Thread: Selling land in a tough market

Its hard enough selling land in a good market let alone one such as this. To gain an edge you need to make sure the property is “user friendly.” This means you need to open it up to as many other agents as possible with customers. To make it user friendly try the following:
1) In your advertising or listing make sure you have a map showing the correct address. Most land parcels are not numbered and web map search engines can get it wrong. Play around with it so the arrow points to the exact location. On a physical map use an intersecting street or landmark and say, “500 feet from Maple Street on the east side.”
2) When a customer/agent finds the site they most often will find a company sign with an agent’s name. Make sure the sign has a map drawn on it and shows the outline of the land with a house location and “You are here” mark.
3) Mark a trail or better yet have the owner install a “broker drive” to get the customers to the house site. Agents don’t want to go hiking and are not on a Lewis and Clark expedition. They don’t want to figure out where the house site is and how to get there. Make it easy and time efficient for the agent and they will bring other customers
4) In your advertising/listing include a printable map with the house location, property tax map/survey and bulleted list of assets the land has. A customer/agent should have a treasure map to carry with them.

You will find the majority of land listings don’t have all of the above and by doing this your land will be very accessible, easy to access and understandable. Mark De Pecol is a 30 year veteran in land development, brokerage and education. He has been pioneering the concept of “land staging.” For more info, go to realty-capital.us.