When purchasing a piece of rural land, should you buy title insurance? My answer to that is ALWAYS “Yes”. You may not be familiar with title insurance and what this type of insurance policy covers, so we will hit the high points of title insurance for rural land purchases. Disclaimer: I am not an attorney, and this is my personal opinion, not legal advice. I am trying to provide practical information from a real estate broker’s perspective. All of the information Read more…
Buyers of rural land are deterred by a lack of legal access to the property. A recent Pulse Survey from Landthink.com posed the question to prospective land buyers, “Which do you see as the biggest drawback or deterrent when considering the purchase of rural land?” The choices of problems given in the poll were: lack of legal access, zoning restrictions, lack of a year-round water feature, lack of electricity, and an existing conservation easement on the property. Respondents seemed to be most deterred by the lack Read more…
“Time is of the essence”- If you have purchased or sold real estate, you have likely seen this phrase. The expression conveys the importance of responding to an offer in a timely manner. When the land market in Alabama gets good, like it is now, multiple offer situations are becoming more common. I have represented several owners recently who had properties that had been on the market for months with little to no activity, and all of a sudden, multiple Read more…
TerraPlat is an App offered by Southeastern Land Group to help you easily locate and navigate our land listings around the Southeast. TerraPlat is a proprietary program developed specifically to help Buyers and Brokers identify properties that we currently have listed, to be able to find them on a map, and to be able to navigate the property in real time. You can download the app to your mobile device by searching for “TerraPlat” in your device’s app store. The download Read more…
“What is a Perc Test?” This is a very important question if you are purchasing an undeveloped piece of property that you are planning to build on. Often rural home sites are far away from public sewer systems, and you will need a way to dispose of household wastewater and gray water. A percolation test, or perc test, helps determine the suitability of the soil to allow the waste water from your home or buildings to drain and filter through Read more…
“Who loans money for land in Alabama?” We get this question quite a bit from people looking to make their first rural land purchase. There are several great lenders that focus almost completely on rural land loans and farm production loans. These lenders understand the many facets of what is involved with making a purchase of timberland, row crops, poultry farms, a hunting or recreational tract, or potential country home site. The traditional land lenders that we work with on a Read more…
“Ready, Willing and Able” is a term often used in listing agreements to describe the type of buyer that the real estate broker is seeking to find. Sellers and brokers both want to find prospective buyers that fit this description because it means they are dealing with someone that is “ready to go”. But how do you know if the potential buyer you are negotiating with fits the bill? Black’s Law Dictionary describes this term as, “persons who are legally Read more…
