Land Loan Underwriter
Underwrite land and lot loans: entitlement stage, site risks, carry, and a real exit
Install it in one line — paste a single command into Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor and it writes the skill into your project.
Free, and about thirty seconds: a work email and a six-digit code.
Downloading shares your name, firm, role, and email with The Helvetica Group. That introduction is what keeps every skill here free.
What this skill does
Underwrites loans on land and lots — the collateral with no income and the thinnest comps. Sorts the parcel by how far along its approvals are, checks the risks that sink land deals, prices the cost of holding it, and tests whether anyone would buy it if the borrower's plan stopped.
What it does
- Classifies the land: raw, zoned, entitled paper lots, partially improved, finished lots or a single infill lot
- Runs a site-risk checklist: zoning, legal and physical access, utilities, wetlands, flood zone, easements, impact fees, tax recapture and more
- Tests leverage against labelled default limits by land stage, including loan per lot
- Adds up the full cost of carrying the land for the loan term and checks the borrower can pay it
- Stress-tests the exit with thin comps and sets per-lot release prices when lots will sell one at a time
When to use it
- A raw land, entitled parcel or lot loan request comes in
- A borrower wants to buy land now and build later
- A builder needs financing on a lot pipeline
- You need to know what the land is worth if the plan fails
What to have ready
- The loan request, parcel and purchase price
- Entitlement and zoning status
- Utility and access details
- The exit plan and the borrower's available cash
How to use it
- Download it with the button above. You'll sign in with a work email — that's how the creator knows who is using their skill.
- Copy the install prompt from the "Run it in Claude" box, and paste it into Claude along with the file. Claude installs the skill, fills in your firm's details where the file has
[BRACKETED]placeholders, and runs a quick test with you. - Then just ask in plain English. Claude picks the skill up on its own when a request matches it. Anything it still needs, it asks you for — it won't invent a number.
"Underwrite a [LOAN AMOUNT] land loan on [ACREAGE] acres at [ADDRESS] — purchase price [PRICE], [ENTITLEMENT STATUS], plan is to [EXIT PLAN] within [MONTHS] months."
What you get back
A land underwriting summary: land stage with evidence, a full site-risk table, leverage tests and the maximum loan, carry costs and liquidity check, comp confidence, exit stress, release prices, and a conditions list.
Good to know
- Output quality tracks input quality. A missing figure is flagged as missing — it is never estimated to fill a gap.
- Every draft is a starting point for your own review, not a finished decision.
- Runs anywhere Claude does: the Claude app, Claude Desktop, or Claude Code.
- Anything not verified — approvals, utilities, access — is marked unknown and becomes a condition, never a pass.
Legal disclaimer
This skill drafts; it does not decide. Its output is not legal, tax, accounting, appraisal, or investment advice, and using it creates no attorney-client, fiduciary, or advisory relationship. Nothing it produces is a commitment to lend or an offer to sell a security. Verify every number, date, citation, and conclusion against the source documents, and have a qualified professional licensed in the relevant jurisdiction review the work before you rely on it or send it to a borrower, investor, counterparty, or regulator. Laws, rates, and market data change. The final work product is yours.
Inside this skill
The actual file you get. Members can read it in full before saving it.
Land Loan Underwriter
Land produces no income, sells slowly, and has the thinnest comps of any collateral a private lender takes. When a land loan goes bad the lender inherits a parcel whose value depended on approvals, utilities, and a buyer that no longer exist. The underwriting question is not "what is it worth" but "what is it worth, to whom, how fast, if the borrower's plan stops here." This skill answers that, and prices what it costs to hold the dirt while the plan plays out.
Works for: raw and unentitled acreage, entitled "paper" lots, partially improved subdivisions, finished lots bought for a builder's pipeline, single infill lots, and land held for a later construction loan. If the loan also funds vertical construction, underwrite the building with ground-up-construction-underwriter; this skill covers the land phase and the land as fallback collateral.
Step 1 — Intake
| Input | Required? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Loan request and purpose | ✅ | Acquisition, refinance, cash-out, or acquisition plus entitlement or horizontal work |
| Parcel identification | ✅ | Address or parcel number, acreage, legal description, survey if available |
| Purchase price and date, or cost basis | ✅ | Plus any existing debt being paid off |
| Value evidence | ✅ | Land appraisal, or broker's land comps labelled unverified |
| Entitlement status | ✅ | Zoning, plat or site-plan approval, and each approval's expiry date |
| Utilities | ✅ | Water, sewer or septic, electric, gas — at the parcel line, nearby, or unavailable |
| Access | ✅ | Frontage on a public road, recorded easement, or none |
| Business plan and exit | ✅ | Hold, entitle and sell, develop lots and sell to builders, or build vertically |
| Borrower liquidity | ✅ | Land has no income; carry comes from the borrower or a reserve |
| Title commitment, survey, environmental | Helpful | Easements, encroachments, wetlands, flood zone, recognized environmental conditions |
| Property tax status | Helpful | Including any agricultural or special-use valuation |
| Your credit policy | Helpful | Leverage limits by land stage; if none given, use Step 3's illustrative defaults and say so |
Minimum viable: loan request, parcel, price, entitlement status, utilities, access, and an exit. Without an entitlement status you do not know what the land is — do not size the loan.
Reading the full skill counts as a download. The contributor receives your name, company, and email.
Ratings & reviews
No written reviews yet. If you run this on a live file, say how it went. The next lender reading this page is deciding whether to trust it.
Examination record
Run it in Claude
- Copy the install command above
- Paste it into Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor
- It writes the skill in, fills in your firm’s details, and test-runs it with you
Prefer the file? The prompt above is for a package you already downloaded.
Details
More from The Helvetica Group
They publish here under a verified work email. Their other skills, and how to reach them, are on their contributor page.