Investing in real estate is a serious process that requires a good deal of thought and research. When investing in entire communities, it’s essential to choose the right residential land developer. Otherwise, you may face serious issues in future, including low profits and problems with poor quality control. Instead, selecting an experienced and top quality residential land developer is the perfect way to ensure the community is perfectly suited to drive high income for your investment. In this article, we’ll discuss some things to know about residential land developers and what to look for to determine their quality.
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What is a Residential Land Developer?
What exactly is a residential land developer and what do they do? These professionals, like the Landfinity team, specialize in developing land from the ground up for residential communities. They handle all the steps needed to take a piece of raw land and turn it into a beautiful subdivision. For instance, this involves adding roadways, utility connections, as well as building gorgeous, good quality housing and creating a desirable neighborhood to live in. With build to rent communities, the developer creates these communities with long-term, high earning renters in mind, rather than potential home buyers. Instead, once the community is finished, investors typically take over the community, hire a property manager, and start earning income from the turnkey, fully-completed community.
Processes a Real Estate Land Developer Manages
Of course, there are many different steps in the land development process. The benefit of choosing the right residential land developer for your investment is that they manage all of these different processes to provide a completed community with no hassle or headaches on your part. Here are just some of the steps in developing residential land that your developer will take care of:
Finding the Right Land for Development
One key part of creating a successful community is choosing the right land. Build to rent developers look for land in desirable areas near major cities, as most long-term renters want to be in the suburbs but within commuting distance to the city. The land also must be large enough to accommodate a community of luxury single family homes for renters, including space for yards, as most of these tenants prefer low density housing.
Even after finding a potential spot for the development, it’s also necessary to evaluate the land for other characteristics. For instance, whether the land is feasible to build on based on soil conditions, zoning, and other things of that nature. This ensures the project is possible and can be profitable after completion.
Designing the Development and Houses
After land acquisition, the residential land developer needs to make some basic plans for the community. This part of the master planned community development involves designing things like roadways, land plots for housing, and other similar plans. Design experts customize these plans to the land and to the target market of tenants that will eventually rent the homes and commercial buildings in business corridors. These designs and plans are used throughout the development and construction process. They’re also necessary for estimating budgets, timelines, and other key details about the build. Plans also must go to permitting authorities and MUD districts for approval before any work can begin.
Getting Permits and MUD Approval
Before building, there are many things that need to happen first regarding approval of plans and permitting. Generally, there will be several permits to acquire before a residential land developer can start any type of work on the land, including leveling and making it suitable for construction. Additionally, if the land is in a MUD district, then we need to get approval from the board as well. MUD stands for municipal utility district. They are like small, independent governments with limited powers over certain geographic areas. These districts are found all over Texas and work well as an alternative way to finance infrastructure for places that aren’t part of the city. MUD boards generally need to provide approval for all developments and plans.
Building Homes, Roadways, and Other Community Must-Haves
With all approvals and permits in hand, we can then begin work on the community. This is where we make the land habitable by adding utility connections, building roads, and constructing homes and commercial buildings that will make up the community. This process requires a significant amount of planning, oversight, and management to ensure everything follows the plans and the high quality standards we maintain.
Important Things to Look for in a Residential Land Developer
There are many things to look for that can differentiate a good quality residential land developer from the others. Experience is one thing that can really make a difference. Generally, experience comes with expertise and a dedication to satisfaction for the end user. Additionally, when looking at different developers, you can peruse their website to determine what kind of developer they are and what they specialize in. Viewing social media and review sites is another great way to glean their reputation in the industry and what others’ experiences have been with the developer.
Why Invest in Communities from Build to Rent Developers?
Build to rent communities are a great investment opportunity, if they’re from the right residential land developer. These communities are designed for long-term renters and make an excellent real estate investment option. With more and more people looking to rent nice single family homes, build to rent communities are filling that demand, often generating significant rental income and offering low tenant turnover. Because they’re all in the same community, this also makes them easy to manage. Finally, with our BTR communities, we also create business corridors so you can also gain income from commercial renters.
Things High Income Renters Look for in Communities
Of course, not all build to rent developers create successful communities. It’s critical to build communities that really appeal to the right demographic. Here are some basics that most high income renters are looking for:
- Easy commute to the city: Many of the tenants looking for single family rentals still want to be a convenient distance from the city. As such, this also means most want to be close to major roadways, though far enough away to enjoy the peace and quiet of the suburbs.
- Sense of community: A lot of the renters interested in these communities want a sense of connection like you find in other master planned communities. This includes having businesses nearby to make the neighborhood walkable and also creating shared amenities for the community.
- Amenities: Renters often want access to must-have amenities like they would find in a luxury high rise apartment. Therefore, it’s essential to create these amenities that really make the community appealing.
Additionally, it’s essential to tailor the neighborhood characteristics to the tenants. Customizing can really drive revenue and ensure tenant satisfaction.
Landfinity – Top Residential Land Developer Specializing in Luxury Build to Rent Communities
Our team at Landfinity creates desirable, high end mixed use communities in Texas. We take care of all aspects of development and construction to provide our investors with a fully complete community ready to rent. Our master planned communities are designed specifically to appeal to high income long-term renters to ensure profitability. Contact us now to learn more about our communities.