Property and Land Articles

Buying and selling land in the UK for profit

The land market in the UK is characterised by finite supply and rising demand with artificial constraints on the use of land that creates pressure and forces up UK land prices year on year.

This means that buying and selling land in the UK should be a profitable business over the medium and long term. Land sales, like all markets, suffer short term reversals from time to time and land can take time to sell so short term paper losses can occur. There are no guarantees of profiting from selling land especially in the short term.

The most common perception is that all UK land buyers are hoping to get planning permission for housing to sky rocket the value of their land purchase. This is a very long term process in the UK and should not be relied on as a profitable land buying strategy.

Other ways to increase the value of land are to solve simple problems like land access, field drainage, soil exhaustion, weed infestation, fencing and security.

Most land near existing housing is wanted small paddocks for horses or other leisure related activities and only want small plots of land of 2 or 3 acres. These fetch a huge premium, normally 2 or three times higher than the agricultural value of land. So why not buy larger fields in suitable locations and sub-divide them? You will need to sort out legal documentation like land title deeds and proper legal access to each piece of land but the profits will justify the work.

Finding new uses for farmland that is for sale helps preserve the unique appearance of the English countryside. Land that is not in use deteriorates and blights the countryside. Not all changes in land use are bad, some of new beginnings for low productivity land that would otherwise become an eyesore.