August Issue

Step 1: Decide where to buy land. Even if you’re simply buying land to build a home, you still want to think like an investor. That means you’ll want to buy a property that’s likely to grow in value over time. To figure out whether a property’s value will go up, you’ll have to do some homework. Do some digging on these seven things before you sign the dotted line. 1. Location The three most important things in real estate are location, location and location. While you may be fine owning land that’s completely off the grid, you need to think about how a future buyer would feel about that. And here’s a spoiler: Most folks won’t want to drive an hour to reach the nearest signs of civilization—like grocery stores and gas stations. When you’re evaluating the value of a location, and whether that value is likely to increase, you’ll also need to think about the quality of the school district the property falls into, how close the land is to highways and stores, and its distance from emergency services, like hospitals and fire stations. 2. Zoning Check with your city, county and state zoning ordinances to see if it’s even possible to build a home on the land you’re looking at—that will affect the land’s value and its potential to grow regardless of whether you want to build. Also find out if the government has any building plans of their own that could impact the land’s value, like new nearby highways or powerplants. Stuff like that is more common than you may think, so watch out!

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