Anybody here sold land without a house on it?

59Willys

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We have a lot for sale with a local real estate agent but have not had any offers in 3 months. Priced at tax value - just wondering if there is anything else we can do other than sit here and wait. Anybody else have any ideas?
 
Selling open land is a tricky business, but ultimately it comes down to supply and demand. Everyone wants to get the best price possible for their property, and generally when people are talking to a real estate agent about how much their land is worth they are angling to set a price at the high end of what it's value might be. That's all well and good, but the flip side of asking a price toward the high end of the value scale is that you'll have fewer potential buyers. Assuming that your real estate agent is properly advertising the property, the surest way to attract more buyers is to lower your price. At this point you've already tested the waters somewhat, so it's time to make a decision about which aspect of the sale is more important to you; a quick sale or a high selling price.
 
#1 make sure you have a good agent
#2 make sure you have a good agent
#3 make sure you have a good agent

ee the D.O.M avg. for your area
And get your agent's D.O.M. if he/she isn't better then average (generally WAY) can them ASAP. Think about it. D.O.M. stats are skewed by suoer high end and bitchy owners who ridculous over price. They should always skew above QUALITY agents.

It doesnt matter how nice they are, if they arent pounding the streets you need a new one. Remember you are paying that agent (3,4,5,6? %)make sure they are earning it.
 
i dont know why i thought of this but some one down the road from me has a 1 acre lot for sale with a single wide on it and they want $330,000 for it. no joke
 
as said above, your broker may be the key. Have someone call in for you asking about land in the area where yours is. Have them be specific and ask for price. Broker may be asking a lot more than what you asked so he/she makes more. This will also give you an idea of how aggressive your broker is also.
My dad sold a small lot not long before he died. Broker did nothing for him. Dad went to the surrounding land owners and offered it to them. one give an offer, then the other did, and then the first topped the second ones offer. No more bids, and Dad sold it for more than he was wanting in the first place.
Just my experience
 
for those who don't know the TLAs

DOM = Days On Market


x2 what chip said.. Offering it surrounding land owners is always a good thing to try. They have a vested interest... Many people I know have expanded their property that way, even if its only a 1/2 acre etc..
 
It's priced competitively with other land in the area (western Rowan County), and 30k for 3.27 acres in a restricted development is not a bad deal. Neighborhood right down the road has lots 1 acre for $30k. Agent has put really good ads in the real estate guide.....we're kinda at a loss as to what to do. We bought it a year ago to build on, but every offer on the purchase of our current home has fallen through, not to anyone's fault - just weird circumstances. So now we have this lot that we need to get rid of. I put it on craigslist last night but no response so far.
 
As some of you might know I'm a Realtor in Charlotte and unfortunatley the obvious hasn't been pointed out yet and that is we are in a real estate downturn at the moment. I know the return comments will be but I know so and so who didn't have problems selling, but I can tell you from first hand experience from an office that does about 300 transactions a month that there is a real estate down trend and property is staying on the maket longer than normal and mainly due to the very real, real estate crunches in a lot of other areas around the country which supplied our many buyers. Also not to mention the mortgage meltdown with now tighter qualifications.
All this is cold comfort, I know, however if you have room to adjust, adjust down in small increments till you find the 'market' for your property.
Have you thought about approaching local home builders?, you know, the ones who will build just several houses per year ?(not talking abut national track builders now).....it maybe worth looking into.
 
That's not a bad idea. According to the deed restrictions, it can be subdivided 1 time.....so if a builder got two 1+acre lots for around 15k each, maybe someone would be interested.

Thanks for the advice - keep your fingers crossed
 
I an not trying to challenge you in any way, but I do 12 appraisals a week and probably 6 of 12 the sellers try to tell me what there property is worth. Too much word of mount from "a freind who had an appraisal done" or "I heard this lot down the street sold for....." Then when we come in and do our job which is research we find out that the freinds house is on the market for 20k below the "appraisal" which was not really done and it still has not seen a contract.....and the "lot down the street" is either still on the market or sold for considerably lower than what rumor stated. You need somebody that is an unbiased third party to research the sales surrounding your property to help you find the property expected sales price based on this market as well as what you should list for above the market value. We read the market every day and our job is to explain it to you in facts.

I do agree about bringing in a building, if not to sell to, but to list along with. Sometimes buyers need to see even a pencil sketch of a house that a builder comes up with as a marketing tool. He helps you sell the lot and then he is there to build a house for the buyer. Buyers sometimes like not having to go through the hassle of finding a builder once a site is bought. Also, if you have the builder set up and he sees an opening in his time, he may just want to buy the site and build a spec house.
 
Somewhat related so not a total hijack...........

How hard is the NC housing market getting hit? I am planning on flying out in Feb/March to look around - probably around Union County. Just curious. We have gotten hit pretty hard here in SoCal.
 
Budd said:
Somewhat related so not a total hijack...........
How hard is the NC housing market getting hit? I am planning on flying out in Feb/March to look around - probably around Union County. Just curious. We have gotten hit pretty hard here in SoCal.
Click to expand...

Answer: Not very in the Charlotte area, sure sales are slower than normal but considering we have never had wild spikes in property values like some parts of the country including I dare guess yours, we have weathered the downturn suprisingly well. Quote from the Charlotte Observer and some of there stats just a week or so ago indicate we still had positive increases in values to the tune of about 5 or 6% on average across the board, but sales have slowed thats for sure.
The right part of Union county is still a desirable place to live for a lot of people moving to the area.
 
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