I have a positive land story.. I bought some land in Adelanto, CA (Inland Empire / Victorville area) sometime last year or the year before..
My first criteria was that I’d only buy from a private party, not a reseller.. I found a good peice, and I had the land appraised before I bought it (without even asking the land owner). The appraisal cost me $400 bucks.. the appraisal valued the land at 3x the asking price… I bought it cash very quickly.
I built a deal with my realtor so the more it sold for, the higher his comission % would be.. so it was a double positive for him… We had numerous offers and ended up selling it for $46k more than we listed it for.
I think there’s still plenty of land opportunities available, because the people from California are going to have to move somewhere cheap.. I have my eyes set on a few places, and will probably be buying some soon. There’s lots of land that’s undervalued.. most of it is in areas where there aren’t utilities yet or growth, but could possibly be soon..