How to find a local agent specializing in unrestricted land?

Question

We are looking to purchase unrestricted land and build a tiny home in 1-3 years, then a regular SFH for ourselves on the same land in 8-10 years. How do you find a local agent with the right knowledge and experience in this area? And what questions should you ask them / how do you vet them? We have never built before and are not sure what we need to consider both in choosing an agent and shopping for land. For context, we are looking in Western NC.

Robert Ellis · Answer

you can read minutes online too and see what attorneys represent developers consistently

Bryant Brislin · Answer

@Julia Taylor I'm in California, so things may be a lot different, but I'd recommend calling or going to the planning department of the jurisdiction you are looking to buy land in.  So if it's within a specific city, they should have a planning dept, usually in the same building/complex as city hall, or if area is with an are that is unincorporated county, then call/go to the planning dept for that county.  They may be able to tell you how to determine whether or not the land you are interested in has restrictions or not.  They may even have a website that shows zoning, etc.

Robert Ellis · Answer

No real estate agent is going to specialize in that. it's much easier to work with zoning attorneys or a land use planner or a civil engineering firm. you'll have to spend the money. it's rare for agents to offer that. We do as part of our projects when people partner with us or pay a discounted rate

Julia Taylor · Answer

Thanks for your straight forward answer, @Bryant Brislin, much appreciated. We are listing a home in March so could be poised to buy land with cash as early as April or May depending on how quickly the home sells. We are just likely going to wait a bit to start developing/building.

The tricky thing is finding a piece of land that truly doesn't have restrictions. I've been scouring Zillow but it's hard to tell. Is there another tool or process you recommend for finding unrestricted land? Or do you just have to call the listing agent for each piece of land?

The other thing I've noticed is that some listings say not to attempt to view the land without an agent/appointment. Our agent who is listing our home for sale lives 2.5 hours away so we would need someone else to show us the land if we determined it met our requirements.

Bryant Brislin · Answer

As a land broker, usually when someone says they want to "build a tiny home on some land one day", it's a pipe dream, and since we are commission-only people, it's scary to spend a lot of time with people who can just change their mind at any time, after we've put in a lot of time holding their hand.  But also, if you aren't really planning on doing it soon I'm not sure what you would need to speak them about now.  Once you are actually ready to buy a piece of land, you would start looking for land listings and either ask the listing agent to also represent you, or you can have your own agent rep you.  Sounds like the type of land you are going after is going to be relatively small, thus a relatively small commission.  So it may be hard to find an agent who will spend a lot of time finding listings for you or off market properties if the commisison is small.  I'd focus more on finding the actual piece of land you want and then either having the listing agent rep you, too, or picking an agent to rep you on the sale. Or if you can find a young, hungry agent who will work like a dog to help you with this, despite everything I mentioned above, then that's viable option, too.