Building Rental vs Spec House

[Chris Battaglia]

I'm looking for opinions from people that have either 1) built a home from scratch to be a rental, whether it is single/multi or 2) built a spec house to sell. My personal residence was purchased with an additional 6 acres that directly back up to the 4 acres that my home is on. The 6 acre piece is already subdivided into (2) 3 acre lots, with each assessed at around $20-25k (market value maybe $50-60k). My wife and I like having the land behind us and would most likely keep one of the lots for the time being, but I constantly find myself thinking about the different ways I could make money off of it! The way I see it, there are 4 potential possibilities for the remaining lot:

1) Hold the land and someday sell it as is 

2) Build a spec house that would be sold after construction 

3) Build a small SFH or duplex that would be turned into a rental property

4) Sell the land for its approximately $30k market value and invest that into other real estate deals 

Please share your opinions and experiences! The land is in an excellent area in upstate NY close to highways, shopping, good schools, etc. so it would be desirable in any of the above scenarios.