strengthening communities through the
wise stewardship of land and resources.
Northern Communities Realty
If you are a realtor with questions about how to assist your buyer in purchasing a Land Trust home, or a buyer looking for information about our homes for sale, please contact Jim Mischler-Philbin at 218-727-5372 (office) or 218-348-6258 (cell).
Northern Communities Realty is a limited liability company of Northern Communities Land Trust. It is the realty arm of the Land Trust, and is wholly a part of the Land Trust. Although the Land Trust is a fully licensed real estate broker, we choose to only sell Land Trust homes. We do this in three ways:
- The Land Trust builds several new construction homes per year and lists these homes for sale on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). The Land Trust price is typically 20-30% below market value. In this case the Land Trust is the owner and the listing agent.
- The Land Trust purchases several existing homes throughout the year and does a substantial renovation on the homes, before listing the homes for sale on the MLS. Again the Land Trust price is 20-30% below market value. In this case the Land Trust is the owner and the listing agent.
- Once a home comes into the Land Trust, it is always available exclusively for low and moderate income households whenever it is resold in the future. We refer to these as “resales”, where the home is being sold from one Land Trust homeowner to another. We are currently seeing about 10 Land Trust resales per year. The resale homes are also listed on the MLS, and are 25-40% below market value. In this case, the Land Trust is the listing agent, but not the owner.
In all three of the above examples, potential buyers can choose either to work directly with the Land Trust for the purchase of the home, or to contract with a buyer’s agent to represent them in the purchase. In the event that the buyer chooses to work with a realtor, the Land Trust would pay that realtor a commission, equal to 3% of the Land Trust sale price.
If you are a realtor with questions about how to assist your buyer in purchasing a Land Trust home, or a buyer looking for information about our homes for sale, please contact Jim Mischler-Philbin at 727-5372 (office) or 348-6258 (cell).
For specific details about current Land Trust homes for sale, click here.