Marketing Your Land

Your Land Goes on the Market

Marketing land is different from marketing a home. With a home, buyers can see what they're buying. With vacant land, much of what they're buying is possibility, and not every buyer can look at a wooded lot or open acreage and immediately picture what could be there.

That's why good land marketing has to do more than simply show the property. Photography, aerial images, maps, property information, descriptions, and other visual tools can help buyers understand what they're looking at and begin to imagine the possibilities.

Your MLS Listing & Online Exposure

A land listing often requires information that doesn't come neatly packaged in public records. Depending on the property, that may include acreage, road frontage, access, utilities, restrictions, HOA information, surveys or plats, soil evaluations, water features, topography, views, adjoining parcels, and other details useful to a buyer.

I use the information available to create a listing that is useful and accurate without making assumptions about things that haven't been verified.

Once active in the MLS, your property is also distributed to many of the real estate websites buyers use to search for lots, acreage, and land.

Ground & Aerial Photography

Pictures of trees don't sell land. Being able to tell the story of the property does.

I look for ways to show the entrance, road frontage, access, terrain, creeks, views, open areas, and other features that help buyers understand the property. When possible, I also take it into the air.

As an FAA-licensed drone pilot, I offer complimentary drone photography with my land listings when the property can be safely and legally flown. Airspace restrictions, weather, terrain, tree canopy, community restrictions, and other conditions may sometimes limit what I can capture.

Ground and aerial photography work together. One shows what buyers experience on the property; the other may help them understand how the land lays and its relationship to roads, surrounding properties, mountains, lakes, ridgelines, or other features.

Maps, Plats & Topography

Land buyers often spend as much time studying maps as they do photographs. Plats, surveys, aerial imagery, and other property maps can help buyers understand the shape of the parcel, road frontage, access, neighboring properties, and the surrounding area.

When useful information is available, I may also include contour or topographic information to help illustrate elevation changes, slopes, ridgelines, valleys, and how the land transitions from the road.

Maps, contours, and other illustrations created for marketing are for general reference only. Actual boundaries, elevations, slopes, and site conditions should be independently verified when important to a buyer's plans.

Helping Buyers See the Possibilities

Many buyers have difficulty looking at a wooded parcel and imagining where a home might sit, where a driveway could enter, or how the property might look once developed.

When appropriate, I may use the information and visual tools available to help illustrate those possibilities. Any concepts shown are simply ideas. Building locations, driveways, septic suitability, grading, setbacks, permits, and other development decisions must be verified by the appropriate professionals and governing authorities.

Buyers Begin Exploring the Property

Once buyers find your property online, interested buyers will usually want to see it in person. Vacant land isn't always easy to find, so accurate directions, maps, landmarks, signs when allowed, and access information can make a difference.

I encourage buyers to get out of the car and walk into the property whenever conditions allow. Mountain land can be deceiving from the road, and buyers may discover terrain, views, creeks, privacy, or usable areas they couldn't see from the car.

North Georgia land has an unfortunate habit of not providing sidewalks.

Reading the Land Market

Land typically moves at a different pace than homes because each property has its own combination of location, acreage, terrain, access, restrictions, views, water, utilities, and other characteristics. Sometimes we're not waiting for more buyers. We're waiting for the right buyer whose needs line up with what your property offers.

I'll monitor the activity we can see, along with competing properties and changes in the market. If the property isn't getting the response it should, we'll look at the overall picture and decide whether something needs to change.

That doesn't automatically mean reducing the price. We may update information, change how a feature is presented, add maps, or refresh photography. Seasonal changes can even give us an opportunity to show wooded land differently.

If the market eventually tells us the price needs another look, we'll evaluate the property's position against the competition and make that decision together.

Next: Offers, Negotiations & Closing

When an offer arrives, we'll look at more than the price and work through the terms, due diligence, negotiations, and closing.