The practice of surveying land dates back to ancient history. Surveying is used for a number of interrelated purposes, such as to establish a precise location on the earth of a parcel of land along with its exact acreage, to ascertain boundaries for defining an area of ownership and tax liability, and to identify a property by a written legal description or to provide a review of the accuracy of an existing description. This data is of the utmost importance with regard to buying and selling land, and is also used to insure a clean, marketable title.
Author: Luis Garate
What is land banking? Simply put, it's the process of buying and holding unimproved real estate. Land banking is done for a number of reasons. Local governments can engage in it in order to preserve stretches of land or to have the option of changing their use at some time in the future. Individuals also utilize land banking as a potentially very lucrative investment.
Over the years, more than a few fortunes have been realized by way of land banking. Investors who understood the concept of purchasing – at very low prices – raw land that could later be developed became quite wealthy. But it hasn't ended; that same concept still works today. And with the current real estate bubble continuing to burst all around us and affecting virtually every category of 'improved' properties, investing in undeveloped land is proving to be a very sound financial decision.
Sure you can hire a title company to do a preliminary title search for you on the property that you are interested in buying. But I would NOT recommend it… because in most real estate investment cases where you have found a good price for a property either from an individual or from the Tax Lien or Tax Deed Sale, you don’t want to be paying for title searches on properties that you have no idea on whether or not you actually will be able to buy the property or not.
Instead you need to learn how to do a quick and preliminary check for red flags with the county. Of course the Title Companies want you to believe that you MUST have a professional title search done and that ONLY THEY can do that, …that what they do is complicated, important and that only they can do it the right way.
Even though I think very HIGHLY of the need for a detailed title search when buying real estate and would NEVER purchase a property without having done a detailed title search, I do NOT think very highly of title insurance.
What is the difference?
Title Insurance is issued by a Title company AFTER they have run their title search and have satisfactorily identified and removed any clouds on title that they found. Until this point, I am all for it and I LOVE it. However once they have satisfied these requirements they then agree (for a fee) to issue Title insurance on this property.
Self-directed IRA: Did you know that if you have an IRA, you may be able to buy real estate with it? Chances are you did not, although it is becoming more known now because there are several companies out there promoting this strongly. Expanding your IRA through real estate holdings is a winning proposition. If your IRA is not structured for real estate investing, or you don’t have an IRA, it’s easy to find a self-directed IRA company; there are several in the market. One used to be called Mid-Ohio Securities and now is called Entrust, and there are others out there. Just Google for the search word “SELF DIRECTED IRA”. These companies are fiduciaries just like the big guys (like Charles Schwab, Merrill Lynch…). At time of printing, the total contributions to all IRAs you own cannot be more than $4000 per year per person, so you have to limit contributions to one to $1000 if you have contributed $3000 to another, for example. Once you find a Property you like to buy you can advise your fiduciary of your self-directed IRA to enter into a contract with the seller and send the money to the title company, and then your IRA owns the Property and your IRA gets the profits once it is sold again. An IRA is a great way of supercharging your original investment money!
Individual Retirement Accounts are an extremely popular means of investing. Millions of Americans have them. Unfortunately, far too many are unsatisfied with their accounts' returns. The fact is that most Americans' IRAs will not usher them into retirement in anything close to the style that they envision. Regardless of whether it's a Traditional- or Roth IRA, many people's retirement plans simply aren't building much of a retirement nestegg. And with the beating that Wall Street and the Dollar have been taking in recent months, it isn't any wonder.
But all is not lost. After all, land is still available. Yes, land! Raw, undeveloped, pristine land. And although you can't buy and hold real estate in your regular IRA, you can utilize a Self-Directed IRA to do the job. What's that, you ask? Put simply, it's just what its name implies. 'Self-directed' means that you have much more control over how the money in your account is invested (you can even have checkbook control over the funds without custodial slowdowns). As a matter of fact, self-directed IRA funds can be used for virtually any of the IRS-permitted investment types, including raw land – only life insurance and collectibles are excluded.
As you buy properties using my proven investment techniques you will need to determine whether you want to sell them for CASH only or for TERMS, meaning with a loan which you carry back. Ideally you will find that you want to do a combination of both techniques.
But before I get into the sales portion of this here is a refresher on my three methods to buy properties for pennies on the dollar:
Tax Lien Sales, where you buy a Tax Lien on properties unlikely to be redeemed and then foreclose on the lien once the state statues allow you to.
Once you purchased a few properties using my investment techniques you might be asking yourself how you can sell these property in a fast efficient and profitable way without having to become a realtor or jump through a lot of hoops.
Below is one, of more than a dozen avenues that I actively use to sell a properties fast.
Selling through eBay:
What more and more people are doing is posting their properties online, at auction sites such as eBay, where you can list your properties with reserves (the minimum you're willing to let a property go) or no reserves. This is a strategy that works best with land worth between $1,000 and $30,000. There are literally hundreds of properties being sold on eBay every day with this method and it is the easiest way to sell I have seen, and one of the fastest. And since you have followed my advice and hopefully taken lots of pictures during your property inspection prior to purchasing the parcel, those photos are going to come in handy for marketing your property online.
Like in any market, Tax Deed have their share of problems. For example there is competition. Excessive competition during tax deed auctions auctions will affect the prices drive them up closer to the true market value. However in the Tax Deed arena has some ways to circumvent the number of problems I am listing below;
In this publication I am focusing on the most drastic problem investors face when attending Tax Deed auctions, particularly when targeting higher value properties. For more information on tax delinquent investing please visit
http://www.landforpennies.com/secretsrevealed/
Make 16-32% on your money Buying Tax liens from the comfort of your home.
Most people teaching Tax Lien Investing or actually doing the investing believe that the only way to obtain a Tax Lien is by going to the actual auction in person and bid. This is still the normal procedure for most counties but what most people don’t know is a little hidden secret which allows anyone to get them from the comfort of your own home. All you need to have is a computer and access to the internet or in the worst case a stamp, a piece of paper and an envelope.
Just imagine what you could do if you would not have to travel to make money.
To find out how I made my millions go to http://www.landforpennies.com/secretsrevealed/