If you are willing to put in just a little more effort it’s a great time to sell. If you plan on doing no more than you normally do when selling property well then maybe it will be a little tougher. But if you are willing to invest a little effort you can probably get what you’d get in normal circumstances.
The first thing is that rural land does not normally dip in price like residential homes. You typically can’t get the type of mortgage that skyrockets in price due to rate changes on rural land, so you don’t have a lot of folks panic selling because they can’t afford their new higher mortgagee payments.
Also a lot of sellers of rural land are selling to cash out, perhaps they are ready to retire, or maybe they have a pet project and they’ll pursue that project if they sale of their land will finance it. But they can wait so they aren’t likely to constantly dropping the price of their land.
There are still fewer buyers now than normal so what can you do to get the highest possible price for your land. Well the best advice I ever got for selling rural property was to “park it up”. What that means is to spend a little time improving your land so that the new buyer gets the idea he is moving to a rural park.
Here are some things you can do. Get rid of the trash that grows up in untended fields. Everybody wants old growth timber but a field full of hedge trees, cedar, and sumac isn’t what people have in mind. If you do have some timber spend a day with a brush hog and put in some trails there is nothing that quite fires up a buyers imagination than having nice walking or riding trails through timber. Oh and if you have some secluded spots like a pond in the timber, or a nice view of rocky stream bed, be sure your trail leads buyers to them.
Perhaps nothing is quite as appealing to buyers as seeing wildlife. So do what you can to bring them in. Put out feeders, plant food plots, and spread some corn around from time to time. As a realtor we love seeing buyers eyes light up when we scare up some deer or turkey when viewing the property.
Of course we highly recommend having an experienced realtor who is a specialist in selling rural property represent you. Who do you think we are most apt to recommend? If after looking over our web site you still aren’t sure, give us a call at 913-837-4665, or email us at info@ruralkc.com and will give you the correct answer.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Financing Rural Land
Bill here,
One of the things that surprise folks is that financing vacant rural land is a lot different than financing a home in the city. You will often find that the normal folks who finance homes are not comfortable financing vacant ground. They often want to finance it using a balloon payment in 3 to 5 years. That's because they view vacant land as property that will soon have a home on it. So they finance it short term and assume that you will eventually build a home, because that's what they are really comfortable doing.
Another problem with lenders who primarily finanace homes is that they really struggle to properly appraise vacant land. They will often send out their appraiser who is an expert in appraising homes, but is out of their element when financing rural property. Some day I'll do a blog on some horror stories I've had with some wild appraisals.
But what if you don't intend to build a home on the land, but would like to have a mortgage for 20 or more years? Well don't despair there are some lenders out there that do know exactly what they are doing, and are very good at appraising the land. But be forewarned you will not find the exotic financing schemes that you see in home mortgages. You should be prepared to put at least 20% down when purchasing vacant land.
Another common scenario is when the seller finances the sale. This is often advantageous to the seller from a capital gains tax perspective and allows you to buy property with a lot more flexibility than is often found in using a mortgage company. We have several properties where the owner is open to doing the financing, so give us a call and we can talk about it.
If you are thinking about buying some rural land and will need to finance it give us a call or send us an email and we'll be glad to point you toward some lenders that work in the area where you want to buy and who are comfortable financing this type of property. We can be reached at 913-440-4125 or email us at info@ruralkc.com
One of the things that surprise folks is that financing vacant rural land is a lot different than financing a home in the city. You will often find that the normal folks who finance homes are not comfortable financing vacant ground. They often want to finance it using a balloon payment in 3 to 5 years. That's because they view vacant land as property that will soon have a home on it. So they finance it short term and assume that you will eventually build a home, because that's what they are really comfortable doing.
Another problem with lenders who primarily finanace homes is that they really struggle to properly appraise vacant land. They will often send out their appraiser who is an expert in appraising homes, but is out of their element when financing rural property. Some day I'll do a blog on some horror stories I've had with some wild appraisals.
But what if you don't intend to build a home on the land, but would like to have a mortgage for 20 or more years? Well don't despair there are some lenders out there that do know exactly what they are doing, and are very good at appraising the land. But be forewarned you will not find the exotic financing schemes that you see in home mortgages. You should be prepared to put at least 20% down when purchasing vacant land.
Another common scenario is when the seller finances the sale. This is often advantageous to the seller from a capital gains tax perspective and allows you to buy property with a lot more flexibility than is often found in using a mortgage company. We have several properties where the owner is open to doing the financing, so give us a call and we can talk about it.
If you are thinking about buying some rural land and will need to finance it give us a call or send us an email and we'll be glad to point you toward some lenders that work in the area where you want to buy and who are comfortable financing this type of property. We can be reached at 913-440-4125 or email us at info@ruralkc.com
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