A5 Real Estate: A Multi-Faceted Land Company

PROFILE

A Multi-Faceted Land Company

STORY BY LORIE A. WOODWARD

As a businessman, investor, appraiser, rancher, hunter, angler, and conservationist, David Anderson brings a broad perspective and a wealth of experience to A5 Real Estate, based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“I love land and everything to do with it,” said David, who has been actively selling land for over 25 years. “As a result, A5 is a multi-faceted land company dedicated to realizing the value of land, water and open space.”A5 is small and nimble by design.“My goal wasn’t to create a large company, but to create a responsive company that puts our clients' best interest first,” said David, who is a licensed broker in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. “Anybody who hiresA5 gets me, and my direct involvement throughout the entire process.”

David Anderson

In recent years, Kate, the Andersons’ oldest child, as well as their oldest son Matt, have joined the company, and are both licensed in Utah. Kate, who holds a marketing degree, is A5’s marketing director. Matt, a business student at Utah State and owner of High Bar Hunting Company, specializes in selling hunting and fishing properties for A5.

The family’s passion for land shows in the firm’s results. Since the beginning of 2020, the team has sold roughly $250 million worth of real estate. David, the company’s President and Principal Broker, has sold around 1 million acres of land with a value of around $1 billion during his career, which began in the late 1990s. David has also held an appraisal license for more than 25 years and has provided consulting and appraisal services on more than $4 billion of land and commercial real estate.

The A5 Advantage

David was reared in Salt Lake City as part of an outdoor-loving family. Often, friends invited the family out to their ranches to hunt and fish. It was here that David first experienced the powerful force and draw of private land ownership.

“The experience was so different from hunting and fishing on public land,” said David, who owns a ranch in Wyoming’s Star Valley, “I just love the magic of private land ownership combined with thoughtful stewardship and conservation.”

David puts his money where his mouth is, and has invested significantly in wildlife habitat projects on his own ranch, which is an inholding in the CaribouNational Forest complex. As a company, A5 also commits a percentage of its annual profits to supporting conservation groups such as the Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

His early passion for land was matched by his passion for business. At the University of Utah, David earned a Bachelor of Arts in Finance, and then later an MBA. Upon graduation, he became a commercial appraiser where he honed his ability to objectively analyze all types of real estate. His projects included commercial investment properties as well as complex agricultural operations and large recreational ranches. About the same time, he obtained his real estate license. Eventually, he aligned his interests and his experience under the umbrella of A5 Real Estate.

We want to be partners in helping landowners realize their property’s full value— and their dreams.

—DAVID ANDERSON A5 Real Estate

“Our clients appreciate the different perspectives and experiences that I bring to any transaction,” said David, noting he only represents the buyer side or the seller side in any given transaction, never both. “Complex deals don't throw me because I understand them from the business side as well as the land side.”

In ranch real estate, one of the most difficult aspects is accurately valuing the land and its water resources.

“The challenge is that no two ranches are exactly alike, and the fair market value of any given ranch tends to be a very subjective number,” David said.

David’s broad-based experience also makes him uniquely qualified to help clients properly price their properties, and to also maximize its value during the sales process.

“My 25 years of experience works to my clients’ advantage because I rely on hard facts and a professional analysis, not gut feelings or guesswork,” he said.

This depth of experience and an intimate knowledge of land and water allows the A5 team to properly identify a property’s key attributes of value and to ultimately create a profile of the most likely buyers. The team creates a custom designed marketing plan for each of its clients, recommending value-add projects needed prior to bringing the property to market and formulating a property-specific plan to maximize the property's market exposure.

“We don’t rush properties to market before they’re ready,” David said.“Sometimes we invest several years in a property or a client, prior to launching the formal marketing phase.”

Conservation easements are another area where his expertise has proven to be invaluable to clients. As conservation easements have become popular tools for preserving open space, more properties than ever before are coming onto the market under a perpetual encumbrance.

“Conservation easements are complex and are forever tied to the land, so buyers need to fully understand everything that goes along with them,” said David, who has completed numerous conservation easement appraisals for the Nature Conservancy and other land trusts.

The A5 Legacy

Landowners, almost always mention the deep and emotional connection they have to their land and the legacy it often represents.

“In the land business, legacies are very important,” David said. “A large percentage of our properties have been in the same family’s ownership for generations. In fact, one ranch we sold recently spanned five generations and dated back over 150 years to the U.S. Homestead Act.”

He continued, "We try to honor and respect those important landownerlegacies, by providing our clients with the most comprehensive and professional services possible. Since you only have one shot when selling a legacy property, we owe it to our clients to get it right.”

The Anderson family is building a “legacy” the old-fashioned way, through hard work, honesty, integrity, professionalism, and most importantly, relationships.

“It is rewarding to see that we are forging the beginnings of our own family legacy here at A5,” said David. "I am excited to see what the future holds for our small but successful family business."

At A5, the end of the transaction is often just the beginning of what the company wants to be a long-term working relationship with its clients. For those who have purchased land through A5, the team, as a follow-up to the closing, offers to create a professional land and water management plan to improve the land’s value and increase its productivity.

Whether the client’s focus is on livestock, farming, conservation, or recreation, A5 has the expertise to help. The team's consulting services aren't a separate business stream, but a value-add offered to all of its clients.

“We don’t cash our commission check and disappear, instead we offer long term solutions to help our clients realize their dreams of owning and improving their land," David said. “We focus heavily on relationships and people, because we strive to be more than just an agent during a short transaction window, we really want to be a landowner’s partner to help them realize their property’s full value—and their dreams.”

This philosophy must be working, as according to David more than 75 percent of A5’s business is repeat customers or referrals.

“At the end of the day, we always put our clients’ best interest first—whatever that means and whatever that takes,” David said.

FEATURED LISTINGS

A5 Real Estate is licensed in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana

Hilltop Ranch

HILLTOP RANCH

$4,250,000 | 1,696 Acres

Fairview, Sanpete County, Utah

Hilltop Ranch is a large ranch with tremendous recreation and/or development potential. It has water rights and direct frontage on Highway 89 just north of Fairview.

Steel Canyon Ranch

STEEL CANYON RANCH

$7,950,000 | 4,337 Acres

Cache County, UtahFranklin & Oneida Counties Idaho

A premium mountain ranch with many miles of US Forestborder, numerous creeks, water rights, solid livestock grazing,and premium deer and elk hunting, in two states.

Milburn Ranch

MILBURN RANCH

$3,500,000 | 1,733 Acres

Fairview, Sanpete County, Utah

Perfect "end-of-the-road" ranch at the head of a small valleynorth of Fairview, offering National Forest border, live stream,irrigation rights, livestock, premium hunting, and true privacy.

Skyline Ranch

SKYLINE RANCH

$11,500,000 | 3,022 Acres

Skyline Drive, Sanpete County, Utah

This Ranch is an alpine ranch near Skyline Drive in the Manti-LaSal National Forest. Skyline Ranch has a trout stream, excellent hunting, and huge alpine vistas.

Castle Valley Ranches

CASTLE VALLEY RANCHES

$19,000,000 | 9,955 Acres

Emery & Sevier Counties, Utah

A massive package of ranches including a 625 head year-round cattle operation, a farming and livestock feeding operation, and a premium recreational enterprise. Sold "turnkey."