How to Buy Land and What You Need to Know

If your dream home doesn’t have nearby neighbors, you probably need to buy land, on which you’ll build a house. Once you’ve found the perfect patch, you’ll need to work on securing the land. Many experts recommend paying for it in cash if you can. A financial advisor can help you determine which assets to liquidate or otherwise arrange your financing.

What to Do Before You Purchase Land

Buying land can be fruitful for you if you’re wanting to build a house in the area but it can also be a good investment for the future, depending on where you buy. If you’ve decided to buy land, keep in mind that it’s not going to be a short-term project. Buying land is a major undertaking and to begin the process, you’ll need to figure out how much breathing room you’ll have in your budget for a new house.

Some of the costs you’ll have to account for include fees, permits, the cost of purchasing the land you need, the cost of building your house and the cost of making adjustments to the land to have access to running water and other utilities (if that’s not already in place for the land).

How to Buy Land

Buying land has many different strategies depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. From buying land in a neighborhood you want to live in, to buying land as an investment there are different things you need to look for when buying land and you may want to approach it in different ways. However, when actually buying land there are a set number of steps you’ll need to follow. Buying land always entails:

• Finding land

How to Find Land for Sale

A real estate agent can be a big help in facilitating your land search. However, you can also do it yourself. Checking the classified ads in newspapers, you can often find landowners attempting to sell their land independently. A specialty magazine or publication might highlight select pieces of land for individuals interested in buying farmland or hunting land.

There are also a great many online platforms where you can access commercial real estate listings. Specialty sites for finding land include Land and Farm, LandWatch and LandCentury. You can even find listings on general sites like Craigslist.

If you’ve exhausted the above options and you still haven’t found your perfect plot, you could also look into whether the government is selling any land near you. This can occur if the government itself has excess land it wants to sell, or if the government repossessed land from someone else and is selling it off. You can check out realestatesales.gov to see your options.

Those are just the on-market options, though. It’s often possible to buy plots of land that aren’t listed for sale. Even if a plot of land isn’t “on the market,” the owner of the land may still be interested in finding a buyer if the price is right. Keep your ears open for situations like these. You may end up with land you didn’t even know was available.