Most people don’t wake up one morning, decide to sell their property, and think, “Great. Can’t wait to close in 2028.”

But in land, that’s not crazy.

Over the last two decades, we’ve had escrows as short as 45 days and as long as four years. Most aren’t that extreme, thankfully, because we enjoy keeping at least some of our hair. But if entitlements are involved, a 12- to 18-month escrow is pretty normal.

How long our deals take is actually somewhat of a running joke around here.

The buyer may be willing to pay a strong price, but they need time to confirm they can actually build what they want to build. Zoning, site plan approval, final plat, engineering, traffic, drainage, city comments, public hearings. It all takes time.

The seller hears the same timeline and has a very different reaction.

They’re usually not thinking about the entitlement process. They’re thinking, “You want me to lock up my dirt and take it off the market for a year and a half, and then maybe you close?”

Let's be honest, it's a massive ask.

This is one of the bigger challenges in land brokerage. The buyer wants time. The seller wants certainty. Somewhere in the middle is a deal that can actually close.

The mistake is pretending those concerns aren’t in conflict. They are. If nobody deals with that tension directly, the transaction usually gets worse over time.

A seller’s biggest fear is pretty simple - they don’t want to get strung along.

In the seller’s mind, the buyer might tie up the property, spend 18 months “working on entitlements,” and then blow up the deal near the end. Meanwhile, the seller’s been off the market the whole time.

A few things start running through the seller’s head:

That’s a lot of brain damage to ask a seller to absorb while they wait.

From the buyer’s side, it can feel like the seller has zero appreciation for the money being burned.

By the time a serious buyer even gets close to the finish line, they’ve already bled hundreds of thousands of dollars on ALTA surveys, Phase I environmental reports, attorneys fighting over drainage issues, and endless civil engineering revisions.

But if the seller doesn’t see any of that, they just assume the buyer is kicking the tires.

That’s why vague updates like “we’re still working on it” don’t cut it during long escrows. The seller needs to hear the actual friction points. Tell them that the city of Buckeye just kicked back the traffic study for the third time, or that the ALTA survey flagged an old easement, or that the Planning and Zoning hearing is finally on the docket for August.

Those details are the proof of life a seller needs. They show the buyer is moving and that real money is being spent to get the deal across the finish line. A buyer who communicates the pain points usually gets a more cooperative seller, because the seller sees the real effort being expended.

A 365-day due diligence period with no real milestones is going to make a seller nervous, and rightly so. If the buyer can go dark for a year and the seller has no way to require updates or measure progress, the seller is carrying all the risk.

That doesn’t mean the contract should be full of unrealistic deadlines either.

Buyers are rightly concerned about milestone language that gives the seller too much room to cancel. If a buyer is heavily invested in entitlements, they don’t want the seller looking for a technical default just because someone else came along with a better offer.

The better answer is usually some version of reasonable milestones, notice requirements, and cure periods.

That might include requirements for the buyer to submit an application by a certain date, respond to city comments within a specific window, and keep the seller in the loop on hearing dates and major submittals.

That structure works because it focuses on what the buyer can actually control. The buyer can’t control how fast the city reviews a submittal, but they can control whether they respond to the city's comments in a reasonable amount of time.

A seller shouldn’t be trapped forever if the buyer disappears, runs out of money, gets sideways internally, or quietly decides the project is no longer a priority. At the same time, the buyer shouldn't risk losing the deal just because a final plat gets stuck in municipal purgatory or a Pinal County utility provider is dragging their feet.

A well-papered deal bridges that exact gap.

The other thing that helps, and we realize this is a radical concept, is getting people on the phone. Or even crazier, getting them in the same room.

Some of the ugliest deal moments happen when everyone is trading redlines by email and assuming the worst. Every edit looks aggressive. Every comment feels like a trap. Every attorney note makes someone think, “What exactly are they trying to pull here?”

One of our favorite clients has a better approach.

They take one turn of redlines. Before sending the next version back, they get everyone on a call. Buyer, seller, attorneys, brokers.

It changes the tone immediately. Once people hear each other, the deal becomes less theoretical. The seller stops being an obstacle, and the buyer stops being just a group begging for extensions. The attorneys aren’t just competing to see who can make the purchase agreement longer (although we’re not ruling that out entirely…maybe…).

Most of the time, everyone’s trying to solve the same basic problem: How do we protect both sides enough that the deal can move forward?

That’s where good attorneys are worth a lot. The ones we like to work with don’t just say, “This is how we always do it.” They understand what their client needs, recognize what the other side needs, and then find language that gives both sides enough protection without making the deal unworkable.

A contract can be so protective that it kills the deal. It can also be so loose that one side is taking too much risk. Neither version does anyone any good.

Long land escrows are hard because they require both sides to stay committed through a long stretch of uncertainty.

The seller has to accept that the closing date may be much farther out than they wanted. The buyer has to accept that the seller needs more than promises. And the brokers have to keep the deal from drifting into silence, suspicion, and resentment.

Price matters. Earnest money matters. Due diligence matters. Entitlement timing matters. But on a long land escrow, trust is usually what keeps the deal alive.

Real trust comes from clear communication, visible progress, fair contract milestones, and people willing to have a real conversation before assuming the other side is trying to pull a fast one.

Land deals already take long enough. No need to make them harder by acting like strangers for 18 months.

As Phoenix land brokers and Arizona land brokers, we connect with landowners and developers across the Phoenix Metro every day. Whether you are recalibrating land basis in the far West Valley or Pinal County, buying or selling commercial land, underwriting a stabilized multifamily or power-heavy industrial acquisition, or working through entitlement, power, and water questions on a master-planned or mixed-use site, our Colliers Phoenix land brokerage team is available for confidential conversations about how the activity in this brief may affect your business and your pipeline. If you are looking for an experienced Phoenix land broker or Arizona land broker who knows Maricopa County and Pinal County dirt, reach out to start the conversation.