Who has the best land loan options?

Edit - where is the 20 acres located? For land, go with a land bank

Mississippi Land Bank
Louisiana Land Bank

Where is the land located?

Depending on the sale price, 20 acres may be reasonable for a land bank. When I called them to buy my 4 acre property, it didn’t meet their criteria.

Many Credit Unions offer various methods to finance land. In Louisiana, I used both Neighbors and People’s Bank.

There’s a few options depending on your timeframe. I did a traditional land loan with Neighbors. It was a standard 12 year loan with a reasonable interest rate. There’s also an interest only option, which is usually the 1 year timeframe.

We used People’s Bank for the construction loan. This was used to purchase the property and begin construction. We had 12 months to convert to permanent financing, although we were able to extend that 3 extra months.

If you want a one-time closing, you’ll have to have everything lined up. Approved Plans, a licensed builder, contract with him, etc. If you have all this in place and ready to purchase/build, you can do a one-time closing loan for the final completed home/mortgage. The one-time closing loans are a little most costly, but they do save a little on multiple closings. For reference, I closed 5 times on my current home (land, construction, mortgage/2nd mortgage, refinance), and closing costs absolutely ate me up. It makes me a little sick thinking about it.

You’ll pay the same millage rate on the assessed value of the property. Whatever the lot value is assessed as will result in the same millage rate/property tax.

In your example, a lot assessed at $250k (in the same area/mileage) would have the same property tax as a home with a $250k assessed value.

However, obviously those two lots/properties would not be equal. Prior to building, my land property tax was around $15/year. After building, it’s around $1200/year.