This episode chronicles a North Carolina deal’s collapse literally at closing after 90 days under contract when the buyer terminated due to county subdivision pushback. With $20K in purchase basis targeting a near-3X exit at $60K, the team had to immediately reassess strategy armed with a completed survey showing 6.98 acres versus the original 5.78—creating repricing leverage despite the black mark of relisting.
Key Takeaways:
- Survey Windfall Offset Relisting Damage The terminated buyer’s completed survey revealed nearly 7 acres versus the listed 5.78, providing over 1 additional acre at $10K/acre pricing—enough justification to relist higher despite 90-day pending stigma.
- Honest Broker Intel Drives Pricing Strategy The broker’s frank assessment that subdivision complications would create buyer hesitation plus the relisting black mark informed a conservative $65K relist rather than aggressive $71K per-acre calculation—protecting downside over chasing upside.
- Hard DD Money Cushions Failed Exits Collecting $1,400 in non-refundable deadline extension fees plus $2K EMD offset the pain of losing 90 days under contract and having to restart marketing efforts entirely.
Hear the complete analysis of how to decisively pivot failed closings by balancing new data advantages against market stigma to set optimal relisting strategy.
(Podcast transcript below)
Welcome to get serious. So. Another update to handle unexpected situations, we’ve had a deal in North Carolina that we were expecting to close this Wednesday. In fact, I had already signed closing documents, notary, everything we were squared away. Very rural part of the state, not crazy activity there. And this was pretty low dollar purchases back. were doing like.
$20,000 purchases right near our minimum And we had actually gone under contract within a day I want to say certainly within a week of listing Maybe back in late April or early May At just under 60 grand so like near 3x on our money and the buyer had you know It was roughly a six acre property. They wanted to do I think a single split
subdivide here and we were supposed to close in mid June the surveyor kept getting delayed they had to find another surveyor so we extended into early August and at least this this buyer they had you know given us hard DD option money you know it contributed to the purchasing price but you know I was getting you know checks mailed to me directly so
You know that initially they put 700 bucks down for The first close and then to extend given, you know the survey or situation They send over another 700 bucks. So at least we have 14 down plus they had a 2k EMD on file there and then their final DD date was Today August 4th Yeah recording this early. I think you’ll be hearing this Following day either way doesn’t matter
That is when the DD period was done and we heard on that date that they were going to terminate the contract because they were getting too much pushback from the county regarding their subdivision plans, which, um, yeah, yeah, really annoying because they had indicated like every, uh, every step of the way they’re, they’re intent to close here and like right at the buzzer before we were to get their EMD, you know, at least we have the 1400, but yeah, we were.
under contract for just over 90 days, like a big delay that now we’re having to go back on the market. Obviously, we love to exit within a 90 day period is always the goal here. And
You know, so they decided to terminate that and now, you know, we’re back at like, okay, we’re going to have to relist. Plus again, I, you know, not a huge hassle, but still like I had to, you know, go pay for our notary to come over and sign docs, et cetera, get all those sent back. Like title was all set to close. They had indicated there, was every data point showing that buyers were all set to go.
And now here we are, what can you do? But at least they did provide the survey that they had done on this. so, you know, as I was going back and forth with the brokers here, you know, it’s really tragic situation, unfortunately, because we were working with the office manager of our primary broker who had helped us out so much with this deal in the first place and really landed the deal.
And then he was just like suddenly out of the picture. We heard it was some family situation. And, you know, his office manager was stepping in, helped out with that neighbor encroachment issue. I talked about this a few weeks ago. And then, you know, the broker had reached out to us and said that his wife had died actually. You know, sudden cancer diagnosis, like really tragic situation. They weren’t particularly old either. And, you know, obviously feel.
Terrible for that and was like and he was saying yeah, I mean sorry wasn’t as much in time like you don’t have to explain anything here. I mean You can’t imagine the turmoil there. Plus we’re like we’re all we were all set to close like hey, yeah, thanks for letting us know Of course, take care of yourself, you know your your Office manager Has been excellent Docs are signed. We’re all set to close here. And then you know
All of a sudden we’re back to square one. So we were starting to try to, okay, suss out, okay, what is immediate next steps here? And the office manager, we’ll just call him John for now, was indicating, at least we have the survey. The survey indicated it’s a little over six acres.
So we could potentially bump price with this in mind because originally we had it like five point seven eight I want to say So at least it came back a bit more in our favor But I had pushed back on the next I like, you know, that’s that’s really not much of an acreage bump and You per our understanding was the market was still like pretty slow from what the broker was saying You know kind of both at the start and during this this process
And the fact that, you now we know there’s some hair on the property because anybody else, other buyers who might be looking to subdivide is going to have, um, issues to deal with, you know, to the, to the fact that, you know, a buyer has terminated a contract to, um, you know, not pursue it. Plus I get the black mark on the listing because we’ve been pending for three months and now it’s back on the market. Like that’s never a good look either. And, know, sometimes you’ll see those.
Listings that yeah, yeah, you know properties back in the market no fault of the seller and we could put that there but like it’s still I do you ever feel good when when you see that you don’t actually know the situation why like why is it really back in the market? Okay, fine, but It still was sitting there for some reason Even if it is no fault of the seller I think I said seller before I meant to seller in any case
You know that that’s just never a good sign so Even if it is, you know indicated in good faith here Like it’s still a black mark against us and like yeah, we don’t want to be overly aggressive We were already wanted to close on this property within 90 days. Now. We’re gonna have to be on market for even longer and So I wouldn’t think it’s like the best idea to try to bump price
especially when we think it’s in general anyway. Plus I was asking, you know, I’m not sure if it was in the contract exactly, I was trying to scramble through it, but you know, it wasn’t necessarily a developer project where normally it would be like more hardcore including it within the contracts. I’m not sure exactly what their subdivision plan was like they were trying to do a single split. it’s not.
It’s not anything crazy from like a DD side besides the survey and whatever they’re doing with the county. And so I just asked, did they send any over any DD? Did we have a agreement, know, tacit or written that they would send anything over? And they did give us a survey for what, you know, what it’s worth. They spent the money on that. So that’s certainly helpful to us regardless. And then I asked for a copy of the survey and I saw it was like,
6.98 acres, like roughly seven exactly, which is like, didn’t match up like, you know, John was saying, you know, just over six and I’m like, well, that’s actually a huge difference. Like closer to seven now, now all of sudden, like, yeah, we’re, well over an acre in, in difference here. And you know, the fact that we were listed for like just over 10 K per acre. Now all of sudden it could make some sense.
Plus the fact that we’re armed with a survey too, that we could potentially bump price a bit more with this in mind. Like when he said, you know, just over six acres, I thought, okay, yeah, like a quarter acre difference, not gonna really do anything. But over an acre, sure. At that type of, and that type of land specifically to more rural areas where price per acre is gonna be more reliable.
And so like if we just bump the price from a per acre perspective, what we were previously listed at, like it would put us like right around 71,000. But again, because there’s some hair on the property, black mark of relisting again, I thought, okay, if we are going to bump the price, you know, it could still be lower from a per acre level, but you know, maybe halfway in between there, like right just under 65 K.
Instead to list plus again, you we did get fourteen hundred dollars from the first buyer So at least that offsets a little bit of the pain of having to relist again And you know, we kind of respectively at like hey we thought we were just about to exit this deal and like, you know, hey we’re aware and you know Matt or who
Is the name that I’m using for the broker You know, we’re aware of his you know more tragic situation Family situation because he’s been cc’d on these emails like we’re not sure what his involvement would be I’m going like we’re not counting on it to be clear But you know if he wants to provide an opinion on what we could do here like we’re all ears And luckily he did respond like hey, you know back in the office
here and there, going to get, I need to look at the market again and I’ll get back to you guys. So we’re to come up with a game plan. But I just wanted to share, and sometimes these just, you these fires just come out of nowhere and how to kind of quickly, but decisively act and utilize the data that you have available to come up with the best plan forward here. Do you potentially reprice?
What are the positive factors? What are the negative factors in relation to the goals of the property? What does the market look like at this time? I re-looked at this market when there was that surveyor issue for this first buyer. I just wanted to see, where were we kind of at? And our land investor partner was considering…
You know what wanting us to look into potentially doing a subdivide ourselves, but like the market did not justify that and slightest And it still was pretty slow at the time so But at the same time again, we went under contract within like a week of listing prior So it’s hard for me to say on how much we really tested things out Plus we just again have a lot of room to work with on this market So even if we do bump the price a little bit like we have a lot of room where we could just cut
if it’s just not accurate or the market has worsened a bit since we first listed. again, trying to balance all those factors plus the complex personal situations within the brokers we’re working on the deal here and how we have to kind of rely on them.
Well with like an ongoing family situation, etc. So all of that is Something that just had to be considered and kind of decided upon quickly here. But yeah, you know try to get all the key information to to make a call and balance the pros and cons of how pricing might look like and you know What can you do if deals fall apart?
around cry over spilt milk or it’s like all right what’s the next step to sort it out and move on for finding another buyer. All of that in mind, seriousland.capital for any of your funding needs, land daily diligence, Facebook group for zero cost review of your land deals and landpricer.ai for most reliable land pricing tool on the market. I should be testing it as of today.
when you are listening to this episode. And I’ll be at Unconference here very shortly. So take care everybody, subscribe and share. I will talk to you tomorrow. Bye.
