Selling Land on Sol Legare Road: When the View Is Only the Beginning

When people think about selling real estate, they probably think the job is to put a property in the MLS, take good pictures, advertise it, find a buyer, and get it to closing. Sometimes it really is fairly straightforward. Other times, you find yourself with a notebook full of phone numbers, government offices, surveyors, plats, unanswered questions, and more research than you ever expected. This piece of land on Sol Legare Road was definitely the second kind.

The property itself wasn't difficult to appreciate. It sits along the marsh with beautiful Lowcountry views, and the drone photographs could tell that part of the story much better than I ever could. The difficult part was answering a much more important question: What could someone actually do with the land?

That question turned into quite a few more questions.

I wanted to understand the property boundaries. I needed to learn about the critical line and the setbacks that might apply. I wanted to know what information was available about water and sewer service. There were questions about the possibility of building a home and questions about a potential dock. Then there was the question of exactly who could give us reliable answers to each of those things.

So I started making phone calls.

I spoke with Charleston Water System. I contacted planning and zoning. I researched Coastal Management information. I looked through county records and old plats. I contacted surveyors. When one person couldn't answer a question, I tried to find the person who could.

My notebook became a running history of the listing.

Some of the answers were fairly easy to find. Others weren't. I learned very quickly that land like this can involve several different agencies and professionals, and one office may be able to answer one question but not another.

I also had to remind myself of something important: my job was not to turn an uncertain answer into a certain one just because certainty would make the property easier to sell.

I'm a real estate broker. I'm not a surveyor, engineer, zoning official, environmental specialist, dock permitting authority, or attorney. I can do the research. I can gather documents. I can ask questions and help point people toward the appropriate resources. But there are questions a buyer needs to verify independently with the professionals and agencies who actually have the authority to answer them.

That distinction became an important part of how I marketed the property.

I could show the actual land. I could show the actual marsh. I could provide the information and documents I had collected. But I didn't want to tell someone that a certain house could definitely be built there or that a dock could definitely be permitted when those decisions weren't mine to make.

There is a difference between marketing the possibilities of a property and promising them.

We had interest along the way, and not every conversation became an offer. There were times when I wondered what piece of information we were still missing or what else I could do to help someone understand the property. I kept researching, kept answering questions, and kept moving forward.

Eventually, we received an offer that included 45 days for due diligence.

For this particular property, I thought that was important. It gave the buyer time to do their own investigation instead of asking everyone involved to simply hope that the property would work for what they wanted to do.

The due-diligence period was completed, and five days later, we closed.

The sellers were happy.

And I walked away from this sale with a reminder about something I already believed but probably understand a little better now.

Being knowledgeable in real estate does not mean knowing every answer.

Sometimes it means knowing that you don't know the answer.

It means knowing where to start looking, who might know more than you do, what documentation matters, and when it is time to tell someone, "You need to verify this with the appropriate professional."

The beautiful marsh views helped people notice this property. But I don't think beautiful photographs were enough to get this particular property sold. It also required patience, research, questions, documentation, due diligence, and a willingness by everyone involved to allow the process to work.

That may not be the exciting part of real estate that makes it onto a postcard.

But I think it is one of the most important parts.

Sometimes our job isn't to have all the answers.

Sometimes our job is to keep asking the right questions until the people who need the answers know where to find them.

And after a long journey with this little piece of Sol Legare Road, Sold was a pretty nice word to finally write in my notebook.

Every property is unique. Buyers should independently verify information concerning property boundaries, zoning, setbacks, critical areas, wetlands, utilities, buildability, docks, permitting and intended uses with the appropriate governmental agencies and qualified professionals. Nothing in this article should be interpreted as a representation that a particular improvement, structure, use or permit will be approved.

Bonnie Wicks, licensed as Bonnie Jean Wicks Bertalot, is an Associate Broker with Carolina One Real Estate serving Mount Pleasant, Charleston, and surrounding Lowcountry communities. Learn more at bonniewicks.com or call 843.754.0754.