Beth:
Hi, I’m Beth with TB Properties Buys Land. Is now a good time to sell your rural vacant land?
This question obviously depends on the type of property you have, the location of your property… it could come down to state, county, even where you’re located within a county.
Even so, we are going to attempt to answer the larger question here. As many of you probably noticed, during COVID, we saw home prices as well as land prices skyrocket. In some parts of the country, it seemed like land values doubled almost overnight. When that happened, we considered it more of a bubble. Right now, if you’ve noticed in the housing market, we’ve seen that it’s starting to stabilize.
Home prices are starting to drop in many parts of the country, and they’re starting to stabilize to, in some places, pre-COVID levels or slightly above COVID levels. Land lags behind the housing market, and as such, we’re starting to see price stabilization in land as well. In addition, properties are sitting longer on the market. Interest rates are making it unappealing or in some cases, making it impossible for some to purchase at this time.
To reiterate, every property and every area is different, but this is what we’ve seen as a whole within the land niche of the real estate industry. It is a pattern. What does this mean for you as a land seller? Is now a good time to sell your property?
We cannot answer that question for you; only you can gauge your own situation and what your needs and desires are. I can tell you that here at TB Properties Buys Land, we are looking at properties in different areas of the country and we’re really trying to determine what the market will look like for vacant land properties in the next couple months, in the next six months and even over the next year. This transition stage in the market is really making us take careful consideration of our property valuations.
For the most part, we are not seeing property values at that really high level that we saw at the peak of COVID. We have seen some drop to more management levels and we are trying to accommodate for that. Again, as for you, the land seller, I cannot tell you what to do or make a recommendation. As a property owner you have to decide whether you want to hold onto your property. Do you think it will eventually increase in value over time? Do you think it’s going to start dropping more where you’re located? How badly do you need the money, or is it costing you to own your property? In some cases, it is. Whether you’ve got really high property taxes in your county or in your area, whether you’ve got to spend some money to prevent forest fires by getting someone out there to trim the brush and selectively cut some of the trees, you know what your property is costing you and you might have to look in your area to see what the values are looking like.
Still, even if your property value has dropped from peak COVID levels, chances are that your property is still valued higher than before COVID and you may still be profiting quite a bit than you would have, just 4 years ago.
In any case, we are preparing for real estate market stabilization and is not in any way advice. That’s not what this post is about, merely to let you know what we’ve been seeing. I hope that makes sense.
If you are interested in selling your vacant land property, here at TB Properties Buys Land, we purchase vacant land, 10 plus acres across the country. We pay in cash, which that means that we can close quickly through title companies. We close through title companies for your safety and security as well as ours. If you have questions, feel free to reach out to us across email, phone, or through our website. Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks again.