Customer Reviews

Be a Successful Residential Land Developer

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

A fairly useful overview that describes the issues a developer has to address, but not much about how to address them. For some reason the author tends to repeat himself. He says something and then restates it. He makes the same point twice.

He also tends to be rather vague: "Some aspects of site supervision can be dealt with in many ways. Some ways are more cost-effective than others." The book is full of statements like this.

I have found the book useful to help me identify issues that I need to think about, but if you are looking for answers--this book isn't for you. It should be titled, "What to Expect as a Land Developer."

I am more than half way through the book and am finding it difficult to continue. The author continues to list the steps of the development process, but with each step he fails to explain how to perform each step or give case examples of how it was done in a particular development. Instead he says "you can hire a professional to do this step if you like." If you do not know how to perform a function, and you hire a professional to perform it for you, a) how can you make any money? and b) how can you be sure that your professional is performing the function correctly? So far this book has been a major dissapointment.

This is the worst 'How To' book I have ever read...The author never makes a definitive statement about anything. Instead he says you could do this or that, hire someone or do it yourself, blah blah blah. He rambles on about the same subjects repetitively to fill up the pages. I feel like I have not learned anything of any use after reading the entire book. What a major disappointment!

Lets face it......if you know anything at all about developing land, the absolute critical item is actually finding a piece of property that makes sense to wast time pursuing. I bought this book hoping to find some insight into ways of "finding" that elusive "good fit" property that maybe I have not thought of. Nothing new here, just some odball potential sources of finding property that just waste your time

Woodson doesn't tell the reader how to survey, do his/her own drawings, tell how to design a curb and gutter system. I didn't expect him to! He does walk you through how to get started on the path to be a land developer, including who and/or where to go for the details you will need to get further information, as well as the long list of subjects and details the potential developer needs to consider and explore.

For those of you interested in getting started on residential real estate development, this book is a wonderful start and a delight to read. The author writes in a down-to-earth, straightforward manner. Great insight into various aspects of analyzing and selecting land and how to approach the development process.

Elementary discussion of land development. Lacks detail and interest.
the accompanying "checklists and forms" are not in a format that can be manipulated. Nothing is in Word as the description suggests, all in PDF format. Not useful at all.

Overall this is a good book to get started in land development buy I wish there were more actual examples taking you through all different problems and situations that could arise.

This book explains a lot about a very difficult subject. I would have liked some info about easements. I would recommend this book to those interested in this field

this book is full of nothing but common knowledge and fluff absolutely no gems of info that are remotely helpful a complete waste of money and time.