Identify Properties

Exact steps

1. Pick one sourcing method for today (you'll learn the specific tools in 4c-4h) and use it to find one candidate parcel.
2. Write down the parcel's address or APN (assessor's parcel number) the moment you spot it — don't rely on memory.
3. Run that single parcel through the 9-field qualification checklist from 4b before doing anything else with it.
4. Mark the parcel's lead status as Qualified, Junk, or Disqualified based on the checklist result.
5. If Qualified, add it to a working list (a spreadsheet row is fine to start) with owner name and mailing address.
6. Only after it's on the qualified list do you move to outreach — never skip straight from 'looks good' to contacting the owner.

Exact steps

1. Record total acreage from the county tax roll, then record usable acreage (total minus floodplain, wetland, and unbuildable-topo losses).
2. Count distinct top-tier homebuilders within a 20-mile radius, and separately record the distance to the single closest builder.
3. Count the parcel's road access points (how many public rights-of-way touch it), and rate each one's quality as paved (good) or gravel/dirt (poor) — zero public frontage is a red flag.
4. Look up current land use and future land use from the jurisdiction's comprehensive plan (these can be multi-value, e.g. 'agriculture/residential').
5. Infer utilities-nearby as yes/no from visual cues — nearby subdivisions, commercial buildings, or schools almost never run on septic/well.
6. Set lead status to Qualified, Junk, or Disqualified, and if disqualified, write the specific reason in the notes field.
7. Add any anomalies (odd floodplain rulings, acreage discrepancies) to the free-text notes field so the next person reviewing it has context.

Exact steps

1. Search up the tool (or whatever paid parcel-mapping subscription your market uses) and pull up the target parcel by address or APN.
2. Check the data's source and refresh rate: ownership/sale data is often refreshed nightly, while boundary and characteristic data may only refresh annually — note which is which before you trust it.
3. Use the built-in measure/polygon tool to trace the floodplain or wetland boundary and subtract it from total acreage to get usable acreage.
4. Toggle on the hazard layer (FEMA flood zone + wetland) and export the map view to an image or PDF to share with a colleague or client.
5. If the parcel has an existing structure, export a Google Earth KML file to inspect 3D terrain and building footprint.
6. Attach a custom status (e.g. 'prospect,' 'contacted') and dated notes to the parcel using the tool's lightweight CRM layer, and confirm you're deleting only that one record — not clearing the entire layer.
7. Expect to correct an earlier field (like road-access count or usable acreage) as better information surfaces — treat qualification as iterative, not one-and-done.

Exact steps

1. Search "[county name] assessor property search" or "[county name] GIS map" and pull up the parcel by address or APN.
2. Record the total acreage and property class code shown (e.g. 'AG' for agricultural) — zoning and land-use fields are often blank, so infer current use from the property class instead.
3. Check the deed date or year-built on any neighboring parcels to judge whether nearby development is actually new, or just an old subdivision that isn't a hot comp.
4. Try the county's own floodplain indication or a topography map as your flood check — FEMA's flood map service frequently fails to load, so don't block your qualification waiting on it.
5. If a flood call can't be confirmed because a tool failed, write 'unconfirmed' in your notes, not 'no floodplain.'
6. Search the target builder's website "find a community" tool by city name to estimate builder proximity manually, since assessor pages don't carry builder data at all.
7. Check the jurisdiction's airport-overlay-zone map if the parcel sits near an active runway — these zones are a hard disqualifier regardless of how good everything else looks.

Exact steps

1. Search "PropStream" and pull up the target parcel (or use a similar list-building tool you have access to).
2. Note the acreage figure PropStream reports — it comes back in square feet, not acres.
3. Divide that square-footage figure by 43,560 (square feet per acre) to get the acreage number your checklist expects.
4. Check the tool's built-in FEMA flood overlay, but treat its result as provisional, not final.
5. Cross-check that flood result against a second source (county assessor GIS) before recording a flood determination anywhere.
6. Use the ownership/mapping view to check whether the same owner holds multiple adjoining parcels — useful when you're trying to assemble a bigger tract out of smaller ones.

Exact steps

1. Pick a bounded area to sweep, like a single zip code, and open it in your mapping tool.
2. Pan systematically across the entire area ('snaking') and add every plausible candidate parcel to a running list as you go.
3. Do not fully qualify any parcel during this first pass — just capture it and move on.
4. Skip parcels with obviously bad ownership patterns: HOA-owned land, or heavily fragmented small-lot clusters with no clear logic.
5. If the same owner name shows up on multiple nearby parcels, add each one as its own separate list entry rather than merging them.
6. Once the sweep is finished and the list is saved, go back through it in a second pass and run full qualification (floodplain, road access, utilities, builder proximity) on each entry.
7. Scan the finished list for repeat owner names — a name appearing on 3+ adjoining parcels is a likely assemblage/portfolio owner worth one combined outreach.

Exact steps

1. Zoning + aerial cross-reference: pull up the parcel on a zoning map, then open it in Google Maps satellite view and hold Shift while clicking and dragging to tilt into 3D — check for a school, church, cliff, or water feature that instantly disqualifies it (churches are worth flagging separately: they often sit on more land than they use).
2. Title-company farming: call a title company (e.g. Fidelity National Title) serving your target county and request a bulk data pull by jurisdiction, zoning code list, and minimum acreage — expect an Excel file back within about a week, often free as a courtesy.
3. Satellite scanning for construction signals: scan satellite imagery across your target area for moved dirt or newly built streets — this is a proxy that utilities are about to be (or just were) extended, making the untouched neighboring parcels suddenly viable.
4. GIS parcel click-through: search "[county or city] GIS parcel viewer" and click through parcels to pull owner name, mailing address, size, zoning designation, and often a direct link to the governing municipal code chapter.
5. Jurisdiction permit map: search "[city name] project tracker map" or "[city name] permit pipeline" and look for a project tagged 'building permits ready to be issued' — that's a reliable sign utilities are live now, making its untargeted neighboring parcels your next target.

Exact steps

1. Open satellite view over your target metro and visually note lot sizes near the urban core versus near the outer edge.
2. Use these rough density bands as a starting calibration: high density (urban core) ≈ 0.1–0.25 acre lots, ≈0.3 acre as transitional, and 0.5+ acre as medium-to-low density (sprawl edge).
3. Look up the average sales price (ASP) for the specific sub-area you're evaluating, not the metro as a whole.
4. In a high-ASP sub-market, allow a smaller minimum acreage filter, since even a small high-density parcel can pencil a developer-worthy lot count; in a low-ASP sub-market, raise your minimum acreage filter to compensate.
5. Draw a radius from the city center, set your minimum-acreage filter at the number you just calibrated, and filter results to vacant, residential, and agricultural land use only.
6. Treat this as a dedicated 'high-density scrape' distinct from a separate 'low-density scrape' you'd run for the same metro's outer ring.
7. Use builder-site clustering on the map as a sanity check — builders thin out in the highest-density core and cluster at the sprawl edge, confirming your band read.

Exact steps

1. Check where the house sits on the parcel first: a home spanning the lot's width or sitting mid-parcel can block a future road extension; a home tucked into a corner is usually compatible with development around it.
2. Ask the core question: is the house worth more than the dirt under it? If not — the common case — demolition is usually the right call.
3. Pull a comparable market value for the home, then calculate: Max Offer = Comp Value − (Developer Profit % × Comp Value) − Broker Fee % − Rehab Estimate − Closing Costs − Utility Hookup Cost.
4. Exclude the home's footprint, plus a driveway/yard buffer, from the net buildable acreage you use for the rest of the parcel's lot-yield calculation.
5. Present your number to the owner as one lump-sum offer — never itemize 'dirt' and 'house' separately, since itemizing invites the owner to anchor on and object to the lower house-only figure.
6. If the owner is attached to the home, offer the alternative structure: buy only the vacant land around the house and let them keep it, so they capture full market value on the house themselves.

Exact steps

1. Call the title company serving your target market (e.g. Fidelity National Title) and ask for growth-area intel, a list of active developers, top real estate agents, prominent engineering firms, and known GIS/mapping tools for the area.
2. Call the developers from that list and ask what product types and zonings they build, their active submarkets, home prices, finished-lot values, construction costs, and which school districts they prefer or avoid.
3. Call real estate agents to cross-check the developers' hotspot and school-district read, and ask about inventory/absorption — days-on-market and any oversupplied pockets.
4. For every city or county that comes up, search "[jurisdiction name] zoning map," "[jurisdiction name] comprehensive plan," "[jurisdiction name] capital improvement plan," and "[jurisdiction name] transportation system plan," and bookmark or download whatever you find — log what you can't find.
5. Call the jurisdiction's planner(s) to fill the gaps from the step above, and ask specifically about land-use application timelines, growth direction, any pipeline CIP projects, the local list of active developers filing applications, and who on staff handles what, so future questions get routed correctly.
6. With your jurisdiction list and criteria now dialed in, order your farms and run the zoning/aerial scans from the earlier lessons in this module.