Buckingham County,Va. Land Sales

Of the 21 counties that I am recording sales data,Buckingham had the most arms length transactions of land tracts over 50 acres in size.In the 2 year period between January 1,2008 and December 31,2009 there were 57 sales. 33 sales occurred in 2008 and 24 in 2009.36 sales were of rtacts between 50 and 100 acres and 21 were of tracts over 100 acres.The first quarter of 2008 had the most sales with a total of 14. 8 of those sales were over 100 acres. 5 sales were to the adjacent landowner and 8 were less than the county's assessed value.Interesting stuff.Why is this so?

Land Sales in Prince Edward and Nottoway Counties

It was nice traveling through central virginia yesterday looking at the snowscaped countryside.I went to Nottoway and Prince Edward to research land sales of tracts that are over 50 acres in size.The following data was based on arms length transactions that are on record at the clerk's office.These sales occurred from January 1,2008 through December 31,2009.

The following is what I found in Nottoway County: Nottoway had a total of 15 sales of tracts over 50 acres during this period.14 sales occurred in 2008 and only 1 in 2009.There were 9 sales of tracts between 50 and 100 acres and 6 sales of tracts over 100 acres.1 sale was less than the county's assessed value.

In Prince Edward County there were 19 sales of land tracts over 50 acres in size during this period.12 sales occurred in 2008 and 7 in 2009.13 sales were of tracts between 50 and 100 acres and 6 were over 100 acres.6 sales were less than the county's assessed value.

I am going to talk about Buckingham County next time.

Cumberland County Land Sales

I am in the process of completing my land database of land sales for the past two years that are arms length transactions and are over 50 acres in size.On Thursday I visited Cumberland and Buckingham Counties.It was a beautiful and relatively mild(especially compared to today which is very cold-about 20 and snowy)winter day.Over the two year period from January 1,2008 through December 31,2009 there were 25 land sales that were over 50 acres in size.15 sales were of land tracts that were between 50 and 100 acres and 10 sales of tracts over 100 acres.The most sales occurred in the third quarter of 2008 with a total of six.Five of those sales were between 50 and 100 acres and one was over 100 acres in size.The sales price of six sales were less than the county's assessed value.Interesting stuff.I am going to find a few more ways to play with the numbers.I'm thinking that I may do some price per acre stats comparing 2008 with 2009 or county to county.I am almost done on figuring the Buckingham stats and will talk about that one later.

Anybody out there?

It sures seems to be very quiet out there in real estate land.The phone has not been ringing. No sign calls or newspaper ad calls.No response to direct mail.It is probably this time of year which is normally slow anyway,combined with all of the bad news and upcoming elections.There are a lot of excellent properties for sale and many can be bought at a great price.If you are in the market you can make a great deal compared to the days of when the market was peaking.
The third quarter was not so bad for my company(a small land brokerage company).Three land tracts were sold for total sales volume of $1,805,000.These sales occurred in the counties of Chesterfield,Goochland ,and Prince George.You have read in the news everyday about how much more difficult it is to obtain financing from banks.That's true in general because of tightening of credit.(Banks do this in every downturn).But I am starting to see some owner financing on land tracts.So where there is a will there is a way.I'm looking at activity to start picking up soon especially after the elections and holidays.

New VDOT regulations

New regulations for access onto major roads in the state are now effective as of July 1st. Spacing standards for Commercial Entrances,Intersections,and Crossovers for urban principal arterial roads with a speed limit of 55 mph are 2640 feet between signalized intersections and 1320 feet between unsignalized intersections.Partial access one or two way entrances have to be spaced 510 feet apart and generally limited to right in-right out entrances.Shared entrances are encouraged in order to limit the number of entrances and help traffic flow.
New regulations for secondary roads will become effective in 2009. You can view the entire regulations as well as a list of affected roadways on VDOT’s website at http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/accessmgt/default.asp under the heading “First Phase” and the paragraph beginning “On July 1…”

Mood of the market

I have been in the middle of negotiations on two tracts of land for the past couple of days and still have not come to a final agreement on either tract. It seems that it has been a little more difficult to bring a buyer and seller to agreement in a real estate transaction lately.
The seller wants the '05 price when the market was at the peak and the buyer wants the deep discount deal.( I suppose that is understandable considering how the media has a story every day about how bad off the real estate market is. So that is what the public expects.)However, it is a different real estate market in land sales than it is residential sales. Usually, in a down market land values remain flat because there are fewer parcels of land available at any one time than there are residential properties for sale. Most landowners have owned the land for several years and have no debt. So in many instances, if the owner cannot obtain the price that he wants then he waits until market conditions are better.If the owner has to sell in a buyers' market,then negotiations are much more difficult.

Assessed Values for Land In Goochland County

While researching sales of vacant land of parcels in the 30-75 acre range in Goochland County recently, I noticed that there have been several sales in recent months that have sold for less than the county's assessed value. All parcels of land are unique and different in some way and there is no locality that I am aware of that inspects every parcel of land in the county. Usually the county hires a firm that does "blanket" appraisals.( a generalization of value for land parcels usually of similar size within the county )Sometimes it seems a value is derived from one sale. Although I understand why it is not practical time -wise for these firms to do an in depth appraisal,it seems that they should at least recognize a trend that sale prices have leveled off or may have declined slightly from a couple of years ago. Oh well, maybe that will be reflected in next year's assessment