What I’m about to share with you will benefit you greatly. It’s going to save you a whole lot of money, and most importantly, it’s going to prevent a whole lot of stress.

This will bring them valuable information. They will absolutely appreciate the fact that you shared this article with them because this is very informative information.

Number 1

Number 1, you’ll wanna walk the land that you’re looking to purchase. Walk that land, and don’t just
walk that land when it’s sunny and beautiful outside. Walk that land before or after a rain. This is when you wanna walk the property. You wanna walk the boundaries.

You wanna know where it stops, where it begins, where it ends, how much road frontage. That’s the frontage that’s actually on the road of the property. And you wanna make sure, is there anything on the property that is not owned by the property owner selling you the property?

Number 2

Now the second thing you’ll want to do is you want to make sure you’re not overpaying for whatever property it is you’re looking to purchase. And how you do that is you got to get comparable sales. You got to find out what if other pieces of property comparable to the one that you want to purchase, what have they sold for? Now you do this in really 2 ways. 1, you can look at comparable properties and have
an agent, real estate agent, pull those properties for you and show you what comparable properties have sold for. The second way you can do that is simply pay for an appraisal to have the property appraised. Now that’ll typically run you 3 to $400, but keep in mind, if you’re getting a bank loan for the property, you typically have to put 10% down, but the banks are going to require that you have an appraisal on the property because they want to make sure that the money that they’re loaning you for that land, that the land is in fact worth it.

Number 3

Now the third thing you’ll want to do is get a survey on the property. Never buy a piece of property unless you have it surveyed. Now keep in mind, the seller may have had it surveyed. They may have a a recent recorded survey of the property that may be just 2 or 3 years old. You can use that.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but just be sure you walk the property cause you just never know what’s going to be on the property. The survey is gonna show you exactly where the property begins and ends. You see, every time they survey a piece property, they take these big steel rods, they drive them at the corners of the property where the property actually meets its bound and takes a turn. It may be perfectly rectangle, I’ve seen them shaped just like a stop sign, but you’ll want to make sure that that property is
surveyed. And it’s going to vary anywhere from 600 to into the 1,000 of dollars, depends on the size of the land and how much the surveyor has to trek through, stuff like that.

Number 4

Now it’s wet out here, I’m walking some property and it’s wet, it’s raining, but what you’ll want to do is you’ll want to make sure that the property that you’re looking to purchase is not in a wetlands. And listen,
the order that I’m telling you to do these things is the order that you should be doing it to save you money. You wanna walk the property, you wanna make sure the value’s there, you wanna make sure it’s not in a wetlands, it’s not in a flood area, and you do that by simply doing research. You have to do your own research. But FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Association, they post those things on their website so you can go and look at that specific property, and it will tell you whether or not it’s in a wetlands area, and even the flood zone of the actual property that you’re looking to purchase.

Number 5

Is you want to make sure that the property’s not in a flood zone. So you can do that by looking at the survey, you can also do that by getting a flood elevation certificate. So a flood elevation certificate will tell you the flood zone of the property. There’s typically a, b, c, and x flood zones.

A is the worst, b is the second worst, c is the better, and x is pretty much the best in terms of being in a flood zone. If the property’s not in a flood zone, it’s gonna state that it’s not in a flood zone. If it is
in a flood zone, it’s gonna state it’s a, b, c flood zones. You have to determine whether or not the property’s worth it to you to purchase that property if it’s in a flood zone.

Number 6

Is restrictions, deed restrictions. A lot of people don’t realize that if you purchase a piece of land, it can be restricted on what you can build, what you can put, what you can place, whether or not you can put a single family home, whether or not you can build a bar in a minium, how big the house has to be or can be. There’s loads of restrictions, and what they call it, the restrictive covenants, the deed restrictions, if you will, on a property. They may say you can have horses, you can have cows, but you can’t have pigs and chickens. All of that is written in there, so you’ll want to make sure you get a copy of that. That’s public record. You can get it at the register of deeds office anywhere in your parish or county across the United States.

Number 7

Is will the property
perk? Is it on city sewer, or do you have to put a septic system in? Do you have to put a treatment plant, or can you put just a old fashioned traditional septic system? Most places now require what they call treatment plants to be put in on that property, but you have to know that. But keep in mind, some properties will not perk. That means that water will not absorb into the earth, that ground, and if it won’t perk, then you can’t put a septic system on the property. So, the last thing you’ll want to do is buy an acre of land, per se, and you can’t even put a septic system on that property. And you may look and say, Wow, that’s a great price on that property, but if you can’t build on it and you can’t put anything on it and you can’t live on it legally, what’s it really worth?

Number 8

Number 8 is water. Does the property connect to city water, or will you have to put a well on the property? Now keep in mind, most properties you can put a well, but you have to understand, the more you have to dig through rock to hit water, and the further you have to dig through rock to hit water, the more expensive it’s going to cost you. We’re here in southern Louisiana, and when you’re in the southern states, our water table’s really high, so it doesn’t take maybe 4 to $5,000 to dig a well. But if you’re in other parts of the country where there’s a lot of rock, like for say Tennessee, it can run you $20,000 to put a well in.

Now number 9

Is talk to the neighbors, and that’s something you can do early on or in the middle of the process. It really just depends on yourself. You gotta kinda play it by ear and kinda catch them out on the weekends, but you’ll wanna ask the neighbors what they think about the property, would they buy the property again, are they looking to sell the property, do they know anything about the property that you’re looking to purchase. You’d be surprised how much information you can get just from talking to neighbors.

Number 10

Is the title policy. Do not buy a piece of property without our title policy. The title policy is gonna cover you and the land on the property. That way no one’s gonna come knocking on your door, come walking on your land, and say, hey, you owe me money because I did work on that property.

The purpose of the title policy is the closing attorney will do research and make sure that there’s no back taxes, liens, encumbrances, or anything on that property that’s connected or attached to that property. That way, when you close on the property, no one’s gonna come after you or looking for you or say
you owe them money. You’re covered under the title policy.

And it’s not just you. They do research to find out as far as they can. They do as much research as they can because they’re insuring you, they’re basically giving you an insurance policy to say that property is free and clear of taxes, liens, and encumbrances, and no one’s going to come banging on your door. It’s covered. It’s very inexpensive to purchase this, and it covers you and your property for the life that you own it.

You don’t pay a monthly premium. It’s a one time fee, and it covers your property for the length of the time that you own it. So there you have it. It’s pretty simple. Those are the 10 things that you’ll wanna know.