Lets assume you live in a house on a 75 x 150 ft. lot. In addition, your next door neighbor wants you to sell him a 10 x 150 ft. strip of land measured from the existing property line between your house and his. (Your neighbor wants to widen his driveway and have some room left over).

Two questions: how would you determine the market value of that narrow strip of land?

Even if you knew where the property line is (fence)...would you hire a surveyor ($350.00) to come out confirm it?

Your tax district should have the property tax bill broken down by both value of the land and value of any structures. It might be as a percentage of the total. That would be my starting point.

Rental house?

Plan to keep renting it?

Less grass to mow.

Does that make my lot 65 wide? Make his more valuable and mine less valuable. No thanks.

You can sell him a temporary easement, granting permission to traverse the certain area until either one of you sells.

Our property assessor sets a value on the land separate from the house. that would give you an estimate on land value.

But I'd be more interested in how much I could charge for the "convenience", not just the square feet.

Shorter answer:

Thanks for all the replies. Now I can give all the juicy details.

In a few minutes, I will be writing a contract to buy another fixer-upper house for $5K. The lot this house sits on measures 75 x 150 feet. Standing in the street looking at the house, on the left side is a vacant 50 x 150 lot which is included in the sale of the house I am buying! I will be buying this house when I return from St. Louis.

The neighbor to the left of the small vacant lot (50 x150) wants to buy 10 ft x 150 to extend his driveway a little. Since I do not own this property yet, I can't negotiate with him but that day is coming soon. This morning I met him and I made an oral agreement to talk on another day, but after reading the replies here, I may have a problem. If the city says I can't subdivide this,..well it will be his tough luck,..not mine.

It is the house I that care about,..this house is a 'diamond in the rough' if I have ever seen one. All of the surrounding houses in this neighborhood generally sell for around $150K !!!

I have done this.

My lot was the end of a cul de sack, so the lot was pie shaped with the cut off point being the driveway area. The people on the next street' back yard was cut into by the back left side "point" of my yard's triangle. There was a line of large tall trees that made a natural line and these people had always cut the grass on that side anyway.

I bought this house as a flip so had no emotional attachment to it. Neighbor approached me about selling that "point" to him.

In our county you can sell adjoining pieces to the neighbor with no problem.

I sold it to him for $5K. (bought the house for $75K renovated and resold for $121)

I wrote up a little contract agreeing to the price, since it was an odd shape (no a straight line like yours) we agreed to split the cost of the survey NOT TO EXCEED $500 on my half. Surveyor came and we walked the area and put stakes in the ground and he wrote up the legal description.