Your Listing for Land Assembly

There are two ways to sell your land assembly project.  The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) can be used to list your property for sale, which will be available to Realtors ® on-line through their search database. For individual listings, this is a great way to sell and market your home as it will be made available to thousands of local and national Realtors® . You should also be familiar with an exclusive listing. This listing is a listing that is exclusive to the Realtor® only and will be seen by a fewer parties, though more selective parties and more importantly, commercial Realtors®.

In a land assembly project, your Realtor® may suggest and choose to do this as he or she may already have parties he is targeting or with whom he or she has done business with in the past, who is actively looking for such a project or a combination of both. The exclusive listing and the MLS listing both go through the managing broker to sign, and will have similar clauses such a start and end date, and terms for the seller.  

Your exclusive listing contract in a land assembly is a contract for each property owner.  As you can see from the photo above, not all properties assembled in a project has the same lot size. The land and its future benefits are what will form the land assembly price.

Keep in mind that not all lan assemblies have to be large. The larger the site, the larger the developer you may attract. Therefore, it goes without saying that the longer it may take to sell to a developer. Land assemblies can be as small as two or three side-by-side properties, attracting a smaller developer.

The photo above shows a sample of homes and their different lot sizes. The developer will price your property based on your lot size only but may give just slightly higher consideration to a corner lot, a newly built home or a different zoning designation.

In an exclusive listing, our Realtors® commission is a straight 3% plus GST across the board on all properties in the land assembly. MLS listing is 7% on the first 100,000 and 2.5% on the balance.  On a $2,000,000 property, the commission for the Realtor® would be approximately $55,000 plus GST and the 3% commission would be approximately $60,000 plus GST.

Even if one home owner has a bigger property, or owns two properties on the same block, or has an interest on another property on the same block, the same commission for services rendered for all home owners. Though sometimes in an MLS listing, you can negotiate with your listing agent the commission, in a land assembly, this will only create discord between neighbours if the commission is even slightly less and an unhealthy environment ensues. Remember, despite having a separate contract for each home owner, all home owners are working hand in hand so to speak with each other in a land assembly. Neighbours need to be assured that their Realtor® has provided each and every home owner in the land assembly the same service and professionallism afforded to them.

Geraldine Santiago is a RE/MAX Realtor®  licensed in both residential and commercial real estate services, specializing in land assembly projects and land acquisition.She is a published author of three real estate reference books for Self-Counsel Press Ltd. namely the "Complete Home Buyer's Guide for Canadians", "Selling Your Home I Canada" and "Buy and Sell a Recreational Property in Canada" and her recently self-published ebook "How to Band Together with Neighbours in Land Assembly", 2018.   She is known for seminars on real estate trends in buying and selling in metro Vancouver.