Real Estate Development

Developing real estate is one of the more ‘hands on’ trades in real estate investing, but it is not as hard to do as you may think. If you do take on development make sure you understand zoning laws, sewer capacity, the municipality’s codes and ordinances, understand site work in regards to grading/topography, hydrology, and other aspects associated with construction. It is important to also think about what kind of impact you will have on the municipality, area, and neighborhood. 

If you want to learn how we recently “flipped” land and resold it to a larger developer, read below. 

5+/- acres was listed on the MLS a block over from a small downtown. We got an offer in immediately, with the plan to build houses or rezone for more units. We knew we could cover our costs if we just built 5 or 6 houses here with the current zoning, but we knew this area was hot and went for the rezone to Multifamily. 

For the next few weeks, we worked with the sewer department to come up with an agreement for them to bring sewer to our site. We would need this in order to get a Multifamily zoning. We then worked with our civil engineer to get a survey and topo map for the site. This would allow them to lay out a concept plan on the site, and see how many units we could fit. Initially, we laid it out to have 41 townhome lots, one road, a playground/greenspace, and our detention pond. 

Before submitting for zoning, we set up a meeting with the city planner to get his thoughts on what we were trying to achieve. There were some minor things to change on the concept plan, like the city’s requirement of an additional 25 ft buffer from a state waterway. So we went from 50 ft of buffer, required by the state of GA, to 75 ft of buffer. This changed our concept a little bit, and the best we could reconfigure was 30 townhome lots. 

We submitted for the rezone, spoke in front of city council, and got approved for the 30 lots. 

Our plan was actually to build this out, but the landowner behind us had interest in buying these ‘paper lots’ to tie in and make it a larger development. 

Since we had the experience and capacity to build these out, we wanted them to close quickly and not wait on their approval to tie into our development. We negotiated for them to actually pay us back for any civil engineering work, and also to pay a premium per lot for our land.

We did all of this without even putting a shovel in the dirt. It did take close to a year of working with the city and engineers, but the profit we made was well worth it. This is just one of the services Massey Brokerage LLC can help you with. Reach out for more information.