Land acquisition loans from Hard Money Loans of Park City provide the capital foundation for investors and developers who understand that the scarcest commodity in one of the most land-constrained real estate markets in the western United States is developable land itself. Summit County's terrain — dramatically mountainous, constrained by watershed protections, governed by stringent planning regulations, and bounded by a combination of private gated communities and Wasatch-Cache National Forest — creates a land supply environment where entitled parcels and infill lots command prices that would be extraordinary anywhere else. An entitled single-family lot in Deer Valley's Bald Eagle neighborhood or Empire Pass can trade at $2 million to $5 million before a single shovel of construction begins. A raw development parcel in the Canyons Village base area is an entirely different calculation, one that requires a lender who understands the entitlement process, the Vail Resorts master planning overlay, and the Summit County development economics.
We lend against entitled lots, partially entitled parcels, raw land in the development approval process, agricultural land with development potential, and infill redevelopment sites. Loan amounts range from $150,000 for a single residential infill lot in Heber City to $10 million for larger development assemblages in areas like Snyderville Basin or the outer Heber Valley. Terms run 12 to 36 months with interest-only payments, and we include interest reserves for properties in the entitlement phase where no income covers carrying costs. Our loan-to-value ranges from 50% for unentitled raw land to 65% for parcels mid-entitlement and 70% for fully entitled development-ready lots in high-demand submarkets.
Our land underwriting is built on genuine familiarity with Summit County planning processes, Wasatch County agricultural land valuations, the Real Estate Transfer Tax dynamics that affect land transaction costs, and the private-club development economics of communities like Promontory, Glenwild, Tuhaye, and Red Ledges.
Applications
Entitled lot acquisitions in established Park City communities and planned golf developments represent the clearest risk-return profile in the land lending space. A buyer who purchases a finished lot in Promontory — a private equity-backed golf community east of Kimball Junction with two Nicklaus-designed courses — is buying a product that has gone through full municipal approvals, has installed infrastructure, and carries a premium for the private club amenity. The development thesis is execution risk on construction, not entitlement risk. We finance these lot acquisitions at competitive leverage because the collateral is clear and the exit — construction financing followed by sale or rental — is well-established.
Raw land investments in the path of development represent a fundamentally different thesis. Parcels in the outer Heber Valley, in the Kamas area, or along the Oakley corridor that are currently agricultural or recreational but sit in the path of residential expansion can produce extraordinary returns if the entitlement thesis is correct and the investor has the patience and carrying-cost capacity to execute through a multi-year approval process. We lend on these parcels at lower LTVs — typically 50% to 60% — reflecting the entitlement uncertainty, but we structure terms with interest reserves and extension options that accommodate the extended timelines that legitimate entitlement work requires.
Infill redevelopment sites within the City of Park City and older Summit County neighborhoods are a third category. These are parcels where an existing structure is scraped or demolished and replaced with a higher-density or higher-value project. Infill land in Old Town Park City — where a modest mid-century home sits on a lot that would support a 4,000-square-foot contemporary mountain residence at $3 million to $5 million — represents a significant value-creation opportunity. We finance these acquisitions recognizing that the land value, not the existing structure, drives the collateral analysis.
The Olympic 2034 development pipeline creates a new category of strategic land investment. Properties adjacent to existing Olympic training facilities — the Utah Olympic Park in Jeremy Ranch, the speed skating oval, the bobsled and luge track — and near proposed infrastructure improvements along the SR-224 corridor stand to benefit from the heightened international attention and infrastructure investment that hosting generates. Investors positioning for this cycle now need land acquisition capital that bridges to a post-approval construction or sale exit in the 2028 to 2034 window.
Common Challenges
Entitlement risk in Summit County is real, specific, and often underestimated by buyers who have experience in other Utah markets. The City of Park City's General Plan, its water and sewer capacity constraints, the Snyderville Basin Special Service District's development requirements, and the Wasatch County General Plan each impose distinct review processes with genuine uncertainty about outcome and timing. A parcel that appears entitleable based on current zoning may face challenges from an infrastructure capacity analysis, a traffic impact study, an environmental review, or a community opposition process that adds one to three years to the development timeline. We underwrite entitlement probability honestly and structure our loan terms around realistic outcome scenarios, not best-case projections.
Water rights are a land investment variable that is routinely misunderstood by buyers who arrive from other states. In Utah, water rights attach to the land but are administered separately, and the availability of water rights for a specific development density and land use is a critical component of development feasibility in many Summit County locations. We require water rights analysis as part of our due diligence on raw land acquisitions and do not underwrite development value for parcels whose water rights position has not been clearly established.
Wildfire risk and environmental sensitivity affect land values and development feasibility for a meaningful portion of the Summit County land supply. The 2021 Parley's Canyon Fire brought wildfire risk into sharp focus for both buyers and insurers, and properties in high-risk areas now carry construction restrictions, insurance cost requirements, and access concerns that affect development feasibility. Environmental sensitivity — wetlands, sage grouse habitat, historic archaeological sites — can emerge during environmental review to fundamentally alter a development program. We conduct or commission Phase I environmental review on larger land parcels and factor environmental risk honestly into our loan sizing.
Our Approach
Land loan underwriting starts with title review, survey confirmation, zoning verification, and infrastructure availability analysis. We do not skip these steps because they are the foundation of the collateral analysis. Easements, access agreements, mineral reservations, water rights encumbrances, and recorded development restrictions all affect value and we need to understand them before committing capital.
Valuation for land departs from improved property methodology in important ways. We evaluate actual comparable land sales — parcel-to-parcel comparisons adjusted for size, location, entitlement status, and infrastructure — rather than applying income or cost approaches that are inappropriate for raw land. For development parcels, we also assess residual land value based on realistic construction budgets, market absorption rates, and profit margins for the proposed development type. This analysis produces a well-grounded estimate of what the land is worth to a developer under current market conditions, which is the appropriate measure for our lending decision.
Loan structures for land include interest reserves covering payments during the entitlement phase, release provisions for phased parcel sales within larger development projects, and milestone-based advance schedules for entitlement phase financing where disbursements are tied to approval milestones rather than calendar dates. We coordinate with land use attorneys familiar with Summit County planning and zoning processes, civil engineers experienced in mountain development, and environmental consultants who know the specific regulatory landscape of the Wasatch Back.
Serving Our land acquisition lending covers entitled lots in Park City neighborhoods and private golf communities including Promontory, Glenwild, Tuhaye, and Red Ledges; development parcels in Snyderville Basin, Hideout, and Silver Creek; agricultural and recreational land in the Heber Valley including Heber City, Midway, Charleston, Francis, and Woodland; raw land with development potential in Kamas, Oakley, and Coalville; and commercial development sites along Kimball Junction corridors and the Heber City commercial growth zone.