Mike Browning

Tag: Texas Land

  • Things Are Headed South

    Things Are Headed South

    And we plan to get there first.

    Yesterday I talked about how things seem to be getting worse and worse in the world, and how people tend to want to put things off until the situation looks a little more stable.

    It’s not just having kids, it goes into things like changing jobs, starting or expanding a business, or doing anything that involves risk (that is, anything at all). But if you wait for perfect conditions to arrive to do something, you’ll likely never do anything at all.

    Most of the time, the “right time” is now.

    If you time it perfectly, great. Most of the time you won’t. But if you learn to succeed when circumstances aren’t ideal, you’ll be that much better positioned when they improve.

    So in the interest of taking our own advice, while everyone is saying things are headed south figuratively, we are heading south literally.

    To Hillsboro.

    Introducing MBR Land Group, our Hill County-based land brokerage operation serving Hill County and the surrounding area.

    My brother Matt lives in Hillsboro and is the guy to talk to if you’re looking to buy or sell lots or land down that way. Or pretty much anything but residential.

    Matt can be reached at matt@browningre.com or by phone at 254.324.6969

    If you own land in the area, you’re probably not looking to sell today. Or maybe ever. But between data centers, wind farms and future growth, things may be starting to look a little different than you expected.

    Things change, often quickly. It’s better to have information and know how things stand before you need it instead of scrambling after the fact.

    The MBR Land Reality Check gives you a clear eyed view of what’s going on in the area around your property and helps you know what it might be worth today. You get real comps, real analysis and insight from people who handle land for a living.

    Not house sellers moonlighting as land agents.

    It’s free. Better yet, there’s no obligation or pressure to list, and you won’t end up in a buzzword filled presentation just because you wanted some basic information.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Give yourself permission to look!

    Check it out here.

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  • Sticktoitiveness

    Sticktoitiveness

    Didn’t happen fast. But we stayed with it.

    Finally!

    Last Friday we closed on a lot.

    If you’ve been reading here awhile, you know why that feels like a bigger deal than it would have a few years ago. The lot market has been slow the last 2-3 years. Mainly interest rates. Someone building a custom home is usually taking out a sizeable loan, and the rate makes a real difference in the monthly payment.

    So fewer people are building. And if you’re not ready to build, you’re not ready to buy a lot.

    Lots are more extreme than houses that way. Everyone needs somewhere to live, so there’s always some demand for existing homes. The price might have to come down a little to get it moving, but it moves. Nobody needs a new custom home, no matter how much they want one. If a buyer isn’t ready to build, knocking $10K off the lot price doesn’t change that.

    So you wait. And keep doing what’s worked before, because it works again. Just a question of when.

    This one had its fits and starts. Fell off the market twice, came back a month later as a new listing both times. A couple of price reductions. A builder who wanted to put a model home on it, until the HOA told him no. Another builder who made an offer, then decided he couldn’t stick his neck out right now.

    We kept going anyway. Congratulations to the McWhorters, who’ll be building on the lot, their agent Ron King, and Chicago Title in Dallas for handling the details.

    And thanks to my clients, for their patience.

    Selling lots was more fun 4-5 years ago, when everything just came easy. Anyone could do it. Getting one done today means more.

    If you own lots or land, you’re probably not looking to sell right now. That’s probably the right call. But things change fast, and it’s better to know where you stand before you need to than after.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. A clear eyed view of what your property might sell for today, what the market in your area is doing, and what you need to be paying attention to.

    It’s free for the asking, with no obligation or pressure to list. Just accurate information from someone who focuses on non-residential property, not a home seller masquerading as a landman.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand? Give yourself permission to look!

    Get yours here.

    P.S. If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but like reading about land, lots, and the North Texas market, you can get these posts by email instead.

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  • Everyone But Me

    Everyone But Me

    As it turns out, not everyone.

    I never got into gaming.

    But it felt like everybody else had a console, a headset, and a whole second life happening on a screen I wasn’t looking at. My kids, their friends, plenty of adults…even some older than me. So I made an assumption and never questioned it.

    If everybody’s playing, somebody must be making a fortune.

    Then I read something about Microsoft and the Xbox recently.

    They have spent billions building games, buying studios, and chasing market share, only to discover that popularity and profitability aren’t the same thing. From the outside it looked like an easy business. From the inside it was far more complicated.

    It’s a good reminder that what “everybody knows” is often just the part everyone can see.

    Land works the same way.

    If you own property anywhere near the DFW growth path, you’ve probably heard the stories.

    A neighbor sold for three times what he paid. Somebody got bought out for a data center. A family down the road suddenly became millionaires.

    Those stories spread fast. Before long, they become what “everyone knows.”

    Sometimes they’re even true.

    The problem is that they usually don’t tell you much about your property.

    Land values can change from one road to the next. Sometimes from one side of the fence to the other. Access, utilities, topography, floodplain, buyer demand, surrounding uses, and dozens of other factors can push one tract well above or well below the one everyone keeps talking about.

    That’s why I think there’s a difference between hearing what land is worth and knowing what your land is worth.

    Most people don’t need that answer today. You’re probably not considering selling. You may even plan to never sell.

    But when life changes, a health issue, an estate, a buyer calling unexpectedly, or a family decision, that’s a terrible time to discover you’ve been relying on local folklore instead of current market information.

    P.S.– Most landowners who request an MBR Land Reality Check aren’t planning to sell.

    They simply want to know where they stand before they ever need the answer.

    The report includes recent comparable sales, current market activity, and my opinion of what a reasonable buyer might pay today, without any obligation to sell.

    Is it a bad idea to know?

    Get It Here

    P.P.S.– If you’re not interested in a Land Reality Check but enjoy reading about land, markets, and North Texas growth, you can subscribe to my occasional emails below.

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  • It’s All In How You Look At It

    It’s All In How You Look At It

    We often make things harder in our minds than they really are.

    I’ve heard land investors talk about searching for deals and use the metaphor “like looking for a needle in a haystack.” And I get it. You have to look through a lot of stuff you don’t want to (maybe) find what you do want.

    But think about it a minute.

    And don’t assume rules that nobody spoke.

    Hay is flammable. Needles aren’t.

    Needles are magnetic. Ashes aren’t.

    So if you really want to find that needle, just burn the haystack. Then take a magnet or metal detector to find the needle in the ashes. And you’re done.

    Instead of getting worked up about how hard something sounds, just think it through and see if there’s a creative solution.

    I recently ran a quick search in the greater North Texas area (22 counties). In the land category, there were a little over 4,200 properties available.

    That’s a pretty big haystack. Over 99% of those aren’t going to be suitable for what you’re looking for. Makes it hard to want to start looking.

    And even if you could look through them all, the list changes every day. New properties come on the market. Others sell, expire, get canceled, or get reduced.

    I’ve figured out a way to screen daily for new and reduced properties that appear to be priced well based on recent nearby sales. Burning the haystack, if you will. That leaves me with a much shorter list to run the magnet over.

    Most low-priced properties are cheap for a reason. Floodplain. Access problems. Utility issues. Some other defect that isn’t obvious from the listing. Those get ruled out too.

    Every so often I end up with one or two that are worth a closer look.

    And I have a list of people I alert when that happens.

    But there’s not always a fit.

    It may not be in an area they like. Or it’s more (or less) money than they’re looking to invest. Or maybe they just bought something else.

    So every now and then I end up looking at something I think deserves a closer look and don’t really have the right investor to send it to.

    I’m trying to fix that.

    To hear about opportunities when they survive the filtering, click below and tell me what you’re looking for.

    No obligation. No pressure. Just a way to see what catches my attention before it disappears.

    Would it be a bad idea to know about them?

    Learn More Here