Real Estate Development Basics

[Shawn Fyffe]

I am trying to build a city, and when I recently tried to acquire a permit to build on a piece of land in the US, I was told to talk to a realtor, however my project would’ve taken place over several plots of land.

Money is not really an object but the way I am trying to go about buying the land is confusing to say the least.

Would I go and buy all the plots that are going to be affected by this project, because in doing so it would invariably create little pockets of land that still belong to the government - or would it?

I’ve even began to wonder if eminent domain would be suitable however I don’t know the legality behind that, and if that’s even available for use in the private sector.

If anyone can help that’d be greatly appreciated

- SRF

[Greg Dickerson]

Originally posted by @Shawn Fyffe:

I am trying to build a city, and when I recently tried to acquire a permit to build on a piece of land in the US, I was told to talk to a realtor, however my project would’ve taken place over several plots of land.

Money is not really an object but the way I am trying to go about buying the land is confusing to say the least.

Would I go and buy all the plots that are going to be affected by this project, because in doing so it would invariably create little pockets of land that still belong to the government - or would it?

I’ve even began to wonder if eminent domain would be suitable however I don’t know the legality behind that, and if that’s even available for use in the private sector.

If anyone can help that’d be greatly appreciated

- SRF

There are a lot of variables here and a whole lot to know. One thing is you do not want to buy the property until you get all of the entitlements which are the approvals and permits. I wrote a blog post about it here 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...