How to find land for sale

Finding land for sale

Given the amount of land parcels in the US, the volume of listings found online can be quite mountainous—and the full lot of listings can become monotonous. The key is defining why you’re looking for land, and finding the tool that best fits that instance.

If you’re looking for a simple, one-off land parcel purchase:

• We recommend you go straight to LandWatch, Lands of America, or LoopNet - you’ll almost surely find what you’re looking for. Plain and simple.

If you’re looking for a tool for repeated transacting (whether as an investor/developer, or even as a broker sourcing new land listings):

• We recommend something more robust like Reonomy, where you can identify land off-market, determine the parcels that are likely to sell, and get directly in touch with land owners.

Below, we’ll go into the details of both so that you can decipher what is the right resource(s) for you.

How to find land off-market

As mentioned, in many instances, and particularly when the CRE market shows some uncertainty, off-market opens up a new world of possibility for investment teams and brokers. By searching for land off-market, prospective investors can avoid inflated real estate prices and the competition of other motivated buyers. And with access to nearly every parcel in the country (through Reonomy), your options become nearly limitless.

• See how you can win new listings by identifying sellers on Reonomy

Reonomy’s property intelligence allows you to understand assets, and derive insights needed to call an owner and show up prepared to each and every conversation.

If you plan to use the active market to search listings, we’ve included many options below that you can turn to specifically for vacant, agricultural, or any other type of land for sale in the US.

Land for sale listings

When looking for land for sale listed on the market, commercial real estate professionals and investors can choose from a number of online listings platforms. Since there are many different types of property and land, there are many different types of listing services. Finding your go-to listings platform can take almost as much research as finding the perfect real estate deal.

In order to help you get started, we’ve compiled a list of the best platforms featuring commercial land for sale on the market:

• LoopNet

• Land And Farm

• LandWatch

• LandSearch

• Catylist

• Craigslist

• LandLeader

• CREXi

• Lands of America

• CIMLS

• Leavitt Digital

• Brevitas

All these platforms have different interfaces and offer search tools with varying levels of granularity.

Let’s look at each listing service individually for a bit more context.

LoopNet

LoopNet is one of the most extensive and well-recognized commercial real estate listings platforms on the internet, and it is often the first place prospective buyers go when trying to find land or any other commercial asset type for sale. There are currently 5 million monthly LoopNet users searching through the platform’s 500,000 property listings.

LoopNet offers a number of asset type search filters, including one for Land. Users can typically find dozens of listings for commercial land, vacant land, farmland, ranches, as well as other less traditional land assets.

Land And Farm

Land And Farm is a listings platform catering specifically to users looking to buy and sell land. The site currently features more than 10 million acres of farms, ranches, residential, and commercial land for sale. Additional types of land you may be able to find on the platform include vineyards, recreational, and hunting land.

Land And Farm’s listings are searchable by location (state, county, city, or zip code), price, acreage, and property type.

LandWatch

LandWatch is another platform specializing in different types of land for sale. The site includes nearly 1.4 million land listings, including hunting grounds, waterfronts, farms, and ranches.

LandWatch also features international listings, which are rarely available on other land listing platforms.

LandSearch

LandSearch is a search platform that includes over 10 million acres of land listed, making it one of the largest land listings websites. The platform includes commercial, residential, agricultural, and recreational land.

LandSearch includes a clean interface and map tool with multiple tags, land types, and additional filters. Users can create a profile and post land for sale, auction, or lease for free.

Catylist

Catylist is another wide-ranging listings platform that includes, among many other property types, vacant land, farms, ranches, and more. Catylist has approximately 130,000 property listings across more than 40 markets in the United States. The platform allows users to sort listings by property type, listing type (for sale or for lease), and other criteria such as distressed, for auction, or for investment.

Craigslist

When discussing listing platforms of any kind, we can’t forget to include Craigslist. Users can search listings by a number of specific asset types, which can be found under the Housing category on Craigslist’s home page. Interested buyers can expect to find vacant, recreational, waterfront, and a variety of other land offered for sale within a specific geographic location.

LandLeader

LandLeader is a property marketing platform specializing in land, farms, waterfront properties, timberland, recreational land, ranches, and hunting land for sale. It offers listings in over 35 states in North America.

The platform allows users to search its database of listings by property type, acreage, state, price range, or a specific keyword.

CREXi

Touting itself as “The Advanced CRE Marketplace,” CREXi includes listings across more than 15 different property asset types, including land for sale. In addition to selecting a specific asset type, users can further narrow down their search by adding a location, broker, or a specific keyword filter.

Lands of America

Like LoopNet, Lands of America is owned by the CoStarGroup. This platform focuses on rural real estate, and it has over 40,000 listings such as land, farms, ranches, acreage, and country homes for sale in North America.

Users can search for listings in any state, and then further dive into specific regions, counties, cities, and land types.

Commercial and Industrial Multiple Listing Service

The Commercial and Industrial Multiple Listing Service (CIMLS) is an all-inclusive platform for various types of commercial real estate for sale, including land, farms, and ranches. CIMLS currently has over 320,000 registered users and $500 billion worth of commercial property listings spanning across all 50 U.S. states, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

Leavitt Digital

Leavitt Digital is a listing distribution platform helping real estate owners and brokers reach more potential buyers by syndicating its listings to hundreds of news websites around the world. Nevertheless, the site also features a powerful search tool that allows visitors to look for properties in more than a dozen asset categories, including land. Both searching for and listing of commercial properties for sale or lease on the site are free.

Brevitas

Brevitas allows users to search both on-market and private listings in a number of asset types, including land, in over 60 countries. The private listings inventory is available exclusively on Brevitas. In an effort to create value for both buyers and sellers, the platform’s paid membership plans also offer team collaboration and marketing tools, including custom flyer and HTML templates, email campaigns, and contacts management.

Even though all the platforms we reviewed in this article are worthwhile a look, ultimately each prospective buyer will settle on using only the one or two that best suit their geographic interest, land type focus, or simply their personal preference.

Land Central

Land Central has sold over 10,000 properties in the U.S. since 1997, listing land for sale in all 50 states. Upon entering the site, you can first select a location to search within by picking a state, and if you’d like, a city and county. You can also add filters for zoning, elevation, price, property size, property use, and more.

LandCentury

LandCentury is a “wholesale marketplace for vacant land and cheap houses.” Land for sale listings in Colorado include agricultural, farm, industrial, commercial, recreational, mobile home land, and more.

LandCentury provides one of the cleanest, most user-friendly interfaces on our list, even letting you search by buyer intent on their homepage.

LandHub

LandHub is a real estate consultancy based in Los Angeles, offering land for sale listings in every state across the country. You can search through nearly 900 pieces of land for sale in Colorado by searching by county, price, and/or acreage. Upon visiting LandHub’s homepage, you can simply select a state, minimum/maximum price, and minimum acreage all from dropdown boxes. You can also visit their “Browse Properties” page to select from a list of filters.

LotNetwork

LotNetwork allows you to search or advertise land for sale across any state in the country. The site allows you to add filters for price, acres, city, and lets you add custom keywords to your property search as well. LotNetwork currently offers just over 7000 active listings of Colorado land for sale. The site also offers extra resources and insights to builders, developers, agents, and brokers looking to buy, sell, and advertise land for sale online.

LANDFLIP

LANDFLIP is a trusted online marketplace that helps users locate a variety of types of agricultural land for sale, including vacant land, rural property, hunting and recreational land, investment property and more. LANDFLIP is also a valuable tool for those looking to track down agricultural land for sale by owner.

At the top of the homepage, there’s a drop-down menu that says “FIND LAND” – click on this button and select “LAND FSBO.” This will bring you to a number of agricultural listings FSBO.

State-specific and for sale listings

One avenue to find land listings only within certain states is to simply Google, “land for sale + [state].” Here, we show some examples of the listings sites available to those in Colorado.

ColoProperty

ColoProperty is owned and operated by IRES, LLC, a Colorado property management company. The site serves as a portal of access into IRES’ public property data. There are currently about 15,000 active listings on ColoProperty. When searching for land on ColoProperty, you can either start by adding address details—anything from a city down to a street name—or by choosing a property type (or both).

If you want to search by property type, ColoProperty has residential filters where you can either search generally for homes for sale, or more specifically for houses or condos/townhouses. You can also search for commercial lease, commercial sale, farm and ranch, mobile homes, and vacant land. Price ranges and other filters can also be added to your land search on ColoProperty.

Mountain Land for sale

Mtnlandforsale.com is a site dedicated purely to listings of Colorado mountain land for sale, offering lots, acreages, horse property, and more. While the site does not offer a search platform, there are regular and featured listings that you can easily scroll through. You can also send an email directly to a RE/MAX agent with a description of the kind of land you’re looking for in conjunction with what’s available on the site.

Land listing search examples

Vineyards for Sale with LoopNet Vineyards are a popular form of agricultural real estate for sale, and this is something the minds behind LoopNet have recognized. As such, there is a special search function on LoopNet that allows users to search specifically for vineyards for sale. Begin by filtering results for land only. Once you’ve searched for land, you can filter the results by searching for only those properties listed as vineyards for sale. Use the drop-down menu as shown below.

As you’ll see, there are dozens of listings for vineyards for sale. These are located all over the U.S. If you’re looking for a vineyard for sale in a specific area, you’ll want to filter your results by selecting a specific location. Once you select a listing, you’ll find robust information about the property. Using the example below, we see that this winery for sale is listed for $3 million in Palisade, CO.

The investment highlights indicate that it’s one of the oldest licensed wineries in the state, and the property includes an open concept retail space with a custom tasting room. Anyone interested in learning more can contact the broker or download the marketing brochure, which has been uploaded directly to the LoopNet site.

Hunting Land for sale with LandWatch

Those in search of hunting land for sale will find LandWatch particularly easy to navigate. The “Hunting Land” section is featured right on the homepage. Once you select “Hunting Land,” a number of “signature listings” will pop up, as shown below.

Individual listings often feature both videos of the property and photos, as well as other pertinent details. In the example below, we see the hunting land for sale includes a cabin, food plots, ladder stands, shooting houses, and county water electric – feature that are important for those interested in hunting land from an investment perspective.

Ranches for sale with Land and Farm

Land and Farm often features ranches for sale. To find a ranch for sale, begin your search by clicking “Ranches” on the homepage. The website will then bring you to all ranches for sale across the U.S., so it’s helpful to then filter results by geography, price, or acreage.

For those looking to get even more specific, click on the “More Filters” tab to refine your results even further. As you can see, we can now search listings based on whether the property has a house for sale, whether the land is irrigated, and more.

Farms for sale with Lands of America

The easiest way to search for farms for sale with Lands of America is to begin your search by entering a state, county, or city into the search bar on the homepage. Unlike other websites, you can actually enter multiple cities into the search bar and it will bring you the results for all of these separate geographies. Once you enter the geographies you’d like to search, you can then filter the results to look specifically at farms for sale. Simply check the “Farm” button in the top, left-hand side of the screen as shown below.

Listings are easy to navigate on the Lands of America website. For instance, this 5.42-acre farm for sale in Austin, Texas has elegant images, a detailed listing description and lists multiple amenities. The farm for sale includes a barn, barn equipment, living quarters, stables, a loaf shed, tack room and wash rack. The farm for sale can be used for either single family residential purposes and/or equine uses, telling us this is appropriate for a horse farm.

Greenhouses for sale with FARMFLIP

Anyone in search of agricultural land with greenhouses for sale will want to check out FARMFLIP, a division of LANDFLIP. FARMFLIP routinely features properties for sale that include greenhouses. To find greenhouses for sale, simply type “greenhouse” into the search bar and the resulting listings will display accordingly, as shown below.

The off-market advantage

Commercial listings platforms can definitely be useful in finding good land sale opportunities; however they can’t match the crucial analytical power of off-market data. Prospective investors should first take advantage of off-market information in order to gain full understanding of their target markets and property types.