I have not followed slurry guy's format but there is a short account of buying land.
Like Judith I could not get a loan through regular channels and did not want to go that way. I work in the construction field and I never know what work will be coming along esp. in this economy and wanted to pay as I go sort of thing. I am literally starting from scratch.
I search and researched through the net and land for sale on EBay. I made several trip out to NM to check around. My first aim was the Deming area. My concern about Deming was water. Even though they say there is water one has to be so careful in that area.
Then I researched land closer to Albuquerque. My thought process here was closeness to a major city, airport, etc. I went to check it out. The land that I had researched on EBay was not a possibility for me and pretty rugged but as I drove around and around looking I found a nice cluster of homes down in Tierra Grande but these homes were too rich for what I could pull off. Close to this was land on Hwy 60. There were pretty trashed out places there but also some decent ones too. I really like the views from there, was encouraged by the closeness of Hwy 60 and the main Hwy 25. By that time land taxes had gone way up in Valencia County but this land was in Sorroco County. I felt that the possibility of building very alternatively was still possible there. It was close to Albuquerque, 35 miles. You can see the Rio Grande which gave me a bit of comfort (I have no idea why and probably really stupid but there it is). Also there is a fairly new Railroad Runner that goes from Belen into Albuquerque which I thought was a good asset for the area.
I started to bid on 1 acre lots on EBay with my trusty map, Earth Google, etc. I bought three separate 1 acre lots. My thinking on this was I would pick one to develop and either sell or trade for work on the land at a later date. That's as far as I've gone with the venture.
On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 12:39 PM, slurryguy
<slurryguy@yahoo. com> wrote:
A comment in another thread got me thinking about this topic.
For those that own land, especially land that is a buildable lot, (but posts about any land purchase are encouraged) how did you purchase your land?
NOTE! I'm not really worried about the name address and phone number of a real estate agent.
The idea here is for people to share their story. I think such stories could be benificial to many members of this group that may not know how to get started through the maze and legal minefield of purchasing property.
Even those of us that own land, or have previously owned land, may learn a few things by reading the stories of others who have gone through the process.
Please tell your story and walk us all through the process YOU encountered. Following are a few suggestions of information to include in your story, feel free to add your own, or ignore any of my suggestions you do not feel comfortable sharing:
1. What motivated you in the beginning. How did you get started?
2. What type of land and what area were you looking for when you started? Did your desires change as the process went forward? What were your critera?
3. (Optional) If you do not mind sharing numbers, How much money had you saved up for a down payment when you started looking?
4. Did you go through a Real Estate Agent? Auction? Personal Transaction? Other? Why did you make the choice you did?
5. Did you hire an attorney?
6. Did you get a survey?
7. Extremely important. WHAT MISTAKES DID YOU MAKE? Please highlight your mistakes. What would you do differently if you did it all over again?
8. Other than the purchase price of the land, how much money did you spend on fees and professional services.
9. How did closing go?
10. Please don't try to turn this thread into a sales pitch for a Real Estate company, or an attorney, or try to market a particular piece of land. Please speak in generic terms. This is intended to be a learning discussion about the land purchase process, not a sales pitch. (Papercreters is adamantly anti-spam.)
11. Please share as much detail about other factors or other parts of the process as you feel comfortable sharing.
12. A funny story or a joke about your situation is encouraged. Keep it light. I'd rather see us "laughing and learning" than "ranting and @#%ching".
I encourage anyone to ask appropriate questions about the stories people post.
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