How Do I Find Land Online? Is it Safe and Secure?

Finding land online can sometimes be a time consuming process.  Don’t worry, if you take the time to find the best deal and research the property, it will surely pay off.  I cannot stress enough, make sure you know what you are buying before you actually buy it.

There are a wide variety of auction sites that offer property around the county with the most popular being eBay (www.eBay.com).    Many sellers on these sites offer cash sales as well as financing.  There is no harm in asking a seller if they have property based on payment options and features. 

Another way to search for land online is going to a popular search engine such as Google (www.google.com) and Yahoo (www.Yahoo.com).  These sites are the top search engines and many land sellers pay to have their site advertised in the “Featured Links” section of both websites.  Keep in mind that the land sellers are paying a premium to be a featured link on these websites, so there is no reason to pay the high price per click if they are not a serious land seller.

In order to find what you are looking for online, simply type it in the search engine box.  Some popular phrases are “Purchase Vacant Land” or “Vacant Land for Sale” and so on.  Search based on what you are looking for.

Again, once you find a land seller, do not be afraid to ask them questions.  An important aspect of any deal is an open line of communication.  If you do not feel comfortable communicating with the land seller, simply select another property.  Shy away from land sellers that take a long time to respond to emails and phone calls.  There are a lot of properties out there that fit your investing goals, the key is to do your homework and take the time to search.

Usually, purchasing property from an online land seller is secure.  A wise decision no matter what property or where you purchase, always request to go through a title company and receive title insurance.  Closing costs are going to be higher, but an insured guarantee that you are the owner of the property is fully worth the added financial obligation.  If a problem with the deed arises later down the line for any reason, your ownership in the property is insured 100%.   Title insurance works like any other type of insurance you might purchase. Mainly it helps to protect you against prior claims, or a prior mistake on a deed from 3 owners before you! Once you receive the title insurance however you can pretty much be rest assured there are no problems with your parcel, because also as with any insurance, they are not going to insure a piece of property if they know there are going to be problems down the road, they do their homework before the they issue the policy, so should you!

If you chose to not go with a title company, MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT GET A QUITCLAIM DEED. A quit claim deed leaves too much room for error. A quitclaim deed simply "Quits your claim" in the property. The catch is, you can quit claim a property without owning it! You’re quitting your claim, even if your claim is zero. Now this is not to say everyone offering a quit claim deed is a scammer, which is not the case at all. But a quitclaim deed leaves you very open to being scammed, we only recommend a quitclaim deed if you either know the seller personally, or you are advanced in purchasing real estate and you feel comfortable doing your own research and coming to your own conclusions when verifying the owner of the parcel.

Another common problem with a quit claim deed, is that you can record it with the county, and when you try and sell it down the line, you may have all sorts of problems trying to sell it because it wasn’t deeded right, either before you owned it or on the actual deed transferring ownership to you. I have seen simple enough things where I sold the property under my personal name, only forgetting it was under a different company name of mine. If I were to quit claim that property, it would get recorded but when you go ahead and try to sell 2-3 years down the line it won’t show you as the proper owner! If you can’t find the original seller at that point you may be out of your property.

eBay Auctions

When purchasing land on eBay or any other auction site, ALWAYS make sure you read the full auction text. There are typically two types of auctions, straight sale and down payment auctions.  Straight sale auctions are a conventional auction where you bid for the full purchase price of the property.  Be aware that many sellers add additional closing cost to the purchase price of the property.  These fees cover the recording of the deed and there may be fees through the title company if you are going through one.

Another common form of land auctions on eBay are “Down Payment” auctions.  In this case, the potential buyers bids for the down payment of the property.  The full purchase price and financing terms are found in the auction text.   .  Make sure you read all of the text in the auction. It is a very common mistake for people to bid on “the steal of the century” only to find out they bid on the down payment for the parcel and now owe an additional $20,000 in payments!  Make sure you are 100% of the terms before you bid on the auction; a lot of time goes into those auctions from the seller’s point of view.  Each time they have to relist an auction due to a mistake, it affects the company’s bottom line. If this happens enough it is not all too uncommon for the company to raise the price of the property to compensate!