Hi. I’m Beth with TB Properties Buys Land. Today, I’m going to address a question that we get from time to time, which is: “What exactly is a cash transaction when I’m trying to sell my rural vacant land?” Before I address that question today, I thought I would just take a step back and discuss why people are asking that question.
Perhaps you went to Google and typed in “how do I sell my rural vacant land?” or even, “How do I sell my land?” or “How do I sell my inherited land?” or whatever it is that you’re searching for. Or maybe you even got a letter in the mail saying that someone’s willing to buy your land for cash. What does that mean to buy your land for cash? Does that mean that you’re going to meet up and shake hands and someone’s going to have a bag of cash to give you? I know you’re not thinking that, but you’re asking what does that mean in terms of cash.
Does “paying in cash” mean they’re paying with a personal check? What kind of safety measures are in place to make sure that you aren’t swindled and everything is on the up and up? I mean, personal checks CAN bounce!
What TB Properties Buys Land means, when we state on our website that we are going to pay cash for your rural vacant land, is that you’re going to be paid in cash, and that you will get funds that are available right away by means of bank wire or cashier’s (bank certified) check. Today, cash can indeed mean bundles of hundred dollar bills but it can also mean a cashier’s check, like a bank check, which are certified funds that are available and will not bounce. You don’t have to worry about the check bouncing or anything like that when you receive a bank certified check coming in from the Title Company. You’re getting cash that’s immediately available. It’s certified. And you don’t have to wait on a loan.
A lot of times when people are trying to buy a house or they’re buying land, they might need a loan for that, especially if you’re listing this on the MLS. You list on the MLS, you’re looking for top dollar, but potential buyers may not have cash to buy that land from you so they’ve got to go and apply for a bank loan. Today, especially in COVID times and even before then, trying to get a loan from a bank for dirt, i.e., your vacant land, it’s hard. With a home, if somebody doesn’t pay their bills, that bank can take that home back and they can resell it. It’s easy for them. There is already a value, they’ve got an appraiser that can get out there. But for land, it’s different. They don’t really know what they’re lending money on and so a lot of banks will just say no to lending on vacant land.
Those people who are buying your property have fewer resources in which to find funds in order to buy your property. If someone’s paying in cash, that’s great because it can close faster. Title companies don’t need to wait on the lender. They don’t need to wait on appraisers and that sort of thing. They can close, in some areas, as fast as two weeks. Some are a little bit slower in terms of the title companies. Three, four weeks, that kind of thing. But if you’re looking, if you’re needing a lender, the very fastest you’re going to be able to close is 30 days, and today, what we’re seeing, if someone needs a lender, we’re seeing more like 60 to 90 day. That’s if that lender does approve and it funds and things go through.
This is a long explanation to a short little question and that question was “what does it mean when I’m selling my rural vacant land for cash?” The answer to that is that cash is going to be money that is available quickly. That’s going to be in the form of a cashier’s check or wired funds. The way that we work at TB Properties Buys Land is that we buy through a Title Company. In doing so, funds are guaranteed and both sides are protected.
We send our cash to the title company. They receive those certified funds and they release those to you as the seller once all the paperwork is signed and everything goes through. It means a safe transaction for both parties. It means that you, as the seller, get cash quickly. You’re not waiting on a lender. You’re not waiting on the MLS for 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 months. It means that you don’t have to wait on a lender and appraiser, and then cross your fingers that it all actually goes through and they don’t have to look for a new lender. In any case, I hope this answered your question and I appreciate you listening to us. If you have any further questions, please check us out on our website, www.tbpropertiesbuysland.com. We hope to hear from you soon. Thanks.