Bought 5 acres off a photo, and the road closes five months a year
Fast is my whole thing and it cost me here.
Saw a parcel come across a list, 5 acres, wooded, $4,300 asking from an owner three states away who had inherited it and never visited. Comps in that township showed similar parcels asking $12,000 to $15,000. I ran the assessor page, saw the tax bill was $71 a year, offered full price and closed in nine days. All in $4,900 with closing and a deed prep fee.
Listed at $12,900. Two calls in five weeks, both tire kickers. A local finally told me on the phone that the road to it is a seasonal road, meaning the township does not plow or maintain it from November through April, and in spring it is soft enough that you will bury a truck. He also mentioned the back corner floods, which the flood map I never pulled would have shown me.
So the parcel is usable roughly half the year and the buyer pool is people who want a summer camp only. I dropped to $9,500, then $7,500, then sold it to the neighbor for $3,000 cash because he wanted the frontage. Seven months, out about $2,200 plus the taxes and the listing fees.
What I would do differently, plainly: call the township road office and ask if the road is maintained year round before I offer, pull the flood map, and pay somebody local $75 to walk it and send me twenty photos. All three of those together cost less than one afternoon of my time and would have killed this deal in an hour.