u/Back40Findings

When I first started looking at rural land I'd go straight to the pictures.

Now I barely even care about them.

I'll spend way more time checking road access, flood maps, easements, county GIS, zoning, stuff like that.

It's funny because two properties can look almost identical in the listing, but once you start digging into them they're completely different.

Kind of ruined the fun of scrolling Zillow, honestly.

Not a huge red flag. I mean the tiny detail that completely changed your mind. Maybe the road was worse than the photos. Maybe the neighbor had a junkyard. Maybe there was one weird easement. Maybe you realized getting water there would cost more than the land itself.

I'm always curious what little thing made people go from "this is the one" to "absolutely not."

I've spent a lot of time looking at vacant land listings and it seems like every parcel has something that isn't obvious from the photos or description.

Sometimes it's access. Sometimes it's a floodplain. Sometimes it's utilities, septic, easements, weird deed restrictions, neighbors, taxes, or something else entirely.

For those of you who actually bought land, what was the biggest surprise after closing?

Good surprise or bad surprise.

I'm curious what catches people off guard the most because listings always make everything look straightforward.

A friend asked me recently what the first thing I check when looking at vacant land.

Most people expect the answer to be zoning, utilities, flood zones, wetlands, or something technical.

Honestly, the first thing I look for is access.

I've found plenty of properties that looked great on the listing. Nice aerials, good price, decent location. Then I pull up county maps and realize the parcel doesn't actually have legal road access, or the only way in is through someone else's property.

After that, I usually start digging into flood zones, wetlands, utilities, topography, and whatever else applies to that specific property.

Maybe it's because I've spent way too much time looking at land listings, but I've noticed access issues seem to get overlooked more than almost anything else.

Curious what everyone else's first check is.

If you're evaluating a parcel, what's the first thing that makes you either move forward or immediately walk away?

I’ve somehow fallen down a rabbit hole of looking at land listings every night.

Started out because I wanted to find a place for myself one day, but now I end up checking county maps, aerials, and property records for fun. I’ll find a property that looks amazing, then realize half of it is in a flood zone or there’s some weird access issue.

Anyway, I keep running across places that seem pretty interesting, especially in the under $50k range.

If you’re looking for land somewhere, what state are you looking in? I’m curious what people are finding and what areas everyone is interested in these days.

The cheapest parcels aren't always the ones with obvious problems.

A lot of times the real issue is that nobody bothered to explain what the property actually is.

I've seen listings with almost no description, no map, no mention of access, no mention of utilities, nothing.

Then everyone assumes something must be wrong with it.

Meanwhile some of the expensive listings have pages of marketing and drone footage but still leave out important details.

Makes me wonder how many decent properties get ignored simply because the listing is terrible.

I've noticed a lot of people (myself included) assume they need 10, 20, or 50+ acres to do certain things.

Then I talk to people who are raising chickens, gardening, hunting, or doing all kinds of projects on way less land than I would've guessed.

What's something you originally thought required a ton of acreage that turned out not to?