Buy land with prospect of commercial or outdoor advertising?

[Travis Benham]

I've found a land lot in my local Oklahoma City market for about $15k.  It's currently zoned residential, but it is a corner lot on a major street, and there are plenty of commercial properties up and down on both sides already that I think I could have good shot at getting it rezoned.

Assuming I can get it rezoned as commercial, what should I do?  My initial thought would be to have a billboard placed and make money via outdoor advertising.  Or I could try and resell the property to an major outdoor advertising company, since that's not my business in the first place.

Or I can hold it, and see how time treats the area.  The area of town is older, and the commercial properties are a bit aged. 

Thoughts?  This is my first question regarding Commercial property so I'm all ears.

[Dev Horn]

How long has it been sitting there unused, and how long has it been priced at $15K?

Given that there are commercial properties on the street or adjacent and your subject property is currently zoned residential, you might consider requesting a Mixed Use commercial zoning so it could still be used for residential as well as commercial.   The next owner might see more value in the land in they can go either pure commercial or mixed use.

But man I gotta tell you, this is a VERY speculative deal here with a ton of risk that you could get stuck with it.  I wouldn't do that deal unless you have an agent or someone else telling you that you're getting a STEAL of a deal.  If they've been asking 15K for a while that would be a HUGE warning sign that the property is not worth that.  If so, I'd "soft offer" maybe $5K to see if they are desperate to sell it.  (A soft offer is when you say "If we were able to offer $5K, would you have interest in selling it at that price?"  You can get a response or counter while not actually making a hard offer to buy the property....)