to walk your property and know exactly where that property lays. These are a couple of things that you may want to take care of early on.
When it comes to marketing your property, what’s going to sell you when it comes to buying a piece of land? It’s the pictures, it’s video, right? With that said, make sure if it’s you getting out there to take the pictures, that you get some really amazing pictures of your property. It helps if you can get drone footage. That way people can see an aerial view of the area. A video is always better, especially if you can give them a type of tour of your property. Regardless, good pictures are going to help sell your property. Do make sure if you can’t do that yourself, that you hire a good photographer in order to help you get those pictures out there.
As you can see, there are a lot of great ways to market your property. Last time we talked about putting it on the MLS. You don’t have to have a realtor to put it on the MLS. There are ways around that. Also, Facebook Marketplace is another place. Truly though, some of the best leads for land buyers will be found searching land websites where they specifically target land buyers. They tend to offer some of the best, most qualified leads but there’s a cost to that. It’s not cheap because there’s a really good source of leads, but oftentimes they will allow you to pay for a subscription for just one property on there. With this in mind, the question you’ve got to ask yourself is how long is it going to take you to sell your property and how many months will you need to pay for those subscriptions since it will certainly add up? Oftentimes, you’re looking at a couple different land sites in order to get your property out there.
When it comes to selling your property quickly, a multi-prong approach often works best. I would definitely recommend putting your property on the MLS. As I mentioned in the first video, also marketing in Facebook Marketplace is another potential way to sell your property. When listing on marketplace, as you can imagine, you’re going to get a lot of leads, but there’s going to be a lot that you have to weed through. Your best source of leads tend to come from the land-only subscription sites, and so those are great to list on as well. When listing on the MLS and the different land sites, there can be substantial cost and since it is a recurring cost depending on how long it takes to sell your property, you will want to check your budget on what you can afford and for how long before you finally sell the property and receive your payout. One thing to consider is that even though once you have located a buyer and your property is under contract to sell, it is often best to leave it on the market and keep your subscription going until the property finally sells and your transaction is funded. Buyers can disappear, funding can fall through, things can happen so until it is sold, it is not sold!
These are a just a few things to think about. In addition, understand that in the selling and marketing part of the process, you’re going to get a lot of questions. Like I said in the first video, make sure you’re prepared with answers before you list your property, because you don’t want to appear like you don’t know anything about the property. You want to be able to answer these questions swiftly and make sure that your answers are accurate. That is extremely important that your answers to their questions are accurate. You don’t want to come across as scammy. I know it’s your property and that you’re selling your own property, but people are always weary of scams, so they want to make sure that you’re going to close through a title company. They want to make sure that you’ve got a contract. They want to make sure that you answer the questions appropriately. They’re going to want to make sure that there’s a survey that’s recent, that all these check boxes are check-marked, because that way they feel safe and secure in buying property directly from you.
Again, like I mentioned last time, if you don’t want to go through that process, there is an easy and quick way to do sell your property. Here at TB Properties Buys Land, we are real estate investors, so we would buy your property for cash. We have a contract, so you don’t have to come up with that on your own. It’s a simple one-pager and we close through a title company. The process is simple: we would send you that contract and you take a look at. The contract is short and real simple: it tells you the date, how much we’re paying for it, that we’re covering all the closing costs. It spells out what those closing factors are, and that we are covering every single one of them. And it’s easy. Again, we go through title, we pay in cash. There’s no loans. We can close probably within three to four weeks nowadays through the title company.
But again, reach out to us if you have questions. You absolutely can sell your property on your own. It is an option. Just make sure that you have a plan, a budget and you may want to consider some of the information listed in this video and the first before marketing your property. If it’s been out there for a while and you’re not having any luck and you’re ready to sell it quickly, we’re here. I hope this answers some questions and helps you in the sale of your property. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks again.