How to Determine the Highest and Best Use for a Piece of Land

Commercial Real Estate Investing From A-Z

How to determine the highest and best use for a piece of land? What is a new product that is in high demand in certain areas? What systems to put in place to manage a growing company? Amy Johnson, managing partner of Y Street Capital, shares her knowledge.

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How to find the highest and best use for a piece of land?

It comes down to vision. For us and our process, if it's under 5 acres, I don't want to worry about it because doing something with 3 acres is the same amount of work, and the same amount of headache, as it does with 300 acres. I'm going to look at the overview of the market, what is the need, what is the city's master plan? And just because they have something in their master plan doesn't mean they want to stick with it. What's the city's vision? What's the market's vision? What is the market demanding right now? For example, right now, I am not looking necessarily for really large lots or humongous houses, attainable housing is a lot more in demand, that means multifamily housing and townhome developments. It is not because I love the look of townhomes, but that's what the market is demanding and what is needed in the community. We've the city's vision, the market conditions vision, and then the possibility of what's there. There may also be some products that were very successful in other cities that we put it in this city.

What is a new product that is in high demand in certain areas?

We’re fitting 30 units in 5 acres that the city wanted to just zone commercial. The commercial is great if you have a specific tenant. You've to build it specifically for the commercial people. Jack in the Box wants a specific look, Starbucks, etc. We've built this product in Brigham City, and I've also seen it be successful in other cities, the market was saying "We want some commercial but we also need attainable housing, multifamily housing, or townhomes on top". We've designed this unit that is one single tax ID. It's an individual townhome. The bottom is a commercial use that they can run a business from, they don't need to get a special license and the other two floors are the residential housing. The maker spaces are usually in high demand. They sell for about $100,000 more than the typical townhome unit.

Can you share a couple of tips on how you manage things, and how you keep the company growing from a leader's perspective?

These are important: 1) Delegation and utilizing the actual systems. 2) Being able to say "no" to things that don't serve you, and 3) Set expectations, and that can be expectations for vendors, other contractors that we're working with, and civil engineers having a clear scope of work. 5) I live and breathe by my calendar, if it's not on my calendar, it doesn't exist. That means even if my executive assistant and I need to work on a project, and it's just working on something, we will block that time, and we'll put it in the calendar. Or even if it's in person, it has to be on my calendar. On Sundays my husband and I go through our week and plan our week and say, "What does this week look like? Am I missing anything?"

Amy Johnson

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