Land development is the process of converting raw or underutilized land into buildable parcels, then selling those parcels for far more than the raw land and the improvement work cost.
Log in to followMid-project decision I have to make in about three weeks. 112 acres, rezoned last year, preliminary plat approved for 296 lots at an average of 62 foot fronts. The site drains two…
I've built the model four times and I keep getting a different answer because I don't know what the honest placeholders are. 40 lots. Raw land $1.1M. Engineer's opinion of probabl…
I've had three separate conversations now where a builder tells me the finished lot has to come in at 20 to 25 percent of the retail house price, like it's a law of physics. So a…
One of my management clients owns a small apartment portfolio and also, it turns out, 40 acres she inherited outside a growing exurb about 45 minutes from a metro. She's 78, doesn…
I've been reading through two phase one exit plans from developers in the same metro, similar lot sizes, and they've made opposite decisions on the same question. I'm still on the…
22 acres on the edge of a growing suburb, contract at $1.45M, contingent on rezoning from a two acre minimum residential district to something that would carry 74 lots. Fourteen m…
I own 9 acres behind one of my small buildings, picked it up years ago with the rest of the site and it's been sitting in grass. Planning tells me up to 4 lots goes through an adm…
Deal on my desk: a partially built 138 lot subdivision in a metro suburb where the original developer stalled. Phase 1, 60 lots, is recorded and has roads, water, sewer, and dry u…
This is the question I get asked most by people who've never built improvements before, and the answers I hear from experienced developers split about evenly, so I'll put it to th…
I'm trying to figure out which strategy fits, and land keeps looking attractive to me for a reason that might be wrong. The timelines are long, so the work seemed spread out. Long…
Career changer, starting from zero on all of this, so please be blunt with me. Everything I read about land development involves 40 or 60 lots and millions of dollars of pipe. The…
Closed out the last four lots of a small infill subdivision in March, so here are the real numbers. 3.2 acres inside city limits, already zoned for what I wanted, minor subdivisio…
Deal in front of me: 62 lots in two phases, raw land at about $1.9M, engineer's estimate on improvements around $55k a lot all in, finished lots underwritten at $105k. A regional…
A broker sent me an 11 acre piece on the edge of a town of about 40,000. Currently zoned agricultural, the comprehensive plan shows it as low density residential, and there's a se…
I own small multifamily and I've never done a land deal, so I'm going to define the words as I understand them and someone can correct me. Entitlement means getting the government…
I've spent about a year reading about this and watching two subdivisions go in near me, and I still can't tell whether I'm supposed to start small or start adjacent. The two paths…
Closed this out in January at a loss of about $101k over 16 months. Fast, thin, and I got the thin part wrong. 4.1 acres on a paved county road, $310k. Zoning allowed six lots by…
Everything in a land deal hangs off one number, what the finished lots sell for. And that number lands two to four years after you sign, which is the part I can't get comfortable…
City wants a performance guarantee for the public improvements before they'll let me record the plat. Engineer's approved cost is $3.4M, they require 125 percent, so a $4.25M inst…
I have 34 acres under contract at $2.35M, zoned for detached single family by right, so there's no rezone in front of me. Engineer's yield study says 96 lots at 55 foot widths aft…