Most land deals fail because nobody can get on the same page.
I’ve seen it happen countless times: a city wants development and landowners want fair value, but negotiations between the parties collapse because there are too many voices saying too many different things to too many different people.
At LANDCO NEXA we’re working with a municipality where they’ve overlaid a specific plan on agricultural land. The owners – mostly aging farmers – each have different backgrounds, different financial pressures, and completely different ideas about what constitutes a “fair deal.”
To give you a better understanding of what these challenging dynamics can look like: You might have a super-sophisticated property owner next to someone who inherited land from their grandfather and doesn’t even live in the country.
What we try to do to balance these differing interests is to create what we call the “leveling effect.” Instead of letting everyone negotiate individually (and inevitably against their own collective interests), we coordinate all the landowners under one voice.
Now, instead of myriad voices coming from all angles, it’s only three parties at the table: the city/county, the unified ownership group, and LANDCO NEXA facilitating the conversation.
When alignment replaces the chaos of fragmentation, everyone understands the complexities involved. The sophisticated owner doesn’t steamroll the inherited-land owner.
The city gets one coherent development partner instead of managing a dozen separate negotiations. And perhaps most importantly, nobody gets left behind because they didn’t know what they didn’t know.
With the “leveling effect” I’ve found that we can restore order from what was previously utter dysfunction. This is not something done through force, deception, or manipulation, but rather through communication, storytelling, and making sure everyone has the same information.
A truly successful deal isn’t just about the numbers adding up – it’s about getting everyone on the same level.
Mark Lester, Principal LANDCO NEXA