How to buy land! A guide for buying land to build a house on.

I want to share our experience of buying land we made a lot of mistakes I spent a long time researching about buying land and we still made a ton of mistakes so I'm hoping to share those mistakes what we got right what we got wrong hopefully you'll have a better experience than we did I'm sitting in the basement you can see the spray foam in the walls behind me if you're interested in spray foam if you're planning on building a house I'm gonna be doing a video about spray foam we just built this house so I'll be breaking down the process that we went through to build a house in future videos if you see me looking down I'm reading from a laptop this isn't a professional video I'm just trying to put some information out there to really help people we did not have the best experience while building our house and I did a lot of research I thought I knew everything to expect we had a lot of problems a lot of twists and turns that ultimately led to spending more money all right let's talk about buying land my first tip is to go in the wintertime now of course in the summertime everything is green everything is pretty and maybe you want to go look at the land when it looks nice well that may be okay if you're buying a field but the land that I bought was 90% trees I went the first time to look at my land in July my land had been vacant for about five years so we were trying to walk through the property with machetes and just chopping our way through the foliage foliage whatever you call it all the leaves on the trees were so thick all the underbrush was thick and vines and just craziness I mean you could not see 10 or 15 feet in front of you you're trying to chop your way through we were just getting covered in spiders and ticks it was miserable of course I ended up buying the land anyway well then come the fall time around September October you know the leaves start falling down the underbrush starts dying away and then you realize oh well the land is actually more sloped than I thought it was now I built a house on a basement so it worked out that's okay but also I started finding things like tires in the trees not a tire swing I'm talking about old tires laying around on the property you know some trash here and there and that's something that I did not see before because the the underbrush and the trees were so thick even when you're chopping your way through you just can't see far enough in front of you I work with a guy who has a hunting property kind of near here and he said it was the same deal for him he has found an old trailer and I believe some tires and stuff and trees have grown up through them so it's been there a long time but you know if you go in the summertime you can't really see these kind of things now again that really applies I guess to land that is heavily wooded like my property is you know if you're buying a big field then I guess maybe you can go in the summertime because as long as the grass is cut you can probably see everything you need to see also there won't be so many bugs spiders and ticks were crazy I would come home every day after looking or working on this land just covered in ticks all over me and I was using bug spray spraying DEET and just all over me you know whatever brand I was using at the time I tried to get the one with the DEET in it I mean I guess some people think it's not good for you but I think it probably works the best but really it didn't matter I was covered in ticks spiders everywhere if you go during the winter time you're just not gonna have the problems with all the spider webs everywhere and the ticks how do you find land I like to use apps like Zillow and red fin you can also look online there's a lot of real estate websites I mean if you just google land for sale property for sale you gonna come up with a bunch of different websites real estate companies their websites a lot of times you can go on there and search the MLS the Multiple Listing Service you know you can go through these real estate companies and look on the MLS for properties you can look at Zillow and red fin on a computer but I like to use the ABS because if I spent a day driving around I like to have the information right there with me you can get property details you can find out who the listing agent is we'll be talking more about that in a minute of course you can use a real estate agent but I was pretty picky about what I wanted or I knew what I wanted I looked at a bunch of different properties and I did not want to be that person that constantly was calling the real estate agent another thing you know a real estate agent works off commission so if they're helping someone sell or buy a home they're gonna get a pretty big Commission if it's a to three hundred thousand or a million dollar home they're gonna get a big Commission I was looking at properties like maybe around the 50 thousand dollar mark so the Commission to the real estate agent wasn't really that big I mean it is still their job you can still call him every time you want to look at a property but I just didn't want to drag her all over the state looking at properties until I was really sure of one that I knew I wanted using apps like Zillow and red fin or even just going on the internet to whatever website you end up on you can filter it down to how big the property is how many acres do you want so when you start looking for land one important thing you need to know is where do you want that land to be and what are you gonna use it for do you want it to be wooded or no woods partially wooded me personally I was looking for mostly wooded also how big of a property do you want you know do you want five or ten acres or are you looking for a hundred acres what are you planning on doing with the property we had intentions of building a house another way you can find land is to just drive around the areas that you think you want to live we drove around a lot of backroads and we would see signs property for sale or land for sale a lot of times it was the owner selling it so it would not be listed with an agent or it would not be listed on the MLS so sometimes if you're on some back roads maybe in an area you want to live look closely for some signs on the side of the road and you might find some some property that would be nice to own a good thing about that is you know especially right now it's 2018 property values are very high and there's a lot of competition people looking for homes and land so if you can find a property that's not listed on the MLS that might be beneficial you might be the only one looking at it so you might get a better price you might even find someone willing to do owner financing then you don't have to worry about dealing with a bank when I found properties that I wanted to look at what I would do is call the listing agent so if you're looking on Zillow or redfin the app shows who the listing agent is I would just call them and I would say I'm interested in this property at whatever address or give them the listing number and I would ask can I walk around the property I have an agent but I don't want to bother them right now and I would even tell the listing agent you know there's really no need for you to come out here I just want to walk around the property you know do I have permission to walk around this property and usually they're gonna say either yes or no or let me contact the owner first or whatever let me get back to you most of the time they would just say yeah you can walk around the property go ahead so I'm gonna list off some things that you need to either ask the real estate agent or you need to research it and figure it out for yourself a lot of these questions depend on what you want to do with the property if you're gonna build a house then these questions are very important because they could end up costing you a lot of money too on the road if you're just gonna hunt on the land or you're gonna ride some four-wheelers or whatever then some of these may not pertain to you the first thing is is there a plat available for the property and how old is it and also going along with the plat but when was the last survey done so the plat is a drawing of the property it will at least show the boundary lines of the property a lot of them they also show if there's a house or a driveway a well a barn whatever it shows all the structures sometimes they'll also show creeks rivers or whatever else is on the property you need a plat for the property you're gonna buy and you need a recent one I'm not gonna get too specific into the details but the only plat that I had on my property at the time was from like the 50s or the 60s so anyway it caused some problems later on you need to have a fairly recent plat for your property another thing you want to know is are the boundary lines marked off for the property you're looking at so you could ask the real estate agent if you're talking to the listing agent and you say I want to go look at this property well how are you gonna know where that property begins and the neighbors ends so you can ask the agent or go out there and look for yourself you know are the boundary lines marked off and that's something to keep in mind because if they're not marked you really should get a survey done during the due diligence period if you want to get a survey done on your property are you gonna pay for that or is the seller gonna pay for that now I bought my property in 2017 in Georgia the going rate to survey a property is about a hundred dollars per acre now that really only means they're gonna survey it and mark the points or the corners of the property if you want them to actually flag or stake the bow three lines you're gonna pay even more for that and then if they're gonna draw you a new plat like if they survey the property and maybe the new survey is a little different from an old survey for whatever reason they have to draw you a new plat you're gonna even pay more money for that another thing you need to talk to the listing agent about or you can find it out for yourself maybe by calling the county or the city that the property is in you need to know is there sewer service available or do you have to have a septic tank on the property obviously if you've got sewer available then you don't have to worry about all the other stuff I'm gonna go into about soil testing and some details about the septic tank something else you need to know are there any wells or septic tanks on the property if the property has never been lived on then it's probably no oftentimes we would see that if you look at Zillow or redfin or you're looking on the internet usually in the real estate listing it would say you know there's a well on this property I think sometimes they would try to use that as a good selling point like hey there's already a well here you're gonna save thousands of dollars you know one property we looked at I guess at one time it had a mobile home on the property so there was a septic tank there there was a well there we found the location of the well I don't know where the septic tank was but that's very important to know if you're gonna be building a new home just something to be aware of that you may can ask the seller to provide the location of the well and the septic if you can't find it here in Georgia any new septic systems have to be permitted and now I'm not familiar with the entire state I live closer to Atlanta so at least all the surrounding metro counties the septic tanks are supposed to be permitted and when they're installed they have to draw a little drawing of where they are and they file that with the county well that's good for the future if you buy a property in you someone oh yeah there's a septic tank on here well where is it because the house has been torn down you can usually go to the county and look up the address and find out where that septic tank is okay another thing you need to know has there been any soil testing done why do you need soil testing I can think of two reasons one is you're gonna be building a house on the soil you need good soil I'm not a soil expert so I don't know what kind of soil you're looking for you want to know that the soil will support your home I guess if it's too marshy or too sandy maybe too rocky I don't really know but you want to make sure you have the right kind of soil to build a house on another reason you need soil testing maybe the most important is if you're gonna have a septic tank so we live a little bit further out into the country and everybody's on a septic tank around here and that's one thing I did not even think of when I bought this property get it in the soil testing done before you close on the property I have heard it from more than one person from the Builder I've heard it from some co-workers they had a piece of property they started they wanted to build a house and then they did soil testing and it turns out they can't put a septic tank on the property it's not the right kind of soil so that is something you need to think about if you're gonna be building a house on the land and you're gonna install a septic tank has there been soil testing done how much is that going to cost you and are you gonna pay for that during the due diligence period okay I keep saying due diligence period and I assume everyone knows what that is but if you've never bought land or bought a house due diligence is a certain period of time maybe it's seven days or 14 days or 21 days whatever you decide on it's a period of time in which you get to investigate the property you get to search records you get to walk all over the property and at any time anything you find during that you're allowed to back out of the contract so during your due diligence period that might be when you choose to have soil testing done or if you want the property surveyed so if you're gonna build a house on the property and you're gonna need a septic tank you may already have in mind like oh when we buy this property I want my house sitting right here well then you get soil testing done and you find out you can't put it there you cannot have a septic tank or the drain field in this area so they will test depending on what you pay for they will test other areas of the property and you may find out you cannot have a septic tank at all or you know you bought ten acres but you find out you can only have a septic tank on half of an acre you know you want your house up here by the road maybe and you can only have a septic tank way in the back so that can be very expensive you're either gonna have to build your house back there or you can put your house up here but you're gonna have to buy a very expensive system to pump the sewage all the way to the back where the drain field can go again this is something that I had no idea about I did I just thought you dug a hole through the concrete box in there the septic tank put the drain lines out in the yard and you call it a day at least around the area that I'm in counties are very picky about the type of soil that the septic tank and the drain lines go in now I will say that's good for one reason because you don't want to spend all that money building a house and putting in a septic system and then it not work while it can be a pain you got to have the right type of soil it's really a good thing because you want to know that when you flush that toilet for the next ten years your septic system is gonna work it's gonna drain properly now I again I live kind of close to the metro area Atlanta so all these counties around here they have regulations about installing septic if you're buying land way out in an area in a state or a county somewhere that doesn't have strict guidelines about soil testing and where you can put your septic you may still want to try to get soil testing done me personally I would I mean that's because of the reason I just explained what if it's not required by the county or the state you build your house you put in your septic tank and then you constantly have backups or soggy smelly yard because it's not draining properly all right I just looked it up and for me in 2017 the soil testing cost me three hundred and seventy five dollars I believe that covered about an acre maybe an acre and a half something like that so if you want a bigger area to test you know obviously it's gonna cost you more than that I would just say you want to test the area where you think it's going to go and if it comes back oh you can't put it there then maybe have the guy come back out and test another area so here in Georgia you have two options if you want to do a septic tank if you're gonna check the soil you can do a soil testing or you can do a perc test the perc test is called a percolation test now I'm not gonna get too specific in it basically the perc test they dig some holes around your property I think they pour some water in there and they see how long it takes to drain out soil testing they test the soil they bring this hand auger bit and the guide drills down into the soil and pulls out the sample and whatever he is a geologist or something he looks at the soil and tells you what kind it is I don't know if they take it back to a lab to analyze it further but here's what I found out in my area you can do either test a perc test or a soil test if you do a perc test a percolation test and the results are inconclusive or the county is not satisfied with the result then you have to do a soil test so I'm not sure how much a percolation test costs but I just skipped it if there's a chance I'm gonna have to do a soil test anyway I just went straight to it for me it was 375 just pay that 375 and do the soil testing and 375 okay there you go there's one of those twists and turns I was talking about I did not know I was gonna have to do soil testing so that was more cash out of my pocket out of my savings account that we were not expecting what Power Company services the address if you're gonna build a house on the property and you're gonna have power where on that property are you building a house in relation to where the power is coming from how much is that power company gonna charge you to connect to the house we built our house closer to the road and that's where the power is on the road the power company only charged us a few hundred dollars to connect the service originally I had wanted the house way back off the road well the power company would have charged at least several thousand dollars because they're gonna have to add a transformer and they're either gonna have to set poles on your property or they're gonna have to trench a lot further down your driveway if you want to build it way off the road and away from the power you may end up spending thousands of dollars to have that power run to your house and that's another expense I wasn't even thinking of I did not know that I was gonna have to spend three or four hundred dollars to connect the power to the house I just assumed that was free from the power company but that's not the case another thing you need to know is how are you gonna get water to the property are you gonna dig a well is there a well already on the property is there public water available now for me there is a well on our property and I may use it one day to water the grass water my garden wash the car but this property was vacant for probably five years and I just don't trust I don't know I may end up getting that water tested one day I just really don't trust the condition of that well I don't know enough about him but I'm kind of out in the country but I am able to get county water so that's what we did we ended up installing a water meter let me slide this little video in here the water meter installation cost was about nine hundred and thirty dollars it depends on the size of the water meter too so you need to think about that how big is your house how many bathrooms are you gonna have how far off the road is it you're gonna maybe need a bigger line if you've got to push further back off the road if you're going to have an irrigation system you're gonna need a bigger water meter so we just went with a 3/4 inch line if you're gonna need a bigger one it's gonna cost you even more money again that was something I wasn't even thinking about when I was planning on building this house I just assumed that the city would come out and put in a water meter for free but that's not how they do well we're really covering a lot of stuff on building the house too there are so many details that go into buying land if you're gonna build a house on it if you build your house far off the road we already talked about the extra expense of bringing power to the house but what about water now if you have a well near your house that's not a problem but the meters gonna be right at the road now you're gonna have to pay to have a water line run all the way down your driveway or through your yard that's something to think about if you're looking at a piece of land make it go into the negotiation about soil testing you know all the soil testing says I can only build here way off the road it's going to cost me $5,000 more to run water and power you can ask the seller look this is the deal I can only build way off the road it's going to be five thousand or ten thousand dollars extra to run power and water I need you to reduce the price of the land continuing on with the utilities what about the gas company that was an easy choice for us because natural gas is not available on the road that I'm on also I did not want natural gas I just wanted a total electric house now a lot of houses around here they have propane tanks I did not want to deal with that running out of propane in the middle of the night or just the extra expense of having to keep that thing filled up so our house is total electric that's something to think about is there natural gas available where you wanting to buy your land especially if you're gonna build a house are you gonna have to pay to install a propane tank or if you're gonna have natural gas how much is the gas I'm gonna charge to hook up to your house that's something I don't know because they didn't go through that that's something you need to speak to the utility company in that area that you're looking at the land in you'll need to know what are they gonna charge to hook the house up something that we're having trouble with is cable TV and Internet out here in the country there's not a lot of options that's something to think about when you're looking for land if you're gonna build a house there and you got kids like we do and is there cable TV or Internet available where you're looking for land a lot of people in this area they're using wireless hotspots to provide them Internet or they're using satellite Internet companies and not too many people are happy about that service especially when you come from an area where you've got the fastest internet things download so quick then you come out here it's like old school dial-up living out here so think about that if you're looking for land kind of out in the country but internet service is very important for you maybe because you're running a business or you just do everything on the internet like we do pay bills watch TV you need to know what Internet service is available and maybe you don't want to buy that land because you're not gonna have a good service available something else to keep in mind if you're buying land that has something on it like a house an old house an old barn something that you're gonna tear down especially if you're gonna tear an old house down and put your house there or in that area you need to think about the added cost of that it's probably going to cost you at least several thousand maybe five or ten thousand it depends on the hoops that the county or the state makes you jump through it depends on how big it is and how much debris you have to get rid of the materials the house is built out of if you're negotiating on the price you need to think about how much is it going to cost me to tear these buildings down to build my new home you can't just knock down a house you know sometimes depending on the county the city you're in you're gonna have to get a demo permit also we got a great deal I thought it was a great price on our land but we had two houses on this property that I had to tear down after the expense of tearing those houses down the expense and the headache really did not get a good deal on this property I really paid too much for it let's talk a little bit about financing your land so you can obviously either pay cash for the land we did not have enough cash to pay cash for all of it we did put about 50% down on our land when you're buying land it's a little bit different than buying a house sometimes buying a house you can get as little as 3% down that's not the case usually with land a lot of times they want at least 20% down I guess if they had to foreclose or basically repo the land from you well there's it's just land I mean if they repoed a house from you foreclosed on it they could at least sell the house recoup some of their lost money but land is a little bit different if you're gonna be financing land you probably need to plan or save for at least 20 percent down where do you go for financing I chose a company called AG South Farm Credit now I know that they operate around the southeast I don't know exactly where they operate but you could also try local banks I tried a few local and community banks and I just felt like I had a better deal a better rate better financing terms I just liked the AG south company better now I did have a pretty high credit score so I felt I got a pretty good rate let me just freeze this and make a correction my rate was six point two five percent and I believe it was a 15-year loan another thing about land financing is the term you know when you buy a house you can get maybe a 15 or a 30 year low land is a little bit different I believe the farthest you can go is about 15 years that's what we had one thing to keep in mind if you're gonna be building a house on the land are you gonna need a construction loan we had to get a construction loan and I wanted to keep it simple I wanted that construction loan and the land loan to be at the same place now on a side note and we'll talk about this in later videos but the construction loan pays off your land loan I'll go into that further in another video but we talked to a few banks some of them would do construction loans but they would not finance land so that's part of the reason I ended up where I'm at now because I wanted a company that would do construction and the land long I wanted to go ahead and start kind of building a relationship with them this particular company they also do financing for farm like equipment and stuff so if we end up buying something in the future maybe some tractors or whatever maybe I can go through them I've already developed a relationship with them maybe I can use them for financing I had planned on buying the land first and owning it for six months to a year and tearing down some old houses on the property clearing off some trees myself so that is why I went ahead and just got a land loan but if you're gonna be building a house you can get financing for the house and the land all wrapped up together so that's something you may want to think about that may actually be cheaper of course because I had a land loan I had to pay all those closing costs and attorney fees and everything and then I got a construction loan later and I had to go through all that closing and background and whatever so that's something to think about if you're gonna be building a house and you're gonna be ready to build as soon as you buy the land maybe it's gonna be better for you to get a land and construction loan everything tied up into one deal well hopefully I covered everything thanks for watching my video we have a lot of other videos coming up about building a house if you're interested in building a house please click subscribe and click the bell so you'll be notified as soon as we put those videos out [Music]

Channel: Brantley Blended

Views: 111,654

Rating: 4.9149213 out of 5

Keywords: buying land, how to buy land, land, land for sale, how to build a house

Id: MVhGdnmfOJU

Length: 32min 6sec (1926 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 10 2018