Experience with Land Equities Inc.?

[Jacob Guariglia]

Hello everyone, I’m a reader and podcast listener, not much of a poster so I’ll introduce myself. My name is Jake and I am an escrow assistant here in Reno. I have been looking at buying vacant land that my family and I could use as an outdoor/ rural getaway with the goal of building on that land in 5 years and make it a seasonal residence (vacation home). I came across this lot in Oregon that I really liked and borders BLM land. The Zoning allows building and there’s power in the road that fronts the property. I haven’t gotten to a point of testing environmental factors or having a Perc test done yet, because... I’m not sure if the deal is a scam. The website is landequities.com and the company is Land Equities Inc. They are headquartered in Oregon and own land in several states. They are registered with the Oregon Sec Of state and the officers are the individuals that the website states and under their current name they have been around a little over a year. They used to be Reef Tech, and prior to that they were Sterling construction. I also picked a couple properties from the website and the Assessor’s office confirmed that Land Equities Inc. is indeed the owner. My hang up is how the land is purchased. You checkout on the website, they prepare a couple documents (including contract) and send it to you. You send it back along with a check for the purchase price and they allegedly go Deed it over to you after receiving the check. As an escrow person that appears to be a scam. You send money to people you don’t know and have never met hoping that they actually do what they are supposed to without any escrow company or Trust account involved. Long story short, does anyone have any experience with Land Equities Inc.?