How to Buy Raw Land

The process of buying land is not quite the same as buying land with a home already built on it. That’s something we didn’t realize until we started looking and buying acreage.

When you purchase a home with acreage, you can go to a bank or other lender and get a traditional home mortgage. Not so, with raw land.

With raw land it’s a little different to secure a mortgage, because there’s no home on the property. This type of land loan is seen as a bigger risk to the lender, because a buyer may be more willing to walk away and not pay if they aren’t living on the property. They don’t have to worry about losing their home if the lender were to foreclose. So the requirements and terms for land loans are different and substantially more difficult to obtain from most financial institutions.

My husband, Michael, is a veteran and qualifies for VA home loans, but they do not offer land loans.

From research, I found that it was better to talk to a local bank, as opposed to a regional or national bank, as they have a more vested interest in the local community. They’re more willing to lend for things that may not be as cost effective, but could be beneficial to the overall community.

However, the first one I called had terrible terms for land loans. The best they could offer us was a three year loan term with a 30% down payment. That was completely unattainable for us. This made us start to doubt our plans and whether it was something we could do. We had to have reasonable financing to move forward. The process of buying land wasn’t as cut and dry as we had imagined.

I had about given up all hope, but whatever reason (okay, because I’m stubborn) I kept researching. That’s when I found AgGeorgia Farm Credit.

They specialize in rural and agricultural purchases, and just from skimming their website, I felt some hope. I sent an info request online and was contacted by someone from their Moultrie office very quickly.

We ended up being able to purchase our land with the help of AgGeorgia Farm Credit, who had great loan terms that were very similar to a traditional mortgage and few loan fees. They walked us through the process and we purchased our land.

We’re forever grateful to have found AgGeorgia Farm Credit who’ve made our dreams of owning a farm (land) a reality.

*Not a sponsored post. Purely, our experience and opinion.