The Seller Wants 14 Days. The Developer Needs 14 Months.

A land deal dies in the gap between a seller who will not wait and a developer who cannot hurry. I close that gap by owning the land in between.

Most land deals that die do not die on price. The seller and the developer agree on the number. They die on time.

The seller wants to close in fourteen days. A trust is winding up, a partner wants out, a tax year is ending, or the owner is simply done. The developer wants the same land, at the same price, but cannot close for fourteen months, because that is how long it takes to get a project entitled in most places worth building. Tentative map, environmental review, hearings, conditions of approval, and the appeals that follow them. No developer closes on land before the entitlement is in hand, and no lender funds them if they try.

So the developer asks for a long escrow. The seller says no, or says yes and then wakes up in month six and says no. The listing goes stale, the developer moves on, and the parcel sits there, agreed on and unsold.

What an interim owner does

I step in as the buyer. Not as a lender, and not as a broker for either side. I close with cash, in seven to fourteen days, and I take title. The seller is paid and gone. The developer gets the time they need, because the land is no longer for sale to anyone else. They run the entitlement on their own schedule, and I hold the parcel until they are ready.

When the approvals are in hand, the developer buys the land from me at the price they were ready to pay in the first place, plus the cost of the time. If they walk away, I keep the land. I bought it at a price I was willing to own it at, and I land bank it until the next builder comes along. That is the discipline that makes the model work. I only close on land I would be content to hold.

What each party gives up, and what they get

The seller gives up nothing except a closing date they did not want anyway. They get cash now, no contingencies, and no fourteen-month escrow to watch.

The developer gives up a little margin. The land costs more on the day they buy it from me than it would have on the day the seller wanted to close. They get something no lender will give them: months of control over a parcel with no debt service, no personal guarantee, and no risk of the seller changing their mind in month nine.

I take the risk in the middle. I put my own capital into a piece of dirt for a year or more, with no certainty the entitlement will land. I am paid for that risk by the difference between what I paid and what the developer pays me, and by owning something real if the developer does not come back.

Why nobody else does this

Lenders will not do it, because a raw parcel with no approvals and no income is not collateral they can underwrite. Brokers cannot do it, because they have no capital and their fee depends on the sale closing today. Most investors will not do it, because holding unentitled land is slow, illiquid, and unglamorous, and there is no story to tell at dinner about a parcel you bought so that someone else could build on it.

That is exactly why it works. The gap between fourteen days and fourteen months is where most land deals go to die, and almost nobody is standing in it.

What I look for

Land, with or without a structure on it, in any market where the numbers work. A seller and a developer who already agree on price, with time as the only problem. A developer with a real entitlement plan and a real track record, not a hope. A parcel I would be comfortable owning if the plan fails, at a price that makes sense without the developer at all. Those three things, and nothing else.

I do not chase deals. Brokers and developers bring me the ones that are dying in the gap. When a deal is stuck for lack of time or capital, I am the call.

Benoit Lapointe invests in healthcare and real estate. He is the principal of Meridian in Newport Beach and spent years in the broker's chair before becoming a principal. benoitlapointe.com