Selling Land Privately

Selling land privately means you will have to find a buyer for your property on your own, without the help of any real estate company or a broker. This will bring a lot of challenges even for landowners who already had prior experience in selling land. Unlike selling a home where you will have a lot of rooms and pieces of furniture to wow potential buyers, vacant land usually will just contain dirt and grass. Unless of course, your property is in a picturesque location surrounded by the most amazing views, or perhaps an interesting body of water such as a lake. But other than that, selling your land privately will be a significant challenge.

You may want to take a look at the chart that we have prepared that shows how long it usually takes to sell your property. This data will depend on which state your property is located in and some other factors such as access, utility connection, and the actual location of your land (rural or urban).

But fear not, we have prepared this quick guide for you so you will have advanced knowledge of what to expect when you sell your land on your own. We will also add some best practices here and there, to make your private land-selling journey much easier for you.

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Prepare Your Land for Selling

First thing first: no one will buy an ugly pile of dirt. If houses have staging, you have to do an equivalent for your land as well. Do all the necessary steps in order to make your property more pleasing to anyone who would be interested. Despite not having anything on it, for now, make your property appear at its best for any potential buyer. Follow the following steps to prepare your land for its new owners.

1. Remove pieces of junk - If something is a foreign object on your property, get rid of it. Be sure that when a potential buyer will do a visit, they will not find a piece of a bottle or a tire laying around.
2. Manicure your property - Well “manicure” might be too much but what I meant is once you have gotten rid of all the junk, make sure that you cut all the bushes and tall weeds. After all, you want your buyers to see the land and not the wild plants that are covering it.
3. Improve access to your land - If it is needed, be sure to make necessary improvements on the road leading to your property. Remember that you are selling a potential new home for your buyer and you want your land to be in its best appearance. A good access road will definitely help in closing the right buyer.

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Know Your Target Market

Once you have your land prepared for private selling, it is now time to connect with the right target market. The one effective way to know your target market is to take a look at your neighborhood. If your neighboring properties are being sold to young families who are just starting out, then you can make adjustments to your marketing strategy (more about this later) to be able to connect with the right people. On the other hand, if business is mainly the reason for selling private land in your community, then you will also have the idea that entrepreneurs are the ones you should be targeting.

If your private land is located somewhere that offers pristine views of a nearby lake or magnificent views of the mountains, then this is definitely something that you should consider as well. For these locations, business people looking to build a bed and breakfast might be a great target. People who are trying to build a vacation home can also be great candidates for potential buyers.

By understanding your target market, you will be sure to focus intensely on formulating an effective marketing strategy that will help you connect with them, therefore making your sale easier. By knowing your target market, you will be able to adjust your messaging and the features that you can highlight in your property listing to attract the right buyers.

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Prepare An Effective Marketing Plan

Now let’s talk about marketing strategy. This is essentially a list of things that you need to consider in order to get the word out that you have a property for sale. Once you have already identified your target market, you will already have a guide on the different marketing strategies that you can implement. Either way, the following tips will help you out no matter what type of people you are targeting.

1. Make use of traditional marketing methods - A simple “For Sale” sign with your phone number on it will get you a long way especially if your private land is in an area with heavy traffic. You can also post posters in public places with a photo of your property with your phone number to reach more people.
2. Use social media marketing - Facebook Marketplace is an effective way of selling land. In fact, more and more people are acquiring property through the use of social media. There are even groups dedicated to buying and selling real estate! Consider posting your private land through Facebook or joining Facebook Groups that can give you more leads.
3. Talk with your neighbors - Sometimes your neighbors have plans of expanding their properties. You may want to talk to them first if they would like to buy your land or maybe know someone who might be interested.
4. Publish to real estate websites - Lastly, make use of real estate listing websites to publish your property. You may check out Zillow or any other similar site so you’ll have a wider audience for your listing.

An effective marketing plan will help you out in making your sale much faster. It will not eliminate all the headaches that you might experience down the road but it will surely make the selling process much easier by giving you more leads.  

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Consider Offering Seller Financing

Seller financing is one effective way that you will be able to sell your property as fast as possible. By doing seller financing, you will allow your buyer to pay you in monthly installments for an agreed period with an added interest. Most of the time, banks will not approve land financing after the 2008 market crash, which is why most land buyers can either choose between buying in cash or resorting to seller financing.

Selling land privately will take a couple of months to even a year, or more. The market is very challenging and offering seller financing reduces the difficulty on the side of the buyer.

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Sell Your Land Privately

Selling your land on your own will have its pros and cons compared to the alternative of selling through real estate agents which will incur additional expenses in commissions and fees.

If you think that selling your land privately is something that you can do based on the expectations that we have set above, then we hope that this journey is going to be fulfilling for you. But, if you’re still looking for another, and hopefully easier option, you might want to consider the help of land companies.

Land companies like us here at Land Boss will be able to buy your property and give you cash in as fast as a week. You will eliminate all the steps of preparing your land, doing the marketing, and closing by yourself since we will do everything for you. The only downside would be that we cannot buy your property at market value in order for us to have wiggle room in the expenses that we will incur in preparing and selling your land, which again can take years.

If you’re interested in selling your property to us, you may contact us today and we can send you the offer as soon as possible.

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