Looking to sell vacant land in Geneva, IL (for sale, real estate)

[vandre]

We have a 0.3 acres vacant lot for sale in Geneva, IL. It is priced below tax value ($89,000) and is within short distance of the new Peck Recreation Center and Randall Rd for shopping.

It is ready to build and has utilities already on property. It has been listed with an real estate agent for about 3 months and have not received an offer. We understand the market is slow.

How can I increase visibility in the Fox Valley area to prospective buyers/investors?

[chet everett]

Real estate agents typically are more effective selling homes than "buildable lots".

You might want to directly contact builders, and you may have to change your marketing focus. If the neighborhood cannot support a home of about $400K (which is seems hard to believe, but location is everything...) you may be better off trying to sell the land to adjacent property owners for them to expand their yard. If there are 3 sides to sell off and you could get $30K from each that would be a relatively good transaction.

[vandre]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Real estate agents typically are more effective selling homes than "buildable lots".

You might want to directly contact builders, and you may have to change your marketing focus. If the neighborhood cannot support a home of about $400K (which is seems hard to believe, but location is everything...) you may be better off trying to sell the land to adjacent property owners for them to expand their yard. If there are 3 sides to sell off and you could get $30K from each that would be a relatively good transaction.

I didn't think about contacting adjacent property owners, that's an interesting idea, although I'm not sure if there are any restrictions about subdividing lots, or how complicated it is. I know the lot west of us is still owned by the original developer of the subdivision, I guess it would be kind of silly if they bought it back .

I did get a list a builders that recently sold/bought vacant land in Geneva a a couple of weeks ago. I emailed a few, and asked our agent to contact the ones that didn't have a website. I am also thinking of possibly setting a Facebook page, it might be gimmicky, but hey I guess I have nothing to lose...

Also for what is worth, the zillow/cyberhomes estimates for houses in the same subdivision hover around 300-350k, with the most recent sale of ~$350k about a year ago.

I saw a couple of days ago in the news that new house construction is up again (nationwide), so hopefully the local market will pick up again.

[Steve-o]

Call Shodeen... he seems to own everything else in Geneva anyways. They might be interested in the lot???

[Prairie]

What Steve said!

[vandre]

Originally Posted by Steve-o

Call Shodeen... he seems to own everything else in Geneva anyways. They might be interested in the lot???

While doing my research on builders, I found this very interesting article:

Daily Herald >> Crossing Centuries >> Our Suburbs (http://www.dailyherald.com/special/crossingcenturies/5a/18rest.asp - broken link)

These town-builders all have one thing in common, however, no matter what the community. They're known as "The Man Who Built (Insert Town Name Here)."
If you're filling in that blank in the Western suburbs, four names fit the bill: Harold Moser, Jay Stream, Joe Keim and Kent Shodeen.

Isn't it incredible how a single individual can have such a big impact on a community?

[vandre]

I was wondering if somebody know how can I put a vacant land property for auction? Any website/company recommendations?

Also can I set a minimum starting bid, let's say 53k?

So far we have tried lowering the price ($68k) , craigslist, facebook, zillow, real-estate agents, calling builders, etc..without any success...

[sgresident]

for a lot of auctions, it would be hard to start at 53,000. I would definitely talk to adjacent homeowners. a friend of ours that lives in aurora ended up splitting a lot that was between him and his neighbor(on the far west sideof aurora) so it is a real possiblity. especially if you really come down in the price.

[vandre]

Originally Posted by sgresident

for a lot of auctions, it would be hard to start at 53,000. I would definitely talk to adjacent homeowners. a friend of ours that lives in aurora ended up splitting a lot that was between him and his neighbor(on the far west sideof aurora) so it is a real possiblity. especially if you really come down in the price.

We only have one adjacent neighbor:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX RR XXXXXXXXXXX
________________________________
_____________fence_______________
| other lot | lot | neighbor |
=========================
street
=========================
neighbor neighbor neighbor

The lot is 15,246 sq ft, and by city ordinances a lot under 8,400 sq. ft. would be non-conforming (15,246/2=7623). Also according to this page subdividing a lot is time-consuming and may cost up to $8000 dollars!

I am in shock and disbelief that the current market cannot support a price of $53k for a vacant lot of this size in Geneva . For the record the previous sale (pre-bubble) was $75k in 1996

[vandre]

~9 months later, no offers. It is still an active listing, but at this point I guess we'll let inflation do its job. With not even low ball offers, I have no idea about what are people's expectations in this market... free?

On the upside, after appealing we did get a property tax break to ~2006 levels.