Choosing the Right Real Estate Professional for Your Land Transaction

If you are considering buying or selling land, how much thought have you given to the type of real estate professional you want representing you?

Real estate is a broad profession, and everyone in the business brings a different combination of experience, knowledge, and perspective to the table. There are some excellent residential real estate agents who do a tremendous job marketing homes, navigating competitive markets, and helping people find their next place to live. Those of us who primarily work in the land business can learn a lot from their approach to marketing, communication, technology, and managing transactions.

But land is different.

Many of the fundamentals of real estate still apply, particularly when a property includes a home or other residential improvements. The difference is that rural land often introduces an entirely different set of questions—and understanding the answers can have a significant impact on a property's value, marketability, and potential uses.

What Makes Land Different?

When someone looks at a house, many of the characteristics affecting its value are relatively easy to recognize. Buyers can see the home's size, condition, layout, neighborhood, improvements, and amenities. Comparable home sales can often provide a reasonably clear picture of the market.

Land isn't always that straightforward.

Two properties containing the same number of acres and located only a few miles apart can have substantially different values and appeal to completely different buyers.

Why?

One tract may contain valuable mature timber while another has recently been harvested. One may have excellent road frontage and utilities while another depends upon an easement for access. Soils, topography, wetlands, floodplains, streams, ponds, agricultural capability, development potential, recreational opportunities, surrounding land uses, and restrictions can all influence how a property can be used and what someone may ultimately be willing to pay for it.

Understanding those characteristics is part of understanding land.

A Land Professional Should Know Which Questions to Ask

Every property is different, but land transactions commonly raise questions that aren't encountered nearly as often in conventional residential real estate.

What is growing on the property, and does the timber have significant value? Is the access public, private, or provided through an easement? Are the property boundaries clearly established? What utilities are available? Could the property potentially be subdivided? What do the soils mean for agricultural use or potential homesites? Are wetlands or floodplains present? Are there streams, ponds, dams, or other water resources that deserve additional investigation?

Then there are questions about the property's highest and best use.

Is this primarily a timber investment? A farm? A recreational property? A future homesite? A development opportunity? A conservation property? Or does it have a combination of attributes that could make it attractive to several different types of buyers?

A knowledgeable land professional doesn't necessarily provide every answer personally. Surveyors, attorneys, engineers, soil scientists, foresters and other professionals may need to be involved depending upon the property and transaction.

The important thing is knowing which questions need to be asked and when additional expertise is needed.

Experience Beyond a Real Estate License

A real estate license is obviously important, but a license by itself doesn't create expertise in every type of property.

Land knowledge is generally developed through experience.

People who have spent their careers in forestry, agriculture, land management, wildlife management, rural development, conservation, land investment, or land brokerage tend to look at property differently because they have spent years dealing with the land itself.

They understand that a stand of pine timber represents more than trees on an aerial photograph. They recognize the importance of access, road systems, drainage, soils, property boundaries, neighboring ownerships, utilities, and surrounding land uses. They understand why seemingly small differences between properties can have meaningful consequences.

That experience can be particularly valuable when determining what a property is worth and how it should be positioned in the marketplace.

For Sellers: Understanding What You Are Actually Selling

Effective land marketing begins with understanding the property.

Before deciding how to market a tract, it is important to identify the characteristics that are most likely to create value for a prospective buyer.

A recreational buyer may be interested in wildlife habitat, water, privacy and adjoining land uses. A timber investor may focus on timber inventory, productivity, access and future cash flow. Someone looking for a rural homesite may be more interested in road frontage, utilities, soils and proximity to nearby communities. A developer may view the same property from an entirely different perspective.

Sometimes a property appeals to several of these markets at the same time.

Good land marketing should tell that story.

Beautiful photographs and broad internet exposure are important, but effective marketing should go further. Maps, aerial imagery, property characteristics, access information, timber and land-use information, location, nearby amenities, and potential uses can all help buyers understand why a property deserves their attention.

The objective isn't simply to advertise acreage.

It is to understand what makes the property valuable and communicate that value to the buyers most likely to appreciate it.

For Buyers: Looking Beyond the Listing

The same expertise can be valuable on the buyer's side of a transaction.

Buying land often means evaluating both opportunities and limitations that aren't immediately obvious.

A property that initially appears less attractive might have attributes that create considerable long-term potential. Conversely, an attractive tract can have access, title, soil, floodplain, utility, regulatory, or other considerations that deserve further investigation before a buyer makes a major investment.

An experienced land professional can help a buyer identify the questions that should be answered during the evaluation and due-diligence process.

That doesn't mean telling a buyer what they should buy. It means helping them better understand what they are buying.

Land Transactions Are About More Than the Transaction

Land ownership is often long-term.

A family may own a farm or timber property for generations. A buyer may be purchasing a place where they hope to build a home, hunt with their children, manage timber, farm, or simply enjoy having a piece of rural property of their own.

For investors, land may represent a substantial portion of a portfolio or a long-term store of value.

Those decisions deserve more than simply getting a contract signed and reaching the closing table.

They deserve someone who understands the property.

The Land Professionals Group Difference

At Land Professionals Group, our experience with land didn't begin when we obtained real estate licenses.

Our professionals bring backgrounds and careers rooted in the land business. That experience provides a practical understanding of rural property and the many factors that can influence its ownership, management, use, and value.

We also recognize that no individual knows everything. One of the advantages of working in the land business for many years is developing relationships with the foresters, surveyors, attorneys, engineers, contractors and other professionals whose expertise may be needed to answer specialized questions.

Our job is to bring real estate expertise together with practical land knowledge so our clients can make better-informed decisions.

Whether we are representing someone who has owned a property for generations, an investor evaluating the next acquisition, or a family searching for their first piece of rural land, our objective is the same: understand the property, understand the client's goals, and provide the knowledge and resources needed to move forward with confidence.

There are many excellent professionals in real estate, and specialization matters.

When the property is land, we believe experience working with land matters too.

A real estate license qualifies someone to sell land. A career working with land teaches someone how to understand it.