Oh Joy! and Clever are teaming up to show you what it's really like to build a house from the ground up.
Hi! It's Joy Cho from Oh Joy! Last month, I shared my BIG ANNOUNCEMENT with you, and I'm back today to tell you how we found land to build our house on. The year was 2014, and we were ready to take the leap of building instead of buying a house in Los Angeles. But we needed to find land to actually build on. Los Angeles doesn't have a ton of open lots just sitting there. Typically, people tear down old homes, or any land that is available is small or tricky to build on (otherwise a developer would have already scooped it up). So, today I'm sharing my tips on how to find land to build a house on, no matter what city you're in. . . .
1. Focus on the location
In the same way that people go about deciding on neighborhoods to look for a house, there are factors that are essential for the neighborhood when you're searching for land for a house. We wanted a neighborhood we loved and could stay in for a very long time, options for good schools for our kids, and a plot of land that was big enough that we could have a flat yard for our kids to play.
2. Search real-estate sites
Next, we did a basic search on real-estate websites. We had already been on all of these sites looking for a house, so we just had to change our search criteria to allow for land. Some of these sites even have a category where you can check for land only. Now, those sites will show land if someone chooses to list the land. But land isn't always listed on real-estate sites. So . . .
3. Scour the earth—and Google Earth
Because not all plots of land are listed for sale, we drove around looking for any property that looked empty. Since it's hard to aimlessly drive around all the time, we relied on Google Earth to really search, looking for open areas of land from the aerial view in our choice neighborhood. It was through Google Earth that we first spotted the land we now own today. Once you find land this way, you can grab the address, visit the actual site, and see if it happens to have a "For Sale" sign. If you feel comfortable knocking on strangers' doors, you can ask neighbors if they know who the owners are. But if they don't know, you can find out from the city or county's assessor's office.
4. Visit or call the city or county assessor's office
Part of the land we had found did have a For Sale sign! Score! But part of it had no indication of who owned it, and wasn't actually for sale. For us to make this plot of land work, we needed both parts side by side to make it worth even getting. When you come across land and cannot easily determine who the owner is, you can search the address at the assessor's office of your city or county. That can involve a phone call or a physical visit to the office. From there, you can contact the owner to see if they are willing to sell the land. The same thing goes for a house that may be empty or in disrepair and no owner is presently living in the house.
5. Contact the land brokers
We ended up getting in touch with a land broker who was listed as the contact for one part of the land we found. He helped us to broker the deal with his client, but then he also ended up helping us find out who the owner of the adjacent lot was and negotiate with them as well. Just as with finding a house and working with a real-estate agent, you can find a land broker to help you find land from the beginning. They do the same thing that a real-estate broker does and help you find, put in an offer, and negotiate for land. If you know you want to build, I would highly recommend getting a land broker from the beginning and letting their expertise help you. We had no idea about this when we first started searching.
Since living in the city of Los Angeles does have nuances for finding land, I also asked some friends from around the country for their top tips on how they found land to build in their cities:
Cecile in Minneapolis:
"I’m lucky that my husband, John, happens to be a realtor, so he has a wealth of knowledge, access to insider information, a good pulse on upcoming opportunities, and a ton of knowledge that the average person would never think about. He was able to find our place after months of knocking on the doors of homes that met our criteria. When he entered the conversation with the owner, he was always very genuine, personal, professional, and complimentary. Surprisingly, even if people weren't interested in selling their home, they still engaged in conversation about the neighborhood. No one was ever short or rude.
He first knocked on the door of the person about a year before we finally bought the lot. The person was single, an empty-nester, and travelled a ton. At the initial conversation, the owner wasn't interested in moving, but John did ask if it was okay to follow up later to check in on whether her situation or interest were to change. Luckily for us, it did. No longer having children and being away from home a lot of the year meant this person no longer had the time for house maintenance nor the need for the space, and was ready to downsize to something more manageable."
Jen in Austin:
"We mostly searched on Redfin, waiting for something to pop up that was in a desirable neighborhood, in our price range, and the right size. We put a bid on one place that received 42 offers in the first weekend and went $125,000 over asking . . . for a teardown! After that, we knew when we found the next one we would have to be ready to move quick! We were actually in Palm Springs with friends when we found the lot that we ended up building on. I knew I loved the neighborhood, but my husband, Aaron, had never even driven through it. We Google Earthed it, we sent my sister to drive by it, and we put in an offer eight hours later, removing all contingencies to make our offer look as good as possible. We also wrote a very persuasive and emotionally charged letter! I'm so thankful that they chose our offer! We have the best neighbors and love our neighborhood so much!"
Melissa in Pasadena:
"I started to study satellite maps, going down street by street on Google Maps. That was when I discovered a few parcels that didn't have any structures on them. I noted those addresses and when I drove to the first location, I found a sign that read "For Sale by Owner" with some information on the parcel and a phone number. When I called the number, an older lady answered. She told me her asking price and asked if we were interested to meet her with an offer. I then checked with my amazingly wonderful real-estate lawyer (who dropped everything on his plate to put together our letter), who confirmed that this was a great off-market deal. Basically, I called on a Saturday, I was at her house by Tuesday with a letter of intent, and we closed two weeks later. The house on this piece of land had burned down 40 years prior. She had held onto it since and had put up the sign only a few weeks before I found it. "
As you can see by these stories and my own, land isn't easy to find. But the hard work does pay off when a house is finished. While we go through the building process and the headaches that often pop up, it's been so nice to hear from these fellow home builders above who have gone through it and survived!
Check out my post today over at Oh Joy!, where I go into some of the common questions I often get asked about finding land to build on!
RELATED: Oh Joy!'s Founder Joy Cho Is Building a House—and We're Coming Along for the Ride
