When the market was going really hot potatoes down here Nestor decided to move into Commercial Real Estate with land development. We transferred over from years of Residential experience into finding land for the major players in this area like Centex homes, Lennar Homes and Pulte Homes.
Nestor would search out the land use and zoning spots where these developers would want to build new single family home and townhouse developments. We then would go to each of the landowners, some of them would have houses and some did not. The houses of course would be torn down. Usually it was a group of 3 to 5 landowners that we would need to all get on the same page. Once we got them all to understand the terms we would then meet with the land acquisition managers of each of the major developers to see who would be interested in purchasing the property. One of the areas that we do not negotiate on is our fee. The builders happily paid our fee because of the intense involvement Nestor undertook in the planning stages. They are always impressed with his thoroughness and attention to detail. I am not just saying this because he is my husband either! We also double ended this entire project.
The very first deal that we put together was a group of 3 landowners that owned a total of 15 acres together. The City of Greenacres in Palm Beach County Florida was very aggressive in annexing in the County parcels to increase their tax base. They were what we considered to be a 'friendly government'. This means that getting a project through of 200 townhomes would be very easy to do.
Now in many parts of our nation 15 acres does not sound like a lot of land and certainly would not fetch the prices we can fetch here in South Florida. Buildable land is scarce down here especially with being so close to the Florida Everglades.
This land deal got us into the door in this niche. But when the gold rush was coming to a halt Nestor could feel it. He came to me and said that no matter how much we enjoyed this part of the business that the builders were going to stop buying land because the prices had skyrocketed to the point where the cost per door would no longer be profitable. Nestor saw and felt the end coming and decided we needed to jump back into our expired market niche in the residential arena once again.
Here is the project we put together for Pulte homes. It is called Pinewood Lakes in Greenacres Florida. Here are some photos of what these 15 acres with 3 homes turned into:
But boy, I gotta tell you, that gold rush was mighty fine living and fun! We did some great and exciting projects with developers and builders. Of course, one of the great laws of the universe is that what goes up must come down, eventually!
If you are a buyer looking to buy a resale you can buy one in here for under $200,000 now in this peaceful hideaway very close to Jog and Forest Hill Blvd, call our office and our buyer's agent will be happy to help you find the perfect townhome for you and your family. There are only 5 townhomes for sale in here, that means that this is a very well liked area. There is not a high turnover. The new townhomes sold very fast at $250,000.
We are currently looking for land bankers who would like to buy land in Florida and be able to hold on to it for at least 5 to 6 years.
Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida. We are accepting referrals.
Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Land Development Project With Pulte Homes, A Feather In Our Cap.*
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Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset- Realtors®, CIPS, ABR, SFR, GRI, REOS
Thats great and heppy that RE is working for you and your firm.
Ah!! Those were the good old days. I sold some land for development back in the mid 1990s, but it was easy then, builders were just coming out of the slumber years of the early 90s. Often, when they didn't complete the deal after their feasibility period, my fee would be limited to half of the non-refundable deposit. The seller got the other half and still owned the land.
By the time the market came back in the late 1990s and into the 21st century, the environmental restrictions and land use processes were so complicated, I just lost patience. Goodness, it took a year just to get land scheduled for public hearings. The only ones who made any real money there were the lawyers for the developers.
All segments of the real estate industry are subject to ups and downs. Of course this one is a real downer.
Ditto to Lenn's comment--I worked with a developer for awhile and loved every minute of it! You really only need to do one or two of those deals a year and you're buying some mighty SWEET potatoes!! No, we're not going gangbusters like we were in the late 90's early 2000's but, we're simply in 'pause' mode--things WILL pick back up and, after all, they're not making any more land are they?!! Great post, as always, Katerina...
Katerina. You forgot that I am a Maryland and Virginia broker. My land dealing days were all in MD. Maryland is the state from which a governor turned Vice President resigned having gotten caught taking bribes in the office of the Vice President. Then there was Gov. Marving Mandel who went to prison for mail fraud and racketeering, eventually acquited on a techicality.
In MD, land development isn't what you know, it's who you know. Or once was. It's changed a lot, much more open now. There are still a lot of niche builders who get by the code inspectors. But, that's a lot better now that builders are registered with the States Attorney office and the one year warranty is more enforced.
I still don't sell niche builders in MD or Va. I want a nice big builder who cares about their public relations.
I would like to introduce my services as Professional Engineer to your group. I believe that the market will strengthen towards the end of 2008 or the beginning of 2009. The preliminary work would need to begin now in order to be ready for the upcoming market turn.
I am the President of McKeon Engineering & Associates, LLC http://www.mckeonengineering.com/ ...please visit our site as well. If you would like to see more engineering problems, please visit http://www.engineertrades.com/ which is a forum for engineers to prepare for the Professional Engineering (PE) exam.