Billy – great answer by Laurie. I want to add that I started with an LLC for two reasons. One, it protects my personal assets in the event of a law suit. Two, it was cheap and easy in Indiana. I think I did the whole thing on line for less than $90. No brainer for me.

Now, after 3 years in the land business, my CPA is telling me that after…[Read more]

Leonard – that is great news. So you have 29 more lots to sell? Sounds profitable!! Good luck.

Carlie – After you talk to the county you can tell the buyer that you have checked and you don’t think there is a perc test. They will need to have that done. Does the county have min size for residential lots with septic? Ask.

Carlie – Perc tests are not always recorded at the county. You can call the clerk and see if they can look up a perc test for your parcel. If the clerk can’t find it then I assume that none was recorded.

The question I have is “Do you need a perc test?” I would do this if I thought it would strongly increase my chance of selling it quick.…[Read more]

No. At least none that I am aware of. Please inquire with support@landacademy.com for the official answer.

Jenna – in answer to you second question – go try it out on one of the counties. My guess is that the other data sources will have a similar note.

First question – I avoid these counties. When I did some research on what “No Soliciting” means I read that it can mean an offer to buy or sell something. So I have shied away from doing business in…[Read more]

Matt – like you, I keep the Settlement Sheet and the Deed as scanned docs. Start asking for all scanned docs from your title company closings.

Dan – There is language on the Deed Perfect form that covers things like this. “SUBJECT TO: existing taxes, assessments, covenants, etc . . . ” That means anything that was contained on a previous deed applies to this deed as well. You don’t have to repeat everything on each subsequent deed.

Patrick – I would ignore the outliers. They are either from other land dealers or problem properties. Just like I would ignore one property that sold for 10X the other comps. It is an outlier.

Ben – Ben, when I sell land without title company, I send the buyer an invoice using BillandPay.com (there are many others like this). The buyer gets an email with a ‘PAY’ button. They can pay with credit card or debit card. Then I prep the deed and send it to the county recorder. I also send the buyer a scanned copy of the signed deed. It all…[Read more]

Dan – 7 Deals – Good work!

I would make them all Warranty Deeds when purchasing.

If there is a prior instrument number I would put it on the purchase deed. Sometimes you don’t have one and you can leave it blank.

I send the following to the Notary:

Check list that tells him/her what to do. ie notarize signature on one deed / hand seller…[Read more]

Laurie – Very good answer to this question. Thanks.

Jeremy – Try this “I have already purchased all the properties that I needed in that county. I can still purchase yours if you can accept $X,XXX for it.” This sounds best if the seller waited until after the closing date on the letter.

If the property is nice why the lower price? Did you over price your offer to him?

Alex – In TP247 you can look up individual properties by Name or by APN. Then you can view the report which has a lot of information about the property. In some counties (but not all) there are links in the report to deeds on that property. I may only have the most recent or it may have a few transactions.

Hi Alex – thanks for posting those links. This question was from 2015. That was before we have all the tools that we use now. Most of us do our own title search using a combination of TitlePro247 and the county data plus other sites that are available in some regions. I have only paid for one title search in 100 deals. I rely on getting the deeds…[Read more]

Dan – Congrats to you and your wife! This is a big step. Your pricing sounds OK. Don’t worry about that one low priced property because it will be gone soon. I would only be concerned if 5 or 6 of them showed up at once. Get this deal purchased and on the market asap. Like Kyle suggested, you can start at your original price and then drop it after…[Read more]

Case – Good for you – moving outside of your comfort zone! I hire the photographer as soon as I get the signed PA. If the deal falls apart I am out a couple hundred. Most of them get purchased and I have the photos and video ready to market the same day it closes. If there is something funny about the deal and you think there may be a problem…[Read more]

Frank – that sounds like a good plan. The smaller acreage deals will have the same closing costs at the bigger ones. The title company fees are mostly flat rate up to about $50K transaction price. So we take a bigger hit in the smaller ones as a percent of price. Try adjusting the offer price on 1 acre properties as you suggested. If you make…[Read more]

Aroldo – Congrats on getting some property to sell! The short answer to your question is you will need the right buyer. Some buyers are not up to finding property like this. Others will desire the property for the same reason – no one will find them. Just keep trying.