Understanding Strategic Land Partnerships

By Author: Kelly Leary
Total Articles: 272
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The cumulative leverage that multiple investors achieve through strategic land partnerships enables them to make optimal acquisitions.


Strategic land partnerships are essential to most investors who wish to participate in land development but who lack the expertise or capital to do so individually.


What many land investment professionals recognise is that the present opportunity is ripe and rare. Land prices are depressed as a result of the recession, and yet many municipalities are interested in promoting development as the recovery progresses. A partnership of investors, working through a strategic land fund fund, can pool resources to make optimal acquisitions.


The parcels of land in a strategic acquisition will be situated in an area that is ready for growth. The partnership will process a change-of-use/rezoning designation, increasing the value of the property before it is sold to residential or commercial developers for construction. Real asset ...
... growth from such partnerships generally outperforms the alternative, real estate investments trusts (REITs), because these partnerships are less subject to volatile trading prices.


The nature of real estate, where every property is unique, defies typical valuation comparisons that investors try to analyze when, for example, choosing a company stock. This underscores the value of strategic land partnerships in that the managers who work for the partnership bring strong expertise to the enterprise. They know how to identify where opportunities are strongest, including where local conditions are favourable to development – and where they are not. They are able not only to identify the opportunities but also to analyse risk and to plan how to take the land to development-ready status.