Land agents working for data center developers run high volume. They are calling hundreds of owners whose parcels came off a GIS screen for transmission proximity and acreage. Yours came up. That is the entire reason you got the call.
This is useful information, because it tells you something they will not: your land has characteristics that put it on a list. That is worth knowing whether or not you ever deal with this particular caller.
What not to say on the first call
- Do not name a price. You do not have the information to price it, and whatever number you say becomes the ceiling for every subsequent conversation. "I would want to understand the market before discussing numbers" is a complete answer.
- Do not say you need to sell. Financial pressure, a divorce, an estate, back taxes — none of it is their business, and all of it changes their offer.
- Do not sign anything. Not an NDA, not a letter of intent, not an "exclusive negotiating period." These arrive early and they are not formalities.
- Do not agree to exclusivity. The single most expensive thing a landowner can do on a first call is promise not to talk to anyone else.
Five things to find out
You are allowed to ask questions. The quality of the answers tells you a great deal about how serious and how far along they are.
- Who do you actually work for? A principal developer, a site acquisition consultant, or a broker working on spec are three very different counterparties. Ask directly. Vagueness here is itself an answer.
- Have you spoken to the utility about this area? If they have an interconnection position or a load study underway, this is real. If they have not, they are early, and so are you.
- What are you proposing — an option, a lease, or a purchase? Almost always an option first. Know what that is before the call →
- What is your timeline? Anyone serious has a target energization date and will say so.
- Are you talking to my neighbours? If they are assembling, your parcel's value depends on whether you are essential to the assembly or merely convenient. That changes your leverage completely.
What to do in the week after
- Find out what you have. Transmission voltage and distance, acreage, zoning, flood status. The full checklist →
- Learn the price landscape. Not to name a number, but so you can recognise a bad one. What developers pay →
- Talk to a real property attorney in the state where the land sits. Not the title company the developer suggests. A lawyer whose client is you. This costs a few hundred to a few thousand dollars against a transaction that may be worth millions, and it is the highest-return money you will spend.
- Find out whether anyone else is looking. One interested party is a negotiation. Two is an auction. The difference is often the entire premium.
The thing most landowners get wrong
They treat the first offer as the market. It is not. It is one party's opening position, calibrated to what they think you will accept based on a five-minute phone call.
The second mistake is the opposite: assuming that because the headlines say $8 million an acre, that applies to their land in a county with no transmission headroom. It does not, and holding out for a fantasy number while a real one expires is how people miss the cycle entirely.
The useful position is in the middle: find out what you actually have, then negotiate from facts.
Next
General information about transaction practice, not legal advice. Retain a real property attorney licensed in the state where your land is located before signing anything.