Sellers Call the Shots on Land Sales

"It's unprecedented," Trevor Hall Jr., head of Colliers Arnold's land investment sales division in Orlando, tells GlobeSt.com. "I've been in this business 30 years and this is the strongest sellers' market I have ever seen."

Hall says some sellers remain hesitant to sell even after negotiating a favorable deal for themselves. "They track the sales of four to six months better than some appraisers and fear that if they sell too quickly, the buyer will turn around and flip the property for another million, as has happened recently," the broker says.

Although land is not supposed to be a liquid investment in which dirt can be bought and sold in 24 hours, Hall says that scenario is happening frequently. Land value is appreciating much quicker than it did five or 10 years ago, the broker says. For example, "An investor paid $20,000 per acre for a single-family zoned site in Lake County three years ago and just sold it for $58,000 per acre," Hall says.

In Volusia County, another investor "had trouble finding enough partners" 10 or 12 years ago to invest with him in multifamily-zoned land priced at $20,000 per acre," Hall recalls. "The investor just sold the land for $250,000 per acre."

Another longtime Orlando land broker, Daryl Carter, president, Maury L. Carter & Associates, says almost all of the deals brokers at his firm are doing these days are all-cash transactions. "Buyers seem to have few problems coming up with the full purchase price at closing," Carter tells GlobeSt.com.

In DeLeon Springs, FL, Volusia County, Daryl Carter's father and company chairman Maury L. Carter and T. Michael Woods, both acting as trustees, closed a $977,450 deal involving 77 acres north of the intersection of US 17 and Ponce DeLeon Boulevard. The buyer, Eagle's Landing Investments LLC, paid $12,694 per acre or 29 cents per sf for the dirt. In South Brevard County, SES Palm Bay Inc. paid Realty Corp./RIF 300 Inc. of Greenville, SC $1.98 million for a 4.5-acre development site at Bayside Lakes Commerce Center in Palm Bay, FL. The price equates to $438,888 per acre or $10.07 per sf.

In Lake County, IT Land Acquisition-Florida LLC of New York City sold a vacant, 2.3-acre tract at 10825 US 441 in Leesburg, FL to Albert Pecker of Edison, NJ for $375,000. The deal represents a per-acre price of $163,043 or $3.74 per sf.