Finding Land to Develop

[Hal Cranmer]

Hi,

I own 5 assisted living homes in the Phoenix, AZ area. Recently I met with a developer who wants to buy a large chunk of land (50 acres+) and build an assisted living community on it. He doesn't want to deal with realtors. He wants to negotiate directly with the owners to structure some kind of creative financing during the build phase.

Does anyone have any tricks or techniques to find a large parcel of land like this? Do they sell direct mail lists that list land owners in an area? Or can you find it at the county courthouse?

What would be the best way to look into the owners of land parcels? Thanks for your help.

[David Sisson]

This is simple research. You'll use a combination of the tax assessor database and the local GIS system. 

Both the city of Phoenix and Maricopa County have GIS systems. For the best result, you should search for properties that match your zoning requirements and don't have any environmental, wetlands, flooding, etc issues.