My family and I own several tracts of land, and here is what I would dam sure make sure of:
Make sure you have an easement that extends past your lifetime. I’ve seen land deals where the easement expires once the original purchaser dies.
My grand mother/grand father had such an easement on the main entrance of their homestead, after my grand father sold off the road frontage. It was fine at the time because he owned another entrance. After he died my grand mother sold off the alternate entrance not taking into consideration of the main entrance easement. When she passed her home was worth nothing, and the landowner in front bought the land from the family for pennies on the dollar. Apparently, he never forgot l, and was waiting to pounce.
If you buy land that has utilities running through it. Make sure you are not going to build on top of those utilities. It will be your responsibility to move them. There is three acres next to my home that had a contract for $100k, that can’t sell now, because it’s going to cost $30k to move the utilities.
Get a perk test done for best potential home site, whether you plan on building or not. If the land won’t perk, you will not have the value you think you may have.
Make sure logging trucks can get in and out of the land. At some point in time you will need to cut timber. If logging trucks have to cross creeks, swamps, etc. they won’t want to log. We are having issues with that now. Luckily we are planned on improving the creek crossing anyway, so we had already factored in the cost.
If you’re on a river in low country look at flood marks on trees. It will be underwater during the wet season. That can prevent access.
Where I live can only have 3 houses on a private rd. Depending on the ordinances, that could force you to build another rd. If you want to build.
Understand who has easements through your property. We had a place that a hunting club had an easement through. There were people driving through a place constantly. It’s also very hard to know who is allowed to use the easement under those circumstances. Luckily, it was bought with the intention of flipping, so it really didn’t matter for too long.
I’d definitely get an agent who understood land buys, and could help with due diligence. Don’t be afraid to leave your earnest money on the table. Charging a few grand to the game is much better than being stuck with a turd.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk