Hi, I’m Beth with TB Properties buys Land. Today we’re going to discuss some characteristics that you may want to consider when you’re looking for a realtor to represent you in the sale of your rural vacant land. When it comes to selling vacant land, it’s very different than actually selling a house, and so your selection of a realtor will have to be different as well if you want to be successful.
To begin, one of the things that you may or may not know is that when you are selling a home, there tends to be a 6% split on the sales price of your land. This is the commission paid to the realtor or realtors assisting in the buying and selling of the home. The two realtors each representing the buyer and the seller will be paid 3% of the sales price of the home. When it comes to vacant land, the split tends to be 10%. Why is that? It’s because selling land is a lot more complicated and difficult than it is selling a house, but also we must consider that land doesn’t cost as much as a house generally so the amount the realtor would make is much lower.
For example, your piece of land might be $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 and if that is the case, 3% for each realtor is not much for the work they would have to put into selling your property but your home might be $200,000, $500,000, or even $800,000, and 3% is a lot more favorable commission for their work they put into selling the property. With that said, 10% of the sale price of your land is the general split for land sales but the question is… are they earning it? Here are a couple of things that you might want to look for when it comes to selecting a realtor to assist you in selling your land.
One, you want to ask a potential realtor if they exclusively sell land or do they do homes as well. You may want to consider that if they’re going to make more money selling a house, how much effort are they going to put into trying to market your land? That is something that I would want to find out for sure. Is this something that they do on a regular basis? How often and what percentage of their portfolio is from land sales?
Another question that you might want to find out is how long have they been doing this for? If they’ve been doing this for a while, they have probably built up a great buyer’s list. This is a list of people who are actively looking to purchase land. With a good buyer’s list they can send out that new listing to all of their potential buyers and possibly sell your property more quickly. If they haven’t been doing this for a long time and if they don’t have a good buyer’s list, your property could be sitting on the market for a long time, especially now that we’re seeing the market stabilize and we’re seeing prices are dropping as bank rates going up. It’s just a slowing down of the market. I’m not telling you that the market is falling apart or that you’re not going to be able to sell your property, but it may not sell as quickly as we were seeing before. As such, that may be a really important question to ask your potential real estate agent.
Another thing for you to look into is their past listings and to find out what are their pictures look like. Do they have video? Houses are easy: you can take pictures and get an idea of what the house looks like. Land is more difficult. If you’ve got 10 acres, 20 acres, 80 acres or more, it’s hard to get a feel for what the property looks like without a video. If they don’t have a good video, if they don’t have professional pictures, how are potential buyers going to be able to get a feel for what that property is going to look like? Are they going to gloss over your property and go someplace else, or are they going to say, “Hey, I want to get out there and visit this property?”
When it comes to vacant land, let’s think about this: a lot of times it’s not in the city. It is out of area. When that is the case, it may be a big deal for the realtor to get in their car and drive down the bumpy country roads, through the mountains or the forest or wherever it is to get to your property. Are they willing to do that? Do they have a four-wheel drive vehicle? Are they willing to meet potential buyers out there and tour them through the property? Are they going to be dressed up in a blazer and heels, or will they have their hiking boots and their four wheeler attached to their pickup truck, ready to take potential buyers on a full tour?
Another question is, do they market everywhere? Are they just simply putting this on the MLS where a couple people are going to find this on Zillow, or are they listing their land properties on some of the big land websites where land buyers are looking?
As you may have noticed, selling land is very different than selling a home, and as such, you have to have the right real estate agent in order to market your property and be able to sell it quickly and for the best price available. It takes time and it’s not cheap to do. Consider and plan that the realtors’ commission will be a 10% split of the total sell price for all of the work they will put into marketing and selling your property.
Now, there is an easier, faster way for you to sell if you don’t want to deal with the real estate and await the time your property may sit on the market. Or maybe you have already tried to use a realtor and it hasn’t sold. Maybe you’re not happy with how they’ve marketed (or not marketed) your property. There is a fast way for you to sell your property on your own without a realtor. You can sell directly to a real estate investor. That’s us: TB Properties Buys Land. We pay in cash, which means we don’t have to waste time seeking a loan. We don’t have to wait for an appraiser to get out there and check the property out. We don’t have to wait for a lender to approve a loan. We have cash and we close through a title company, paying all closing costs.
How about you try us? Please feel free to reach out to us. We will make you a cash offer. We pay for all closing costs. That includes the title fees, the title insurance, the escrow fees of the title company, any kind of recording fees, the county, or if there’s any excise taxes or sales tax that goes through that. We cover that. We make it easy. You can close in three to four weeks and you’re done. You don’t have to do any research on realtors and that sort of thing. We’re happy to work with you, and we wish you good luck on your land sale. Thanks again.