Hi, I’m Beth, with TB Properties Buys Land. Do you have rural empty land that you’re ready to sell? Have you sat down and taken the time to calculate how much money you have to put into the land before you can actually even sell it? Maybe even market it? Yes, we talked about this last week. Last week, we dove into the discussion of the fact that you may have to take deductions from the proceeds of your land sale, but we also talked about how you may have to dump money into your property before you can even market it and sell it.
The first thing we talked about last week were the closing costs. We talked about title insurance and the title fees using a title company. One thing I didn’t bring up with regards to the title company is what if you have to clear the chain of title? If the land is already in your name, that’s easy enough; that’s a really clear cut and easy transaction. If you inherited this land, especially if there are multiple heirs to the property, it may require a real estate attorney to go and clear the chain of title in order to sell that property. When you’re involving an attorney, be sure to consider that it’s going to cost you some extra dollars. Make sure if that is a concern, you calculate that into your deductions from the proceeds of your sale.
One of the things we did talk about last week was the cost of a survey. Maybe you’re not interested in a survey, but maybe your buyer wants the property surveyed. Maybe the title company says, hey, this property hasn’t been a surveyed in so incredibly long that in order to insure this property for title insurance, we need a new survey out there. Most of the time that buyer is going to require the seller to pay for the survey to your land. Now we’ve seen it where we’ve paid as low as $1,500 for a survey, normally closer to $3,000, but for some larger properties, it could be tens of thousands of dollars. It just depends on the size and maybe even how long it’s been since you surveyed the property.
Now think about this: Have you thought about any issues that might come up when that property is surveyed? If the property hasn’t been surveyed in a long time, have you thought about if the survey finds that you have less acreage than you previously thought? What if this survey finds that your property is in a different shape? Maybe you don’t have access anymore. Maybe that pond or the well on your property, maybe some of these improvements are no longer on your property. I’m bringing this up because we have real life examples of this happening. Think about that. In addition to closing costs, there may be a survey cost to this and that could cost you in the end.
Another thing to calculate are improvement costs. Do you have to improve the property in order to sell it and make it marketable? This can be anything like getting somebody out there with a brush hog and cleaning it up so that somebody can just park on the land in order to see it. What does the road look like out there? Can somebody actually drive the property? Do you need to go ahead and dump some gravel so that people can actually get to the property? Do you need to have some signs out there so people can find it? Does the property have a road? Maybe you only have a legal easement, but there’s no physical road to the property. Do you think people are going to want to buy your property if you don’t have a physical road to the property? Maybe you have to go ahead and get a quote and put money into improving your property, which means putting a road in. How much is that going to cost you? Are there permits involved in that?
What about the trees out there? Has there been a forest fire recently? Are there a bunch of dead trees that are making the property look ugly? Do you need to clean those up? Is your property at risk of a fire? Do you need to have somebody thin out the timber so that your property isn’t at risk? These are all things to consider when it comes to selling your property, specifically the improvement costs.
We’ve seen some vacant lots in which there’s dumped cars, there’s dumped trash. Sometimes when you haven’t used the property in a long time people begin to set up camp and use it. Do you have any squatters on the land? These are all things to think about. These are potential investments that you’re going to have to make into the property before you’re maybe able to even market it and sell it.
If you’re looking for top dollar, these are things that you might have to do. If you’re not interested in all of these improvements and upgrades and spending money in advance before even having someone bid on your property and think about purchasing it, there are easier ways to sell your property. Working with a land investor, like TB Properties Buys Land, this is what we do every day. We buy property all the time, so we know what to look for. We can easily give you a quote. We know what it’s going to take to improve the property before it sells. We’re okay with that. If you’re looking for a quick transaction where you can close as fast as two to three weeks, if the title company’s taking longer, maybe it’s closer to a month, give us a call. If you’re looking for a cash transaction where we’re going to write a check and we don’t have to worry about getting funding from a lender and you can get a check or you can have the money wired to your bank from the title company, give us a call, shoot us an email, or find us on our website.
It’s a very easy transaction working with a reputable land investor, like TB Properties Buys Land. We’re happy to work with you. In this way there’s no money that you have to put upfront in order to upgrade your property. You don’t have to worry about closing fees. We cover all of that. The money that we quote you is exactly what you’re going to walk away with. There’s no calculations that you have to do.
Again, thank you for listening in, and we’ll talk more about this next time. Thanks.