By Jessa Friedrich, MBA, Marketing Manager, REALTORS® Land Institute
Land – a word some commercial agents fear and others view as an opportunity. Make sure you are one of the latter. Some practitioners hesitate when they see a property come up involving land, like a vacant lot or tract of farmland on the outskirts of an urban area. Savvy agents know transitional land real estate properties can be diamonds in the rough awaiting discovery. Being able to identify and properly market them can be quite lucrative.
The Dirt on Transitional Land
The purpose of a real estate brokerage is to sell a property at its market value and earn a reasonable profit for the client, as well as for the agent assisting with the transaction. In traditional real estate brokerage, the agent lists an existing property with a known use and markets that property to the users for that type of property. What makes Transitional Land properties different is the need to determine the market value accurately and then market the property according to its highest and best use, which is often different than its current use, in order to increase the property’s value and thus the profit.