How To Sell Land Fast: The Ultimate Guide
Photo by Sell Land
Originally Posted On: https://www.sellland.com/sell-land-fast-guide/
If you’re considering selling your land, you might be wondering if the land real estate market is as hot as the housing market right now. It’s important to understand that there are some major differences between the land market and the housing market.
In certain regions of the US there does appear to be rising demand for land since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. But it still typically takes longer to sell raw land than it does to sell a property with a move-in-ready house on it. Land is inherently more illiquid because its not as useful as a house which someone can live in or rent out. It is also not nearly as easy for buyers to obtain bank financing for land as it is for a house. This reduces the overall buyer pool and the price most buyers can pay for a property.
If you want to overcome these factors you’ll need to learn how to sell land fast. Let’s take a look at what you need to know.
How to Sell Land Fast
The process of selling a piece of real estate is rarely very fun. If you go the traditional route, there’s a bunch of work you have to do before you list the property. Then, when it finally goes on the market, it can sit there for a long time before anyone ends up finally purchasing it. Just look at any county in the US and you’ll find several land listings that have been on the market for well over a year.
Whether you’re selling land by owner or teaming up with a real estate agent, there are a lot of things you can do to help push the process forward. Here are some of the things you can do to make sure that your land sells as quickly as possible.
Get the Price Right
The cost of an acre of land can vary widely depending on a number of factors. These include its use, its location, and its attributes and improvements. In the cheapest state to buy land in the contiguous U.S., Wyoming, an acre costs $1,558 on average, while the average cost of an acre of land in New Jersey is a whopping $196,410.
If you’re trying to sell land fast, getting the price right will be an essential step. Finding the sweet spot between too high or a price and too low of a price can be incredibly difficult whether you are selling a home or a piece of raw land. On the one hand, you don’t want to scare away potential buyers with a price that’s too high, but you also don’t want to leave money on the table if you price it too low.
If you’re really in a hurry to sell your land, you might consider listing it for below market value. Only you can make this decision. However, some land sellers might decide that it’s more important to them to offload the land than it is to squeeze every possible penny out of the deal. Especially if they have a better use for the money than having it tied up in a property that is just sitting there.
Clean Up the Property
If you’re wondering how to sell land fast, one of the things you’ll want to do is make sure it looks as appealing as possible to potential buyers. This is particularly true if you are trying to sell your land through the traditional market rather than to an investor.
Different buyers are looking for different things when they are investigating a property. For example, a couple that is looking for the perfect plot of land on which they can build their dream home might not be able to envision the property if a home site hasn’t been cleared of trees or if pieces of old farm machinery are strewn about the property. On the other hand, a land investor or a “we buy land” company won’t be bothered by superficial considerations such as these.
Either way, it doesn’t hurt to spruce up the property a little bit. Get the grass cut, clean up any dead tree limbs that are on the ground, make sure there is no trash on the side of the road. This is particularly true for the day that you are planning on taking real estate photographs. It’s not a bad idea to have a professional real estate photographer take some good photos of your land so that people can’t help but be curious when they come across your listing online. These items at a minimum should be done.
Depending on the property and what buyers are looking for in that area you might need to do more major improvements like installing a well or septic system. If the property sits on a busy road you might need to install a driveway so people can park on the property.
Have you been thinking about selling your land to a “we buy land” company but want to learn more about the process? You can learn about our small, family-owned business as land buyers here.
Don’t Skimp on the Info
When it comes time to post your land for sale, make sure that you are giving the buyer as much information as they might need to make a decision about buying the property. If your listing simply has one blurry photo of the land and no description, you’ll probably find your efforts of selling land quickly aren’t going that well.
Take the time to write a solid listing description of your land. This will include all of the key features of the property that prospective buyers would want to know about. Make calls to the county to get the properties tax ID number to include as well. This is typically referred to as an Assessor’s Parcel Number or APN for short. It can also be helpful to have a copy of the deed when you purchased the property. This will contain the legal description of the property.
What about the cost to get utilities connected? Does your lot need a well or septic system? You should make calls to contractors and get quotes for these items. Many buyers are not well versed in getting this type of work completed so if you’ve done the heavy lifting for them it will make their life easier. The more research buyers have to do on their own to learn the info they need, the less likely they are to follow through and set up an appointment to check out the land.
Increase Your Exposure
If you’re wondering how to sell land by owner fast, one of the things you’ll want to focus on is increasing your exposure. The more places you post your land for sale, the more people will come across it and the higher likelihood you’ll get an offer.
There are a number of different land listing sites and websites where you can post your land for sale. This includes land-specific websites that cost money every month to list your property like land.com and other more general free sites like Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. These last two places will get you a lot of inquiries from people who want you to owner finance the property to them. Typically they don’t have the cash saved up to by the property or a high enough credit score to qualify for a loan and finance it with a bank.
If you are choosing to go without land real estate agents, you will want to take this part of the process very seriously. For a period of time, you should be staying on top of keeping your listings current and ensuring that your land is getting in front of as many eyes as possible every day. Craigslist postings need to be refreshed almost daily otherwise you’ll be pushed lower in the feed and not get the visibility you need. Facebook marketplace will only allow you to refresh the listing once a week.
You’ll also want to make sure that all of your contact information is easy to find on your listings. Every time your phone rings while your listings are up, you’ll want to answer it. You never know, the person calling might be the person who ends up buying your land!
Are you wondering about creative ways that you could work to sell your land online? If so, check out our article on the topic here.
Work With a Real Estate Agent
Selling your land without a realtor means you are the person in charge of everything: getting the property cleaned up, ordering pictures, calling the county to get property specifics, ordering the survey, taking phone calls and meeting potential buyers out at the property for showings. If you’re trying to sell land by owner, you might find that it’s a lot more work than you expected. Especially if you don’t live close to the property. Some people choose to work with a real estate agent in order to help the process go faster and more smoothly.
To find someone to help you can start by searching in google for “land real estate agents near me”. Most real estate agents focus on selling houses because they can make more money that way. Since that is their focus they typically aren’t as skilled at selling land as they are with selling a house. Try to find a land specialist realtor versus working with someone who mostly sells houses. Also, hiring a real estate agent means that a percentage of your profits will go towards their commission. Typically for land its a higher commission than a house sale.
The typical land brokerage will charge anywhere from 7-10% of the sales price of the property. Part of this commission is passed on to the agent represent the buyers of your property. Some realtors might also ask you to contribute towards some of the marketing costs as well. Its up to you. Would you rather do all the work yourself and learn how to sell vacant land without a realtor so more of the profit can end up in you pocket?
That being said, professional real estate agents might have connections with prospective land buyers. They have networks that might allow you to sell land fast compared to how quickly you could get the job done on your own. You’ll need to interview them and complete background due diligence before choosing one. Ask them the right questions to see if they really know what they are doing. Ask for references and see if they have online reviews and testimonials from past clients.
Are you curious why the process for selling land in the U.S. is different than the process for selling a home? You can learn more here.
If you’re scouring the internet for information about “how to sell land myself,” you might want to look into selling directly to a land buyer if your priority is to sell land quick.
Sell Directly to a Land Buyer
If all of this is sounding like a bit much, there’s another surefire way to sell your land fast. If you’re wondering how to “sell land myself” without dealing with a real estate agent but also don’t want to pour a ton of time and energy into advertising and showing the property, you might consider selling vacant land direct to a land buyer.
At SellLand.com, we buy land directly from you. This means that you don’t have to deal with any real estate agents, appraisers, inspectors, or banks, all of whom are just middlemen that make the process more complicated and way slower. Not to mention that all of those professionals end up costing you a lot of money when closing day comes.
If you’re wondering how to sell land without a realtor, this might be the path for you. At Sell Land, we pay for all of the transaction costs associated with purchasing your land. This means that we pay for your escrow, title, and all of the closing costs.
When we buy land from you, we buy it as-is. That means you don’t have to deal with adding utilities, cutting roads, cleaning, or clearing trees to try and make the property more appealing to buyers.
On top of all of that, we pay cash for your land and we close quickly. We don’t rely on lenders for financing, which means that the closing can often happen in as little as two weeks.
You can learn more about how it works here.