Your cost basis is more or less all the costs associated with
acquisition plus any improvements minus depreciation on the improvement
(unlikely there will be improvements). You might have some running
costs if you have to mow the weeds 1-3 times a year as required in some
locations. You will also have annual property taxes to pay. Such
running costs will be reported as an expense in the year they happened.

When you sell the sale price minus selling costs minus the cost basis
will provide you with your profit.

Even if the above is not 100% perfect it will be close enough for a
spreadsheet.

Understand that raw land is not a great investment in many cases. The
lack of useful finance and the fact that you have running costs but no
income means it can be a poor deal in comparison with other real estate
investments. You still might want to move forward even considering the
lower returns.

John B. Corey Jr.
Chelsea Private Equity, LLC
+1 (503) 906 7840 x1108
+1 (503) 210 0227 (efax)
john.corey[at]ChelseaPrivateEquity.com

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Hi everyone,
We are looking at a piece of land for investment. We have a spreadsheet
set up to track its total cost (paymnts, downpayment etc) which we plan
to use so that our eventual sell price, even though it should be
higher, it will also of course profit aganst our actual out of pocket
costs.
My question is on taxes... I assume capitol gains would apply , but
would that be derived from the original purchase price against the sell
price, or, can it be caculated as our actual cost. sort of a "cost
basis"?

Any help appreciated,
Cheers
G