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1. You should make sure that you have legal access to he property. The dirt road may not be a legal road e.g. it may be owned by a neighboring property, or it may be in trespass. So although you may be able to use it now, when the property that it is on sells you may not have permission. Make sure that you have a dedicated road *through the county or state), or an easement or right of way to access your property.
2. Look at the land ownership of the surrounding land overall. Is it government? If so you may lose access if the land becomes wilderness. Is the land around it already wilderness? If so you may have to fly everything in by helicopter...or horseback. There are several land developments that made lots in areas that later the surrounding land became federally designated wilderness. Those lots are worthless as there is no real access--everything must be flown in. Yes, occasionally illegal roads show up, but you get a major ticket if you are caught using it, as well as charges to remove the road.
3. Get title insurance for the property. It is very important to ensure that you own the land legally.
4. Check the building restrictions. Can you remove the trees? It may be that the land owner received payment in the past for keeping the land as natural habitat and it is now on the deed.
5. Check the electricity lines that run through the property. Is there an easement or right of way through the property property for them? If so, does it make the property unbuildable by its location? What rights does the electric line holder have--often they can destroy anything in their path to maintain or upgrade the lines...and you are left to fix it, e.g. they have the right to cross and destroy fences, buildings, etc. without liability.
6. Confirm that you can get electricity from the line. If it is TRANSMISSION line they likely will not let you pull off electricity as the mW will be too high. If its a distribution line then they will generally sell to you.
Sounds like the Klamath falls acreage being sold. Guy from California buys tons of it dirt cheap. Resells it.
Heres the catch-most of it is buildable, he is pretty honest about it, but he also warms people buying from him that there are a LOT of "gotchas". Theres costs to bring in sewage, to having the land approved by the local land use boards etc etc. Plus its in the middle of nowhere.
This is how it works-he sends mail to the owners of these properties, offers $500 for them. Someone who inherited it sells it to him as its just a tax issue year after year. He advertises it, has a local guy take pictures etc. Offers it for sale at 5,000
Buyer comes along, buys it, finds out its another 40K before he can even build on it. Sits on it. Dies or gets tired of it...sells it to someone who mails him offering him 500. Or stops making payments...and it reverts back to the guy again. Either way he just keeps doing it. He's pretty honest about it all though, refuses to give you an estimate for your land, but gives a ballpark for what he has seen others pay (and if you talk to the local govt they also give the same ball parks).
Bottom line is...yes its cheap, but like others have said-investigate it all. Its good to see you're doing some due diligence.
Make sure that you have easement. If you're landlocked by a bunch of other private land with no easement access you're screwed.
You need to find out about water rights and if you are in a flood zone or any sort of protected species area. If protected species CAN you build and what are the terms/regs of building. If the land is in some protected spotted lizard frog habitat are you just buying a piece of dirt that you can look at but can't build on.
Most likely you will be on septic. That's no longer cheap to do.
Does the property have utilities or do you need to bring utilities in. That is VERY expensive.
If you do plan on getting it make sure you have a lawyer on your side.
Sounds like the Klamath falls acreage being sold. Guy from California buys tons of it dirt cheap. Resells it.
Heres the catch-most of it is buildable, he is pretty honest about it, but he also warms people buying from him that there are a LOT of "gotchas". Theres costs to bring in sewage, to having the land approved by the local land use boards etc etc. Plus its in the middle of nowhere.
This is how it works-he sends mail to the owners of these properties, offers $500 for them. Someone who inherited it sells it to him as its just a tax issue year after year. He advertises it, has a local guy take pictures etc. Offers it for sale at 5,000
Buyer comes along, buys it, finds out its another 40K before he can even build on it. Sits on it. Dies or gets tired of it...sells it to someone who mails him offering him 500. Or stops making payments...and it reverts back to the guy again. Either way he just keeps doing it. He's pretty honest about it all though, refuses to give you an estimate for your land, but gives a ballpark for what he has seen others pay (and if you talk to the local govt they also give the same ball parks).
Bottom line is...yes its cheap, but like others have said-investigate it all. Its good to see you're doing some due diligence.
never heard of Klamath falls I googled it and it's in Oregan the land I'm talking about it is in PA. This land is sold cheap because it's very rural and heavily wooded so a lot of work needs to be done to make a homesite which I have no problem with. I love the location far out in the country but not too far. About 20 miles from HD , Lowes, Walmart and other shopping.
Hopefully those lots aren't in New Mexico. There are lot/land scams going on here that have been going on for more than 60 years. There are areas near me that consists of thousands upon thousands of desert lots that were peddled to people who don't live here. Most of the roads only existed in the developers imagination, not to mention there is no water or power, too small for septic systems, and most people never really could find their little patch of sand, even if they tried..
Be sure to go see your lots first. there is a lot of dumping and other funny business that goes on with vacant land and you don't want to find out that you just purchased 2 lots and 1000 old tires!
When we purchased our raw undeveloped land a year ago I researched EVERYTHING about it prior to making an offer.
I looked up the property on the County GIS mapping site first. This usually has a wealth of information to begin with. But you cannot take the GIS data to be 100% accurate or official. It pulls data from other sources so it may not have the latest info reflected (like owner) and boundary lines are a little off. But it has everything from topography, soil class, buffers, zoning, conservation areas, etc listed and gives you a good picture of whether or not to continue your research.
If your initial review looks good then you need to go to the property assessment/tax site and look at all that data. Then you will need to pull up the official plat map and deeds that pertain to the property. And try to go back through the previous deeds as well. Sometimes you can find out a lot of things by looking at previous deeds. I even researched all the surrounding properties.
I can also tell you that many many people will say that there are no restrictions on rural land...NOT TRUE!l Many times, especially if the land was subdivided, there ARE recorded covenants and restrictions that go with the land! These are usually referenced on the deed and/or plat map and the actual document that spells out all the restrictions will be recorded as well.
Now if all of that looks good and clean then your next step is figuring out what you want to potentially do on your land. From the sounds of it you already have an idea. But don't think just because it's rural you can do whatever you want even if there are no restrictions recorded. The County has their own set of rules and regulations :-)
And please understand ALL the costs involved (not just the land purchase). The land usually is cheap compared to all the other expenses even if you do a lot of the work yourself. And if you don't have the actual funds for everything start talking with a bank that offers constructions loans. Not as many banks offer them and the rules are so much tighter than before. The last thing you want to do is shell out cash for land and then not have the resources to do what you want.
And like others said....you have to go and walk the entire property!
And if this property doesn't work out know that there are many many more. I probably researched over 100 properties before buying the one we bought :-)
I've done some more online research at the county tax website. It shows information of who the owner is of the lots, price they were purchased for $1,200 back in 2006.
I also found out this was a subdivision that failed back in 1973 does that matter?
Also crazy question since the guy paid $2400 total for both lots in 2006 he wants $9,000 now. Is making a lower offer unreasonable?
I'm not going to make an offer until I look at the property and do some more research.
Found more info looking at the public tax info website...
Like I said before I found out this was a failed subdivision now when I click on the only easement into the subdivision it shows someone owns it not the county or township. There is no county or township road that leads to the property I am interested in. The original street easements for the subdivision show as being owned by a private owner or am I reading something wrong? I click on the streets in the subdivision and it highlights and links to one lot in the subdivision and comes up as 3.4 acres and purchased in 1990.
When a subdivision fails do the access roads in it become township owned or can they be purchased?
NOTE: I wrote this last night before your more recent posts giving location and other info.
It would be helpful to know the general area where the property is located, or at least the state. Depending on the location, 9K for "about 1 acre" may or may not be a deal. It just seems pretty small for a rural lot where you want to be partially "off grid". Do you intend to live there?
The biggest red flag to me is that the ad stated there would be a $200 charge for recording and processing. Coupled with the fact that the owner hasn't ever been to the property, it sounds like he's a wholesaler and likely bought the property as a tax foreclosure, perhaps only paying a few hundred dollars. That doesn't mean the land isn't worth more, but you should know as much about the ownership and sales history of the property as possible in order to guage whether you should even offer near the asking price, should you decide you're still interested in buying the property.
There may be a lot of information you can find out about the property online. Check to see if the local government has tax records online. What value does the assessor place on the property? (not that you should rely on assessments as an accurate indicator of market value) What are the listing prices of other properties in the area? Can you look up recent sales? Can you access deed records online for this property to at least find recent sales information? What is the zoning--and ownership--for lands around these lots? What does the present zoning on this land allow? What are minimum building requirements?
What is the land like? Is it rocky? Does it perc? Can you drill a water well? What is the average depth of water wells in the area? (from County records likely) Are there wetlands on the property? What is the topography--elevation and relation to streams and flood hazards? Can you look up historical aerial photos of the property? Some rural areas were used as unpermitted dumps. And can you actually tap into the electric line?
After you find out everything you can online or through phone calls, you should visit the local building and assessing departments to see what other information they know about the property. Take your time evaluating this property as there may be better properties out there for your purposes. Or you may decide this is really for you.
If you decide to make an offer, it should be contingent on the Seller providing a title insurance policy covering the amount of the purchase price. The title company will research the chain of title and provide you with all of the recorded easements, liens and encumbrances, if any, on the property...and they will stipulate which requirements need to be met in order for the Seller to convey a Warranty Deed to you for recording. Make sure the title company is based in the area where the land is located.
I'd recommend splitting the actual closing costs for the title company (the title policy, however, should be paid by the Seller, unless local practices are otherwise). Pay the title company for the closing costs; don't pay the Seller. And especially since you're very new to this, making an offer through an attorney might be wise.
Good luck.
Last edited by jackmichigan; 02-08-2014 at 06:20 AM..
I also found out this was a subdivision that failed back in 1973 does that matter?
This is a very common problem and, unless you can buy out and consolidate most of the lots, it's almost impossible to solve. Easements may be recorded for access but you'd be stuck with the full costs of building a road if other lot owners aren't willing to chip in. That's why a LOT of these types of small subdivision lots get lost for back taxes or sold for cheap. They're cheap for a reason: they are really difficult to build on or use for any purpose. Thank goodness for online research.
EDIT: You'd also likely have a problem determining where the property lines actually are. You'd need to pay for a stakes-in-the-ground survey.
Last edited by jackmichigan; 02-08-2014 at 06:26 AM..
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