The Land Food Chain

Realtors such as Naperville, Ill.-based John Bates are expanding their offerings to home builders by including land brokering, and they’re profiting from the effort.

Bates says he has helped builders purchase 3,000 acres of farmland during the past few years, and he has captured a majority of the transactions in the subsequent new home sales. Many of those home buyers eventually return to Bates, asking him to be the listing agent when they move up or relocate to another area.

The goal is to capture as many transactions as possible in the new home land cycle, beginning with the original land purchase.

“If you talk to 20 farmers, most will tell you to take a hike,” Bates explains. “Then you find one who wants to do a deal, and he’ll introduce you to his friends and neighbors. Suddenly you are doing a lot of deals.”

Bates says about 20% of his land deals are exchanges of Naperville-area farmland for farmland elsewhere in the Midwest. A handful of builders have come to rely on him. Pasquinelli Construction of Homewood, Ill., is even asking him to do the legwork on consolidating several parcels.