As you can imagine, we’re big fans of buying vacant land in Arizona, or just about anywhere for that matter. For one thing, compared to buying a house, buying land is pretty much hassle free and a lot less complicated. You have a variety of options of what you can do with the land whether to build a house or cabin, use for recreation, or preserve a piece of the natural landscape. What’s more, land is a good investment—people always need it and as the famous quote goes, “They ain’t making any more of it.” In this post, we look at our Top 3 Benefits of Buying Vacant Land For Sale By Owner.
1) More Purchasing Options
Perhaps the most attractive of the pros of buying vacant land for sale by owner in Arizona is the fact that it is far easier when it comes to financing. Many landowners will provide financing to make the sale a more certain thing. The pluses of owner financing are these:
- You can often get lower interest rates.
- You can get by with a lower down payment (if any at all).
- You probably won’t have to suffer through an intrusive check into your credit and work histories.
And, with buying land, there’s also the cash option. Since there is no house or other structures on vacant land, it will be a far cheaper proposition than buying land with a house on it. So you just might be able to pay cash. And if you do, you will hugely increase your negotiating power with respect to price and other concessions.
2) Land is Cheaper
When a landowner hires a realtor to sell her property, it will simply put, cost them more. Even if the owner offers to pay the closing costs, she will likely bump up the sale price to cover that expense. Buying vacant land directly from the owner will cut out that middleman and save you both money. (You’ll avoid a lot of time-consuming red tape, too.) The simple fact is . . . land prices are always higher when the seller uses a real estate agent.
As we just mentioned, you stand a good chance of getting owner financing when buying vacant land for sale by owner. And that’s good because it’s far harder to get financing from a bank or other lender for land than it is for a house. And that will save you a lot of money.
With bank financing, you’ll need at least a 12% down payment. And at current interest rates for land loans, you would wind up paying almost double the original loan amount over the 30-year life of the loan. Although with owner financing the loan period will generally be much less than 30 years. That’s a good thing because you will pay substantially less in interest.
3) You Can Close Much Faster
It often takes 45 – 60 days to close on a home purchase – and the whole process from offer to signing the official documents can take up to a year. But closing on land for sale by owner can be much, much quicker. In fact, when an owner is selling land directly, you can often get all the paperwork signed and the deal finalized in a single afternoon.
The speed is a pro, certainly, but you may want to seek some expert advice before putting pen to paper. You will need to make sure the title is clear and that you are getting the best kind of deed for your purposes. For example, you would absolutely want to make sure there are no back taxes owed on the land, which can be the case sometimes.