In this episode of In Our Expert Opinion Podcast, Austin Fisher, Regional Managing Director in Georgia, joins Tyler Davis, President of Saunders Real Estate, in a conversation that explores the fast-moving Georgia land market and its implications for landowners. With deep experience in both development and land stewardship, Austin shares how our team is helping landowners navigate everything from timber and recreational tracts to transitional development opportunities.
They explore the factors shaping Georgia’s future—from forestry and infrastructure growth to the rising demand for private landownership—and how our team is building a trusted presence across the state with a team of specialists in every land asset class. The episode also spotlights the newly released Lay of the Land Georgia Market Report and offers a preview of the upcoming Georgia conference.
The Lay of the Land Georgia Conference will be held on August 21 in Thomasville. Register today at: SaundersLand.com/Georgia-Conference.
Below is an excerpt from the interview. Listen above for the full podcast.
Austin Fisher, Regional Managing Director of Saunders Real Estate in Georgia
What does our team look like in Georgia? We are all individually experts in a certain field or area, so we have a diverse background and a lot of experience. We've got four or five Registered Foresters that are on the team. We've got five or six Accredited Land Consultants on the team. So, we’ve got highly qualified people who specialize in every asset class that there is. On top of that, we're spread throughout the region geographically, so we have healthy coverage in some markets that have been rather fragmented by other land brokerage outfits.
We're more about quality over quantity. Each advisor prides himself on being an expert and really prepares us to field any type of property that comes through the door. If it's in a region where we may not have an expert, then we'll bring one in to co-list with just so we have that appropriate coverage and expertise with every client and every property that we interact with.
Transitional land in Georgia. Some of these auxiliary towns and cities are exploding right now. We're seeing much of what we saw in Florida 50-60 years ago, and I think that's a good model as Georgia continues to grow and bleed out of Atlanta. But as some of these growth markets appear, one of the biggest constraints is that they're outgrowing their infrastructure rapidly.
What we look for in transitional lands are properties that are well-suited with infrastructure–with water, sewer, and favorable zoning. But [growth] is happening at a rapid pace, and some of the municipalities are having a rather difficult time keeping up with it.
To dovetail off of that, it's not just single-family residential developments that are coming. It's data centers. Our land, compared to some of these other markets, is very affordable. We've got solar that has a big presence, especially in the Southwest Georgia area. As you get closer to the ports, we have more of an industrial presence. With the cost of logistics, being closer to the port is arguably a much better place to be. So, there are a lot of things going on. Transitional is looking great for Georgia, and I imagine that growth will continue over the next several years.
Austin Fisher joins Tyler Davis on the In Our Expert Opinion podcast to discuss trends within the Georgia land market, the Lay of the Land Georgia Market Report, and our upcoming conference in Thomasville.
The Lay of the Land Georgia Market Report. To me, the best feature is the verified sales. We do it for just about every asset class, and the articles written by different advisors on our team speak to the data in order to help folks determine current market prices. It's not just for a select few counties in the state of Georgia; it's much wider than that.
Our research analysts are in Lakeland. They go through, scour through sales, and actually get on the phone to verify these sales with landowners–it cuts out a lot of the sales that might have been to a family member or that might have had an austere reason that it sold for a lower price. We're able to get those out of there and really get a real-time, current evaluation of what is happening in the market. Over the years, as we continue to roll out each yearly edition, people can see how land values are moving. It's a very effective tool.
One thing about the verified sale process is that it is happening continuously throughout the year. It's real-time data, so it may be August when we need to do a proposal, and we have the data that has happened up until that point. We use [the sales data] in our daily valuations, and then at the end of the year, we publish it in a more buttoned-up report.
Download our Georgia market report
The Lay of the Land Georgia Conference. Our inaugural conference was last year, and we modeled it very similarly to the Florida land conference. It was big shoes to fill.
It's a great way for landowners, investors, land stewards, and professionals in the land space to come together and hear from different panelists and guest speakers. We'll talk more about some of the headwinds that landowners face, we'll talk about trends and possible solutions to optimize the highest and best land use, and what we're seeing, boots on the ground, in the land market. We'll have lunch provided, and it'll be a great time to network as well, but we’re really excited to get together and to bring some information to all the folks that are in attendance.
It is not salesy; it's definitely more educational. Really, it facilitates a great opportunity for the folks in attendance to engage with experts out in the field. They can ask questions and collaborate, and it's just a great time to come together. We all love land, and we're all stewards of land, and to celebrate that together and do that collectively, we’re really looking forward to it.
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR Georgia LAND CONFERENCE