Let’s take a look at buying a parcel
Land
Sitting in front of my office at Cardinal, Realtors® in Tehachapi, CA was an old, red Jeep Cherokee. I loved this vehicle since it was four-wheel drive and ready to take on the mountains and trek across large, open lots that I enjoyed taking my customers to see. Raw land had its appeal for buyers who wanted to realize the dream of building their own house. Sometimes it was just the dream of owning a piece of land in California to just sit on and have lunch. Whatever the dream, raw land still lights the fire of the imagination. Here in Colorado, it is a rare commodity. Builders are constantly buying the large parcels to subdivide and build housing subdivisions. Small builders buy smaller parcels to build their customers dream homes on. Custom builders buy lot’s one at a time to sell to a waiting buyer. Most available lots are remotely located, typically well from established neighborhoods and quite a drive to the closest large community. This may suit some that are looking for the tranquil life of remote locations.
There are many considerations when choosing a parcel of land and I will be going through those one at a time.
Let’s look first at why a buyer would consider buying land in the first place. This may seem obvious, yet I find many buyer’s do not stay consistent with the original reason they wanted to buy a wonderful piece of land in the first place. A few of those reasons would be:
“I’m your Colorado land-buying expert, that can help you walk through the entire process.”
Building your dream home. This really is the number one reason that raw land is sold. I have had many calls with buyers looking to build a home over the years. There are so many things to consider that the buyer usually decides to not buy a lot and build just because it is so complicated and usually very expensive.
Planning on building a home in the future. There are many buyer’s that just want to secure a lot so that their future dreams may be realized (potentially, far into the future). It is a ton of fun to take a chair and pad of paper out on the lot and spend countless hours drawing out your dream sketches and what it would look like to someday build that retirement home or vacation home.
Investing in a lot to resell or to subdivide and sell off individual parcels for profit. Subdividing is so much more difficult to accomplish then people understand, but I’ll go a bit into detail about this also.
Having a camping area to enjoy the great outdoors. Sometimes this works, but checking the local ordinances and CC@R’s (covenants, conditions, and restrictions) for the lot sometimes reveals that you can’t do it.
Commercial development. I won’t cover much on this in this book but look for additional resources to follow.
Each one of these reasons has specific paths that need to be taken when considering which lot is right for you. I want to take you through the general process of looking at a lot, evaluating the lot, and deciding which one meets your needs.
