As a beginner land investor or flipper, this is going to be one of the first questions you ask yourself, and it is a good one. With land all over the country to pick from, how do you pick where you should invest and look to operate your business? In this post, we are going to go into the key components of good places to invest in, and also some examples of great locations.
How To Find Good Places To Invest In
If you are just guessing or going off somewhere near where you grew up, that is not a productive way of going about where to pick your land investments. You need to be looking for a few very important criteria to be met.
Finding Where Land Sells Well
Quite obviously, you want to buy land where people also want to buy land. You do not want to buy a property in a place where no one would want to buy it, then your property will sit in inventory for longer and you may even need to reduce the price to sell it. The main concept to have in mind when you are looking for where land sells well is desirability. You want the land, you want the area to be desirable.
Think about why people want to even buy land, they may want to pull a trailer onto the land, they may want to go fishing or do recreational activities there on the weekends if they live in a big city nearby, or they may want to build an entirely new home there. Finding the motivations of buyers in the area will give you a much clearer picture in regards to how fast you can sell the property in question. The more desirable the area, the less time it takes for you to make a return on your investment.
Finding Where People Will Sell Their Land
If you send mail to the most affluent area codes in Wyoming where land is worth multimillions, are people going to want to sell? Probably not. If you send mail to an area where people will not want to sell, you will be wasting your marketing dollars and you will likely not acquire anything. There is a fine line between areas where people want to buy and areas where people want to sell. You do not want to go too far in either extreme.
Specifics To Keep In Mind
There are a few specifics you should keep in mind when selecting where to acquire land.
You are looking for population density, as the more rural land is the easier we will be able to acquire those properties. Again, this is an area where you do not want to go too high, or too low. A medium population density is ideal.
Keeping an eye on the average days on market in locations will assist you as well. In areas where there is a lower day on market, you will be able to get rid of your land and get money in your pocket faster. If there is a high day on market average, then it may be harder for you to turn over that piece of land and sell it.
You Can Do It Anywhere
Now that you know what to look for, you can go find your areas of the country you would like to send mail to and acquire properties to flip. This can be done anywhere in the country, there is land to buy in Washington state and there is land to buy in Louisana. As long as the numbers line up, it could make for a profitable deal. Be sure to run the numbers we discussed here and the points we covered to get a really good idea of how well you can run your business in those areas. Performing your own research and finding your own areas to mail and market to is by far going to produce the best results for you. Mailing or marketing to places where other people have already mailed will lower your chances of finding a good deal to acquire. With that being said, we will now talk about some states in which are good to get started looking.
Texas & Florida
Texas and Florida take the lead with the most sought-after states at the time of this writing. With the recent migration from New York and California to these two states, there is plenty of people looking for land. These markets are getting saturated, more so day by day. If you want to act here, you may have to act soon. There are many areas that are still seeing appreciation in prices in Florida & Texas. It appears at this time due to population density, and the size of the state that Texas may provide a slightly better opportunity.
Idaho & North Carolina
Idaho had the largest population growth in 2020 at 66% and North Carolina came in second at 65%. These states have a large amount of rural population, which is ripe for us as land investors. Large amounts of people moving there may reduce the willingness for existing population to sell their land, but if you can acquire the right deal then it will not be on the market for long when you relist it.
Conclusion
While we can list here for you the best places to buy land, those places would become very saturated very quickly. Take some time and utilize what you learned in this post about the best places for yourself to market. Here you were given some sample ideas of states to start with, now dive in and find county data to start your land flipping business.
Interested in learning more about land investing?
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Resources:
https://www.bankrate.com/insurance/homeowners-insurance/population-and-moving-statistics/