How hard is it to sell vacant land in today’s real estate market in Big Bear? Take a look at the chart below…
There’s been a dramatic shift in the number of vacant land sales over the past several years. In 2003, our MLS recorded 602 total vacant land sales. ’04 we had 514 vacant land sales. ’05 we had 482. It wasn’t until the turn of 2007 that we saw a dramatic drop in number of sales. We went from 365 total vacant land sales in 2006 to 186 in 2007. And to top it off, 2008 dropped sharply with only 72 total vacant land sales. It’s easy to understand as land values increased, the number of sales decreased.
Prices on average for vacant land rose all the way through 2008 but turned for the worse in 2009….the average sales price is down over 50% from last year. To say it’s a bad time to sell would be an understatement. So if you’re in the market to sell a vacant lot, don’t sell it unless you have to sell. And if you have to sell, price it aggressively so it stands out as a good deal.
As inventory levels decrease, demand for vacant land will increase…and as they say “they’re not makin’ any more land”….but it might take a while before we see the kind of activity we saw in 2004 (in both price and number of sales).
