All Forum Posts by: Bryant Brislin

Ask if seller financing is available

Technically, developers come up with a land value for what a builder may be able to pay for paper lots by using a proforma (financial model) to determine a residual value.  So you are putting in various inputs/assumptions, like gross revenue (total sales prices of homes) less soft costs, hard costs, city fees, desired profit margin (i.e. 15% of gross revenue) = residual value (what the land is worth). Of course, developers (sellers) and builders (buyers) have debates a lot on those various line items in the proforma (especially hard and soft costs). A very, very rough metric that you can possibly use to get an idea is 1/3, meaning if a new home may sell for 500k, then a developer may be able to pay 165k per paper lot, but of course there are so many variables, but that can give you a rough idea.

I don't think there are any, unless you are willing to bring in a money partner.

You post mentioned costs.  GC's (and the subs they work with) are who put together the budget for what the costs would be to build the things you described in your budget.  It helps the GC to have an idea of what you want to do, so yes, if you want to spend money on an architect to do a conceptual site plan and a civil engineer for site improvement plans, you could do that.

I sell land to homebuilders in Southern California, so I've seen, over the years, how some stub their toes, etc.  I'd probably need a more specific question, just because you mentioned a lot of things in the post, and I wouldn't know where to start without having to write paragraphs and paragraphs.

No, bececause every site is so different.  You'd have to ask a general contractor.

You should connect with Andrew Slocum. He lives in Pas and he is one of the biggest ADU experts in SoCal.

You should engage an architect or surveyor/civil engineer for something like this.

I truly wish I had better news, but I don't know how you could do anything now until you have better credit for awhile.  Even once you get the mortgage current, your credit may still show the delinquent payments, so it could take some time before your credit seasons to a better score. I don't know what it means as far as your city bids the land banks. 

Land loans are the riskiest type of loan for a lender to give, so they are rare to find.  There are more construction loans available, then loans to purchase the land.  But you can only get a construction loan once it is permit-ready to break ground, etc.  From how you describe your situation, I don't think you'd qualify for the construction loan, they are very conservative on their underwriting.