Searching for Vacant Residential Lots - Product Support · 2014. 10. 25. · Searching for Vacant Residential Lots 2011 Digital Map Products Page 3 b. Land Use: Vacant Land (NEC)

Searching for Vacant Residential Lots

2011 Digital Map Products Page 1

Introduction

LandVision™ leverages tax assessor land use classifications to identify Vacant Residential Lots. Most counties classify Vacant Residential Lots in a similar way; however there are some counties that use different classification methods requiring slight modifications to the search criteria entered into LandVision™. This document will guide you through the steps needed to find Vacant Residential Lots using several different methods. Searching by User Defined Area – Submarket Level 1. Locate your subject area by using the navigation tools above the map to zoom in or use the Zip

Code, City, or Street Intersection search located under Location Search within the Menu tab.

2. Select the Draw Polygon tool and prepare to draw a boundary around your specific geographic area

where you’d like to search for Vacant Residential Lots.



3. Draw your search area by left clicking to place each vertex of the polygon. To close the polygon,

single click on your last vertex on top of your first vertex.

4. Open the Enhanced search form under the Property Search section of the Menu tab.

5. Enter the following search criteria into the Enhanced search form:

a. Acres (example)

i. Start Value: 0.15

ii. End Value: 0.35

NOTE: An acreage range is not necessary, although it eliminates large parcels of

shared space owned by the developer or the home owners association.

a. Land Use Category: Vacant Land

*(See IMPORTANT NOTE below under the Analyzing and Qualifying the Results section)



b. Land Use: Vacant Land (NEC) & Residential Lot


TIP: Hold the Control key to select multiple land use classes

b. Check “to Selected Graphics” under the Limit search results

ALTERNATIVE METHOD: Rather than use the “to Selected Graphics” feature, you can

skip steps 2 & 3 above and use the “to Map Extent” feature. This will limit your search

area to the viewable map area.

6. Clicking the Search button should reveal something like the image below.



7. The map shows where the Vacant Residential Lots are in relation to your search area. In most cases

the Vacant Residential Lots will be clustered in specific communities.

To get a more detailed look at a specific community, we’ll explore searching for Vacant Residential

Lots at a larger scale using the same method.

Searching by User Defined Area – Community Level

2. Locate your subject community by using the navigation tools above the map to zoom to your site.

3. Select the Draw Polygon tool and prepare to draw a boundary around the community where you’d

like to search for Vacant Residential Lots.



4. Draw in the boundary of your community by left clicking to place each vertex of the polygon. To

close the polygon, single click on your last vertex on top of your first vertex.

5. Open the Enhanced search form under the Property Search section of the Menu tab.

6. Enter the following search criteria into the Enhanced search form:

a. Acres (example)

i. Start Value: 0.15

ii. End Value: 0.35

NOTE: An acreage range is not necessary, although it eliminates large parcels of

shared space owned by the developer or the home owners association.

b. Land Use Category: Vacant Land




c. Land Use: Vacant Land (NEC) & Residential Lot


TIP: Hold the Control key to select multiple land use classes

d. Check “to Selected Graphics” under the Limit search results

ALTERNATIVE METHOD: Rather than use the “to Selected Graphics” feature, you can

skip steps 2 & 3 above and use the “to Map Extent” feature. This will limit your search

area to the viewable map area.

7. Clicking the Search button should reveal something like the image below.

8. The map shows where the Vacant Residential Lots are within the community.



Analyzing and Qualifying the Results

There is a lot that can be unearthed when looking at tax assessor data; however it takes a trained eye to

identify correlations and patterns to obtain the best results. When analyzing Vacant Residential Lots,

there are several key attributes to look at when qualifying your search results. In this section we will use

LandVision’s Export to Excel feature to analyze and qualify the Vacant Residential Lots found using the

searches above.

1. With your search results active in LandVision™, click the Export to Excel link located below the list of

results. You may opt to use Advanced Export to Excel if you want to manually choose your fields of

interest.

2. The resulting Excel file includes a wide array of tax assessor fields that can be easily sorted and

filtered to get down to the fields needed for VDL analysis and qualification. The first image below

shows the raw data, while the second shows the data filtered to show several key fields.



3. Now that the data has been organized for analysis, it is time to sort your data to eliminate records

that don’t qualify as Vacant Residential Lots.

*IMPORTANT NOTE: The reason there are records that don’t qualify as Vacant Residential Lots is

because the tax assessor dataset is a dynamic database that is constantly changing. Digital Map

Products receives updates to this dataset at various times throughout the year. In most cases we

receive the tax roll on a yearly basis, and transaction updates on a biweekly basis.

With each update, various fields are updated based on what’s been recorded for each specific

county. The way this affects VDL searches the most is when it comes to the recorded land use. A

parcel may be listed as Vacant Land, Residential Lot, (VDL in LandVision™ terms), even while the site

has living square footage, or a home owner’s name listed in the owner name field. As we receive

updates to our database the land use will eventually reflect the current use, which will be “SFR”, (or

Single Family Residence), for detached homes in residential communities. Until this update occurs,

it is important to understand how these fields correspond to one another as you attempt to gather

accurate VDL metrics for each submarket or community.

4. Eliminate the records with living square footage by sorting the spreadsheet by the LIVING_SF field.



5. Next sort by the OWNER_NAME field to identify all the lots that have been purchased by an actual

home owner. While these may not have a living square footage listed yet, the fact that the owner

name is not that of builder, developer investment group or bank, but rather that of an individual, it

is safe to assume that the lot is no longer a VDL.

NOTE: You’ll notice that the spreadsheet in the image below has a lender name for most of the

properties with an individual list in the owner name field. This is another indicator in determining

the VDL status of a lot.

6. Scan through your spreadsheet to identify any other indicators that might disqualify a site as a VDL.

You will often find lots owned by the local municipality or by the home owners association. Once

complete, you’ll have a comprehensive database of Vacant Residential Lots within your target area

that you can now analyze as opportunities for future new home development.



Contact Digital Map Products

To learn more about using LandVision™ to find Vacant Residential Lots or other real estate activities,

please call us at 888.322.MAPS (6277) ext. 2 or email us at [email protected].

mailto:[email protected]

Documents

Searching for Vacant Residential Lots - Product Support · 2014. 10. 25. · Searching for Vacant Residential Lots 2011 Digital Map Products Page 3 b. Land Use: Vacant Land (NEC)