Strategies for selling my LR1 lot for development

[David Lukas]

So, we bought our dream home in north Ballard (Whittier Heights) in 2014. However, we were upzoned to LR1 last year, into the Crown Hill Urban Village, along with the adjacent block. Our area of Whittier Heights predominantly has lots around ~6,500sf, which is among the largest you tend to see in Ballard. However, the houses, for the most part, are large and fixed-up, so I did not expect that developers could afford to entice many of these folks to sell.

That, it turns out, was naive. We just learned that 6 houses on the adjacent block are in the process of being sold to a developer, who will put town homes (37 units total) on those 6 lots. The lots sold for $170/sf of lot area. Now many of the families on our block (including us) are considering pursuing a similar deal, mainly in order to avoid being surrounded by 30ft-high HardiePanel boxes 5ft from their property lines.

As we explore this possibility, some of the questions I have are:

1) How much of a premium can I really expect from a package deal vs. selling individually? Particularly given that the package deal means a longer close, and then likely competing for a new home in this same neighborhood with some of my current neighbors.

2) If we hold off on selling for a couple years until the nearby development actually starts to impact our quality of life, how (if at all) does that shift our bargaining leverage? Is there a sweet spot of some kind whereby we want to sell while others are selling, after which our lots somehow becomes less valuable relative to the market? Or would we be better off not throwing in alongside the sudden burst of supply on our street?

3) How can I find the most active multifamily developers in my area? I can find a thousand websites, but many of them seem to be inactive.

4) Any other advice on strategies for pitting developers against one another to get the highest price?

Thanks in advance!