Frontage rule says one split, not three, and I'm at day 11 of inspection

Parcel is 9.6 acres, contract at 61,000, and I had it penciled at 84,000 to a small builder who wanted three lots out of it. Then I read the zoning table properly.

Zone allows 3 acre minimum lots, which is where I got three splits. What I missed is the separate frontage requirement of 200 feet per lot on a county road. The parcel has 340 feet of frontage total. So it's one split unless the buyer gets approval for a shared drive or flag lots, and the planner I talked to on the phone said the board has gone both ways on those and would not tell me more than that.

No public sewer. No perc test on record. Soils map shows a clay unit over most of the buildable area, which the same planner described as workable but slow.

Inspection period is 30 days, I'm on day 11, 1,000 earnest, contract is assignable.

A perc test and a rough boundary sketch would run me about 1,400 out of pocket. The single lot version of this parcel prices around 72,000 to a retail buyer who wants one house and a barn, which is an 11k spread minus whatever I spend and minus a marketing timeline that in this county has run 60 to 90 days on rural acreage.

So: spend the 1,400 to make the three lot story provable and go back to the builder, or reprice down to the retail single lot buyer and move it slow. I keep switching.

6 replies

4aaron_fitz10 Get yoursPRO6

Genuine question since I've never done a land deal. Who normally pays for the perc test? Feels strange that it's you, given you don't own the parcel and won't own it.

1brandonlee36Passive

@kestrel the buyer or the eventual owner pays for it in most deals I've seen, which is exactly my objection here. @windlass you're proposing to spend 1,400 curing a marketing problem on a parcel you don't own, inside a window that expires in 19 days. If you do it, get the seller to sign an extension first so the money isn't buying you eleven days of information.

1paulgrant17PassivePRO5

If the perc comes back bad does the parcel just become worthless? Trying to understand how much of your 61,000 is riding on one test.

3mitchell_ray4 Get yoursPRO6

@wren a fail on a conventional system doesn't mean nothing gets built. It means a mound or an engineered system, and those cost real money to install. I've been on jobs where that added five figures to a site. So a fail doesn't zero the land, it moves the number the buyer will pay, and it's the buyer's number that matters to @windlass.

1gregpowell66AG4BPRO8

I'd push back on @thicket a little. A builder buyer isn't scared of a shared drive, he's priced dozens of them, and on a project this size the drive and the culvert are a known cost that he'll subtract from what he pays you. What he won't do is take a board approval risk for free. So the 1,400 doesn't buy you the three lot price. It buys you a slightly better version of the one lot price, because the honest pitch to him becomes one buildable lot today and a maybe on the second.

If the retail buyer at 72 exists and can wait 60 days, that's an 11k spread you actually control. I'd take the control.

Frontage rule says one split, not three, and I'm at day 11 of inspection

6 replies