Raw lands are one of the under-utilized investment opportunities in the real estate industry. It is due to the complex level of development strategy. However, if you do your homework and focus on due diligence, this investment offers numerous benefits to the developers, ensuring faster and smoother growth. But, before we begin, let’s learn the meaning of raw land development.
What Is Raw Land Development?
It is the process of buying a parcel of land to develop a real estate project on it or enjoy long-term property appreciation. Many new developers avoid this type of investment due to the numerous configurations involved.
But, if you look beyond the rules and regulations, you’ll be able to enjoy different rewards, including:
- Less competition level,
- Cost-saving,
- Development possibilities,
- Property appreciation potential and
- The opportunity of seller financing.
These benefits get amplified if you develop a project on wetlands or waterways. Nevertheless, as a developer, you must learn about a few development factors.
Factors To Consider
Generally, this type of real estate investment requires adequate planning due to its level of complexity. From purchasing land and constructing new projects to selling it to the final consumer, you must combine different strategies.
Luckily, the factors given below can help you systemize the entire process and attain the ultimate goal. However, you may want to hire an experienced professional like Lincoln Frost to assist you and guide you throughout your process.
Permits
Stating the obvious, permits are necessary for every construction project or real estate development. When you are using raw land, it is important to study the surrounding areas, timeline, and cost involved in obtaining a permit.
Many developers often neglect the importance of a timeline when applying for permits; consequently, the construction of projects gets delayed, sometimes resulting in increased costs.
Zoning
Depending on where you plan to build the project, the area would fall under zoning classifications: Residential, Commercial, Industrial, or Agricultural. These classifications are created to protect nature and wildlife and ensure the utmost health and safety of the community.
So, it would be best to learn about the necessary zoning rules and use mapping tools such as National Wetland Inventory to ensure environmental due diligence. It will also help ensure compliance with the federal and state laws, ensuring smooth project planning.
Building Department
Your project locality can also have a significant impact on its development. So, you must take the matter into your hands and learn about the building requirements of a particular area.
You can contact the other contractors or builders to learn about any possible issues, especially related to the environment or hazards. Accordingly, you can prepare your construction plan and lower the chances of any potential risk.
Water
Usually, raw lands do not have existing hookups or water or sewage lines. That means you have to install and operate water lines for development projects, particularly for sanitation and drinking water.
Learning about the laws and regulations of the local area or state for installing the water lines would help with the development of the property and also appreciate its value.
Staying Competitive In Real Estate
Technology is revolutionizing the way we live, communicate, work, and even how to buy
houses. Homebuyers and agents alike can now benefit from automation software designed to
streamline paperwork, augmented reality equipment to view a home virtually and so much
more.
The impact is extraordinarily far-reaching and expected to only accelerate in the imminent
years ahead of us. As such, it’s essential to invest in the emerging technological advances
available to keep a competitive edge, whether that means actively utilizing social media to
communicate with prospective buyers – as 77% of realtors already do – or improving
operational efficiency through sophisticated automation processes. Below is a brief look into
the nearly indispensable tech of today’s incredibly fast-paced world of real estate.
The housing market is hectic now, to say the least. Homes are going fast, interest rates are up
and demand seems to keep on rising. While these local or regional economic conditions are
reported to be the primary challenge of commercial real estate companies, a close second is
keeping up with the latest property technology, or PropTech.
What is PropTech? The term describes the broad application of advanced technology within
realty markets. It can refer to software products designed to manage all aspects of home
selling, buying, and financing. As management software products are capable of streamlining
operations on a widespread scale, the market for them is expected to hit $12.9 billion by 2025.
PropTech can even relate to the use of remote access in loan signing opportunities, real-time
alerts and virtual property tours. Such 3D walkthroughs and VR content are becoming highly
prominent, with 64.4% of apartment buyers saying it helps to “feel” the actual size of rooms,
thus improving the remote purchasing experience. Because of the extensive applications it
offers, demand for PropTech has exponentially increased, with $23.750 billion being invested in
2020 alone.
Another high-tech development within real estate is the application of robotic process
automatization or RPA. In its essence, RPA allows computer software to be custom configured
to emulate the actions of a human interacting within digital systems and execute various
business practices automatically. In fact, its capabilities of accelerating the execution of
repetitive tasks like manual data entry, processing, storage, and so on, can potentially lead to an
80% reduction in direct costs.
The global real estate market is challenging. It’s filled with constantly evolving consumer trends
and built on a rapidly changing digital landscape. To stay competitive, brokers and other realty
professionals need to adopt forward-thinking strategies and implement up-and-coming digital
technologies such as these.
Infographic created by National Land Realty – land for sale in Alabama
For further information on the technological game changers in real estate, please see the
accompanying resource.
To Conclude
These factors can help deal with the complexity of investment and allow you to enjoy ROI. So, make sure to prepare a well-thought-out plan beforehand and select the land for your new raw land development project wisely.