Everyone Wants Experienced Land Talent. Who’s Developing It?
By Erica Lockwood | Joseph Chris Partners
“We need someone with land experience.”
Of course you do. So does the builder down the road. And the one across town. And the company getting ready to enter your market. After 26 years at Joseph Chris Partners, I understand why these searches can be challenging. Land acquisition and land development require a particular combination of knowledge, relationships, judgment, and experience. Then we need the right person to be interested in your company, in your market, at a time when making a move makes sense for them. There are a lot of things that need to come together, but when we talk about why experienced land professionals are so difficult to find, I think we need to ask a question that reaches well beyond the current opening:
Where are we expecting the next generation to come from?
The builder down the road cannot be everyone’s succession plan. Acquisition and development are complex disciplines. Finding a piece of land is one part of a much larger equation. Understanding what belongs there, what buyers will support, whether the economics work, and what could complicate the deal takes considerably more. So does building relationships, negotiating effectively, and knowing when to walk away from something everyone else seems determined to love.
On the development side, engineering, approvals, utilities, infrastructure, contractors, costs, and schedules all have to come together. A decision made months ago can become today’s very expensive surprise.
The responsibilities vary by company, but the point is the same: this work takes time to learn. Even very capable people need exposure to actual projects, difficult decisions, and experienced professionals who will explain why something works or why it absolutely will not.
Relevant degree programs can provide a strong foundation, but graduation does not come with years of residential land experience tucked inside the diploma. And those graduates have choices. Civil engineering can take someone in several directions, so can finance, planning, construction management, or real estate. We cannot assume that bright young people know what a career in residential land acquisition or development could look like.
Have we shown them? Have we brought them out to a community, introduced them to the people behind it, and explained how an idea becomes a place where people live? Have we talked about the work, the challenges, the opportunities, and how they could become part
of it? There are some incredible careers in this industry, and we need to do a better job of introducing them before we start complaining that nobody is entering the field. Then, once people arrive, we have to follow through.
I’ve recruited through enough market shifts to understand why companies hit pause. Protecting the business sometimes means making decisions nobody particularly enjoys. The Great Recession was an enormous disruption for homebuilding and when I think about its effect on talent, I also think about the people who never got their start, the experience they never had the opportunity to gain, and the careers that went in another direction. But there are smaller pauses worth paying attention to, too.
An internship gets shelved; an entry-level position goes unfilled, and mentoring becomes something we’ll get back to when everyone has more time. The company still needs its experienced people to perform, but developing the people who could eventually join them gets pushed further down the list. Individually, those decisions may make sense. Collectively, over time, we need to consider what they leave us with.
We cannot keep pressing pause on developing people and expect the experience to be there when we’re ready to hit play.
That does not mean every company can keep hiring through every market shift. It does mean we should be deliberate about what we can continue doing, especially with the people already working for us because some of the talent we keep saying we need may already be on the payroll.
I have seen talented new home sales professionals’ transition successfully into land acquisition, and I’ve seen purchasing professionals move into land development and many finance professionals build careers in acquisition because someone was willing to look beyond their current title.
Think about what a strong sales professional may already know about buyers, competing communities, location, product, and why one neighborhood sells while another struggles. There is valuable market knowledge there.
A purchasing professional may bring an understanding of costs, scopes, contractors, negotiation, and coordination. Someone in finance may already be comfortable with underwriting, cash flow, returns, and questioning the assumptions behind a deal.
There will be things to learn, sometimes substantial things. The fit needs to be assessed, and the support needs to be real. But if our first response is, “They’ve never worked in land,” we may be ending the conversation before we’ve learned anything useful. Who on your team asks thoughtful questions about the rest of the business? Who demonstrates good
judgment? Who wants to understand what happens before or after their part of the process? Who has mentioned an interest that nobody has followed up on? And have we actually asked people where they want to go? It is easy to become accustomed to someone being very good in their current position, so accustomed, in fact, that we stop imagining them doing anything else. Meanwhile, they may be imagining quite a bit.
Let them sit in on a land review, give them time with the development team, or involve them in a project where they can contribute while learning from someone experienced. Have an honest conversation about what a transition would require. You do not have to promise someone a new career by Friday, but you do have to be willing to explore whether there is a fit.
And yes, moving a strong employee may create a hole in the department they leave. I understand that concern, but if they have to leave the company entirely to get an opportunity to grow, you will have a hole to fill anyway. This is where intentional development becomes an actual leadership responsibility.
Someone needs to own it. Mentors need time to teach. People need to understand the decisions behind their assignments, receive useful feedback, and take on more responsibility as they become ready.
That applies to a new graduate, someone moving from another department, and an experienced land professional preparing to lead a team. Being good at the work and learning to develop other people both deserve attention. Professional communities can help make those connections, introduce career paths, and give people access to experience beyond their own companies. Employers have to carry that effort into the day-to-day business.
Of course we will continue recruiting experienced people from other organizations. A well-timed move can be exactly right for a person and a company. I make those introductions for a living, and I believe deeply in their value. I also know we need more people entering and growing within these disciplines. Moving the same people around will not accomplish that on its own.
We need to think more broadly about who could succeed, where they might come from, and what we are willing to do to help them get there. That includes young people who have never heard of these careers and capable employees we walk past every day.
The next time we ask, “Why is it so difficult to find someone with land experience?” we should also ask what we’re doing to give someone that experience. We plan years ahead for the land our businesses will need. The people responsible for it deserve that same intentionality.
