Neither agent I've talked to has read the sewer capacity letter

The thing I'd want nailed down before day 30 is whether the will-serve process can even be started by a buyer under contract or only by the owner of record. In the county I've been studying it's owner-only, which means you need the seller to sign the application and that's a negotiation you'd rather have on day 5 than day 27.

$15k hard at day 30 with a 60 to 90 day utility answer means you're going hard before you know the main thing. Can you buy an extension for less than $15k?

I follow most of this except the per-lot basis math. You divided purchase price by lot count and got $10k or $34k, but the soft costs and whatever the roads and utilities cost aren't in there, are they? Or is finished lot pricing supposed to already account for that. Genuinely asking.

Raw land financing on an entitlement play is where this gets decided. Lenders I've talked to treat unentitled acreage differently from land with approvals in hand, and the advance rate and term vary widely by lender, so get the current terms in writing before you count on any of it. If your plan assumes a construction takeout that only exists post-approval, the 60 to 90 day will-serve answer is also your financing timeline.

8% on raw land sounds high until you see what a land broker actually does on disposition. Is the 8% on the sale of finished lots or on the raw parcel if you flip it as is? Those are very different jobs.

If the 12 lot version still clears at $34k per lot basis, why is the 40 lot number the one in your head? Underwrite the deal you can prove and treat the capacity coming back open as the upside you didn't pay for. Every entitlement deal I've watched investors get hurt on was priced at the best case and financed at the base case.

Go read the compensation section of whatever the residential agent had you sign. On land deals I've seen forms where the fee attaches to the acquisition and then a second clause attaches to any subsequent disposition of the same parcel within some period. If that's in there, bringing in a land broker later means you pay twice and you'll find out at the closing table. Also check whether her agreement survives an assignment into an LLC, because you're presumably not taking title personally.

@fathom that double-fee clause bit a guy in my local group. He'd forgotten he signed it 14 months earlier.

Going through licensing coursework right now and there is close to nothing in it about entitlement, capacity letters, or lot yield. It's contracts, agency duties, and fair housing. Which is a long way of saying the residential agent's lack of entitlement experience isn't a knock on her, it's the default. If she's willing to sit in the planning meetings with you she'll be better at this in six months than the broker who's already fluent is at knowing your sellers.