Every real bargain has something wrong with it. The whole skill is telling a weekend of work apart from forty thousand dollars or a lawsuit.
Land is not underpriced because the market made a mistake. It is underpriced because it has a problem, and the size of the discount is the market's guess at the size of the problem. Your edge is not finding land without problems. It is being better than the average buyer at pricing the problem in front of you.
Usefully, the defects sort cleanly into two piles, and the listing presents both in the same tone of voice.
Cheap to fix, and therefore where the money is: ugly, overgrown, badly photographed, no survey on file, a derelict mobile home to haul away, an unpermitted shed, a dated house, a bad smell from a neighbour's muck heap that will be gone next month, an owner who cannot describe their own property.
Expensive or fatal, and therefore where the losses are: no deeded access, failed perc test, floodplain, wetland determination, severed mineral rights, a conservation easement that forbids building, mine subsidence, a shared well with no written agreement, unpaid taxes or liens attached to the land, and a boundary everybody disagrees about.
What to actually do
- Write the two lists down before you look at anything. Then, for each property, put every known defect into one pile or the other, and refuse to leave anything unsorted.
- Anything in the second pile gets priced by a professional before you make an offer, or you walk. Not estimated. Priced.
- If a seller cannot or will not answer a question in the second list, treat the answer as the worst available one. Reluctance is information.