In February of 2005, a farmer sold his sold his 20 acres near River Valley High School for about $130,000 per acre. At about the same time, a farmer in north Yuba City sold 26 acres of his farm for about $300,000 per acre. The difference was that the second farmer's property had been annexed into the City and he had obtained an "Approved Tentative Subdivision Map." The developer who purchased the north Yuba City property was able to begin developing the property shortly after the purchase. The buyer of the first property still faces years of planning and engineering before his property will be ready to develop.

I AM NOT suggesting that people inexperienced at developing should go out and try to buy development property and become developers. Properly valuing development property is extremely difficult and it's too easy to make disasterous mistakes. However, if you already own property with development potential, anything you do to improve it's development potential will almost certainly pay large rewards. Some of these things, while time consuming, may not require large amounts of money.

The first step is to get an assessment of your property's development potential. There are several people capable of doing this for you. Two of my favorites are;

Denis Cook
Denis Cook Consulting
P.O. Box 3255
Yuba City, CA 95992
(530) 751-9614

Sean Minard
MHM Engineering
523 J Street
Marysville, CA 95901
(530) 742-6485

Both of these people are very involved with development in the Yuba-Sutter area and can quickly advise you on your property’s development potential and provide ideas on how to get started.