Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit dive deep into one of the most crucial aspects of land deals: land access. Whether you’re buying property with no physical access or looking to add value to a parcel of land by establishing access, this episode offers valuable insights. Jack and Jill break down the steps to secure land access, the impact on property value, and common challenges you might face. Tune in to discover how to approach land access issues confidently and strategically.

—

Listen to the podcast here

Establishing Land Access To Boost Property Value

Introduction To Land Access Issues

This is episode number 2,038 and this episode’s topic is we are going to talk about establishing access to a property or to a parcel of land where there’s none, hoping to add value to the deal. If you buy a piece of property or are looking at buying one, you can’t get to it. You can’t physically get to it or it has physical access, but the road hasn’t been developed yet. Is that okay? Can you get access? 

Do you mean legal?  

We’ll talk to them. Just the big picture right now. You’re staring at a piece of property, wondering if you should buy it. You got a response to your mailer. She can’t get to it. 

Physical Vs. Legal Access

There we go. I don’t have physical, but I have legal or sometimes I have legal and I don’t have physical. We’ll talk about that. 

It truly is. We’re here to demystify it, not complicate it more. 

Let us know how we do. You decide. You’re like, “You guys suck.” I’m now more confused after this one. 

Access And Property Value Impact

I’ll say this. Access is one of the original four As. It comes up on every single deal as it should, and it has a massive financial impact on the price that you would offer to buy a piece of property. It’s important. We’re horsing around here at the beginning of the episode, but access is not something that we take lightly, unlike utilities in the previous episode, which we take lightly. The theme of these episodes has been adding value to your land deal. Each day in the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum and we take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request, Jill. 

Access is one of the original four As. It comes up in every deal and has a massive financial impact on the price you offer. Share on X

This is a little bit lengthy here, little deals, which is good. Omar wrote, “I’ve been seeing an uptick in deals lately. Something that I learned as I get into my second year in this business, build relationships and markets and hit those markets hard with marketing. In the last two months, here’s a breakdown of my success. Deal 1, 6 acres, buy for $20,000, sell for $39,000. Deal 2, 10 acres. Buy for $5,000, sell for $30,000. Deal 3, 77 acres, purchasing for $182,500, listed at $350,000.” 

That’s our kind of deal. 

Deal 4, 4.8 acres. Buy for $10,000, sell them for $35,000. A couple more opportunities in the pipeline. If anyone’s looking for deal partners, please reach out.” That’s the beauty of this community, too. There’s a partner for you whether you want a timber person, which we don’t do, but they’re in our group. I need help with this. I need help with that. I just need money. I don’t need money. I want to answer the phone. You do this. Every possible thing is available now in this community. 

“I live in Colorado and have three properties under contract in Florida. I’ve never been to Florida.” 

“Who could help me?”

“Help me.  Are your deals great or are they terrible?”

Exactly. That’s so good. 

Congratulations, Omar. That’s good. That’s great. I’m not sure if these are done or if this is a success. Whatever it is, keep doing it. Our topic, establishing access to a parcel of land where there is none to add value to the deal. What this is, is should I buy a property that doesn’t have parent access and get access to it, convert it? The answer is the same answer that I gave on the first episode about subdividing property.

It’s very rare to buy access to less piece of property and get access. You can do it. We’ve done it. We did it, but it’s not something at the beginning of your career that you want to take on unless you’re a lawyer or a real estate attorney. Here’s why. This business of easements, the reason that a property doesn’t have access is because there are other properties surrounding it that have access to a public roadway, whether it’s county, state, or federal.

Those properties have access, you can see it. There’s a driveway behind those properties where they’re pulling into their garage every night or using it as an industrial building or whatever your target property is. Very often, these come back in the mailer because the people who own them probably inherited them or they didn’t care enough to figure out how to create access. 

Very often, properties without access come back in the mail because their owners didn't care enough to figure out how to create access. Share on X

The people who happily park in their garages every day could, if they wanted to or were approached correctly, grant an easement on a specific part of their property, usually on the edges or the perimeter, to your property. Jill would call the person who’s parking in their garage and say, “I bought the property or I’m going to buy the property behind you. Can I pay you for an easement on that side of the property, if you guys aren’t using it?” 

How To Get An Easement

It’s really clear to me. “Can I pay $1,000 and I’ll do all the paperwork, take expenses, and get an easement across your property so I can get access?” That’s very possible. There are people in our group, and there have been people in the past who have done this for a living and have done very well. It’s very complicated. The easement has to be recorded on the property, in general. Every place is different, but in general, the easement gets recorded on the deed of the person who’s parking in their garage. 

They have to rewrite their legal description because now it’s 10 feet or 20 feet less on the East side, the West side, that kind of a thing. The thing I would like to add is it is county-specific, and when you dig in and if it’s a compliant county, sometimes they’ll have forms to fill out and they’re ready for it and it’s not a problem.

Most of the time, there’s more to it than that. Whether you want to talk to the individuals, see if they’re even into it, or just see if it’s even possible, what’s involved with the county, it’s a personal preference, but you need both to do this. In the real world, what I have done is usually seek out properties now. Back then, we were buying anything.

It was Wild West and some stuff I didn’t even know what I had or didn’t have. I thought I had access and I would sell it with what I know. Nowadays, though, and with the money that we’re spending, I’m buying things with legal and physical access. If I ever get in a pinch though, and I have. I’ve had it all but the last ten feet and had to get that accomplished because it was too late at that point. Somebody missed it.

Escrow even missed it. Everybody missed it and we’ve got it done, but in the real world, if it’s ever happened, I had one years ago, I’ll say, I thought we had it and then we found it because everybody’s using the road. There’s a road there, so it’s legal, it’s physical, but it wasn’t recorded legal access. I’m like, “Are you kidding me?”

We bought it through escrow and nobody caught it. When we went to sell it, I said, “No problem. Here’s what I’m going to do.” It was a good, compliant county, too. I went to the neighbors and sent out a neighbor letter saying, “Here’s my parcel.” There were a couple I could choose from. “Will one of you on either side let me do this thing?” I got one of them to say yes. Now, did I go to the extreme and do it? No. What I did was, though, when we sold the property, I said, “Here’s a deal. I have in writing. This neighbor on this side will grant you access. It’s going to take six months. This is the typical cost, and here are the steps.”

I had a great broker in the area who knew how to do this, too, by the way. That was very helpful. He knew what it cost. He knew what it took. As long as somebody agrees to it, here’s what to do. I said, “Great.” When I sold it, we just let that all be known and I sold it through that broker. We let the buyer know these are the steps to get that accomplished. 

Thank you for keeping me from all this.

You’re very welcome because I didn’t do that. They’re like, “Jill, why didn’t you do that and mark up the price?” It is because there are two ways I could do it. I could sell it now in its current condition, making it still a great bargain for that buyer because I am not doing the work. I’m selling it faster. They’re saving money on it, which is what I always choose to do and everybody won. 

I’ve had situations where I’ve had buyers say, “I want a survey done before I buy it.” I said, “Alright. Here’s the scoop. I can go out, hire the person, walk it, pay for it. It’s going to take us a couple of weeks to get it all done for you, but I’m telling you now, your purchase price is going to be different when I’m done doing this work or we could continue with the transaction.

“You know how much it costs, how long it takes, and then you get it done in your sweet time. You’re going to save a couple grand or more because I’m not doing that work and then you decide.” “Jill, I’ll do it myself.” Got it. It is because these are properties that are 10 to 20 acres. It’s not going to encroach where they build. Their lifestyle and how they’re going to use the property. They just want to know exactly where the corner is. I think it’s here, but it could be here. It’s just not a big deal. It’s feet. 

We’re the type of people that if we had 10 acres or 5 acres and somebody needed access to your property, we would say yes. 

Is it going to affect my lifestyle or anything like that? No.

It’s 30 feet on the end of there. 

It doesn’t matter. I’m not using that over there anyway. Knock yourselves out. Invite me to your party when you have a big party because you can now build your house back there.

Here’s the thing. Here’s how access comes into play in reality and how it should. If you’re new at this, this is how it should come into play for you. These anecdotes that we’re talking about are serious exceptions. What happens is the property comes back, you look at it, you run down the list of the 8 A’s, and there is access, it’s 1, 2, or 3. 

Number 1, 2, or 3, depending on you. For us, it’s 1 or 2. Can you drive right up to it? Yes. See that road right there? It goes through it. Good. Check. Access is done. That’s as much as we look at access in a typical deal. Can you get to it? No, you can’t. The seller said I know there’s no access to this property. My grandfather used to tell us that he had to hike up a mile or he has to take a boat. 

He took a boat. That happens a lot, specifically in the Pacific Northwest. No, the property doesn’t have any access. They signed our offer at $30,000, but now we know, and the seller knows for sure, that there’s no access to it. Do we want to buy it at all? Usually, the answer is no, or we want to offer $2,000 instead of $30,000 and then resell it for $10,000 because it does not have access. Once it has access, you have to legally and ethically disclose that.

Dealing With Access Challenges In Real Estate

Access is for us, yes or no? Yes? Cool. We’re going to buy it. No? We’re probably going to pass. That’s the beauty of sending out a ton of mail. I have a story, too. I bought a piece of property a million years ago that was in the middle of Bureau of Land Management property. I don’t know why there was a piece of property there that had an APN. 

The beauty of access: With it, a property becomes a goldmine. Without it, it’s just land. Share on X

Somebody in my office called BLM and they said, “Yes, you can get to that property. I’m going to fax you a single-page form. You just have to sign all this stuff and we can give you 99% access to it by crossing BLM.” It’s the only example in my entire life of working with the federal government that was a pleasure. I got what I wanted and I felt like the check that I write every year. 

It’s worth it.

I got something back for that. There are all these stories with experienced people, but my point is that it either has access or doesn’t. Our business model is not set up unless you’re a very special person for you to run around and get access to property and have those conversations like Jill did or like I did with the BLM. 

What do you mean by special?

Special meaning some amazing mental illness that you are actually into talking to people who are adjacent property owners and convincing them that you need access. 

Maybe your cousin works in the county and he can push stuff through. Just kidding. 

By the way, if there’s any type of foliage or terrain, properties have no access for a reason. It’s not like somebody set out intentionally to create APNs back in the day and there are usually rivers, gullies, FEMA floodplains, and all kinds of stuff that goes on unless it’s a flat property in the middle of the country, like in Nebraska and it’s being farmed, it probably has access already. 

Do you know what’s funny about that? Think about this scenario. I’m going to paint this picture. This is one of the first things that comes up whenever we’re doing, “Would you do this deal?” Every Thursday, we have our weekly member call. Would you do this deal? People put in all kinds of scenarios. The first thing we do is pull up a map and look at it. Think about this. Let’s say that there’s a subdivision. A lot of the property may be a subdivision, but there’s a space in the middle of the subdivision. 

Closing Thoughts On Land Access

The first thing we do is have no access and why. The next thing I do is go read a legal description. Often, it’ll say river overflow or extra land. There’ll be some reason that it’s not being used. I’m just giving you another example because you just reminded me of that when you said there’s probably a reason why they didn’t do access. Before you start beating your head up trying to get access, do that little bit of due diligence and say, “Yes. It is in the middle of the,” whatever.

If it doesn’t have access, do yourself a huge favor and just pass on the deal. 

Especially when you’re new. Don’t don’t even think about it. I agree with that.

Join us next week for another interesting episode or episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.