Time for Land Banking?

[Matthew Bailey]

Hello!  I'm a land investor and typically I buy and sell vacant land to retail buyers, sometimes work directly with home builders, but I'm wondering if we get into a recession type economy if those two buyers will dry up, and if I should pivot to looking to work with land bankers or people who are interested in land banking.  

I have a pretty sizable inventory right now of about 11 properties and I'm wondering if I should consider letting those go a little cheaper than I'd planned and pivoting my acquisition criteria to start to hold properties that would be appealing to the types of people who come out in economic downturns and buy and hold vacant land, what I've heard referred to as Land Banking.

Do we have any land bankers in the BP forums?  I'd be interested in learning more about that business model and what land bankers are looking for in the future.  Is it residential infill lots that are cheap because new construction dries up?  Is it very large tracts of land, six figure size land deals? Etc At what point does it become a good time for them to buy land?  Do they wait until the very bottom of a recession then buy on the up slope?  

So yea, anyone who focuses on this niche of investing I'd be curious what your plans are, should we take a down turn here.

[Kristina Sparrow]

Fellow land flipper here. It won't hurt to hold prices and keep your inventory longer than normal. As you know, the cost of holding land is minimal. Also if you end up holding longer than 1 year, you could avoid short term capital gains...