Hello everyone just wanted everyone insight on how you believe the land business
is going like are anyone seeing any difference on the selling side or do you think everything going on with the tariffs are affecting land investors? Also, what would be your best advice for someone who is still fairly new to the business?
Hey @Rob_G, great question.
No doubt, the market has changed over the past year or two. Increased competition, tighter buyer demand in some areas, and higher marketing costs (USPS keeps increasing the cost of postage, which isn’t great for people who rely solely on direct mail) are making it harder in various ways.
That said, land is still selling. The deals just have to be better. You can’t rely on mediocre properties or thin margins like you might’ve been able to in 2021. Buyers are more cautious and selective right now. Land is still (and has always been) a luxury purchase, and when interest rates are higher and people have less money to throw around thanks to higher inflation, luxury purchases are usually the first things to go.
As for tariffs, I haven’t seen a direct effect on land prices or sales myself, but that kind of macroeconomic pressure can influence buyer sentiment, especially for investors or developers watching materials costs.
For someone new to the business, my advice would be:
- Focus on buying at a deep discount. Your eventual profit has a lot to do with what you buy each property for.
- Buy high-quality, desirable properties. Even if the price is right, avoid junky properties with no access, bad neighbors, or zero demand.
- Know your exit and have a clear plan for how and where you’ll market each property before you buy. It also doesn’t hurt to have a Plan B, or even a Plan C, in case Plan A doesn’t work out.
I’d love to hear what others are seeing too.
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Thanks so much Seth great response always a pleasure 
2025 has been harder in some respects, but it hasn’t kept us from making it a good year so far. You just need to know where people want to be, which is nothing new.
The people you see complaining the most are dealing with geographic related issues. If certain parts of TX or NC are doing worse than they were last year, that doesn’t mean the entire U.S. market is suffering.
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Hey @Rob_G! Been in the land game for years now and I’ve seen some shifts lately but not sure how much is tariffs vs just normal market cycles.
On the selling side, I’m definitely seeing buyers take longer to make decisions. Properties that used to move in 30-45 days are sitting for 60-90 now. Sometimes longer. But when they do sell, prices haven’t really dropped much in my markets. I think people are just being more cautious with any big purchases right now.
The biggest change I’ve noticed is financing - owner financing has become way more attractive to buyers. We’re getting more inquiries about payment plans than we used to.
For someone newer to the business, my advice would be:
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Don’t get too hung up on the macro stuff you can’t control. Focus on the basics - buy right, know your market, price competitively.
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Start small and really understand your first few deals before scaling up. I see too many new people trying to do 20 deals at once and losing money on half of them.
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And honestly, if the market does slow down, that just means better buying opportunities for us. Some of my best deals came from motivated sellers during uncertain times.
What markets are you looking at? Are you seeing the same slower sales pace or is it just me?
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Thanks so much Sally makes sense
thanks Charlotte for the response and all the info as far as if I am seeing the same slow pace I’m still fairly new in the business its just something I’m hearing in the land world.
Considering the dispo slow down, I think market selection is way more important than ever before. If you get a property under contract, but can’t sell it for 6-9 months, it kills your cash conversion cycle and makes it much harder to scale.
You want to find markets where the sell through rate ratio is well above 1 and has a low days on market. I usually like to see below 120 DOM. You can’t just go by the county STR either. Sometimes there are zips or micro-markets within counties that are doing great, even though the entire county doesn’t look great on paper. Spray and pray costs a lot more these days and is way less effective.
I would also scrub your lists very well to lower your marketing costs. About 25% of the properties are landlocked and numerous more are covered in wetlands, flood zones, or have unbuildable slopes.
Check out The Land Portal. It can scrub these out automatically in a lot of cases.
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@JoeR that’s a good point about how some zip codes can be doing great in a county that isn’t doing well. My hunch is that more often than not, land investors aren’t even bothering to look at zip codes.
If you’ve ever talked to a motivated seller who says they get tons of offers all the time, it would be interesting to check out that county’s STR. With all the market research tools out there now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re pushing all the land investors into the same counties that appear to have all the right numbers. The reality is, there are still some great deals and trophy properties in counties that have a low STR. Buying in a slower-selling market doesn’t necessarily spell disaster if you can find and get precisely the kind of property you’re looking for, but it would require some more specialized hunting for the right kinds of properties, rather than mailing EVERYONE with vacant land.
I actually just made a video and blog post about this, if you might find it interesting.
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What time span are you using for your STR formula? I know Seth had an article that said 12 months is the sweet spot. Would you use 6 months in Hotter markets with a lot of comps?
Like you said, number of comps is key. In a market with a lot of sold listings (like 20+) I would look at 3 month, 6 month, and 12 month. Ideally you want to be around 20-35% for 3 month, 45-65% for 6 month, and 90%+ for 12 month. Also look at Pending listings and see how long it took them to go from listing to pending status to get a decent indicator of DOM. I haven’t seen any software yet give a reliable DOM. I still like to confirm that manually.
These are all just rules of thumb. Poor counties on paper can have booming micro-markets and poor counties can also have certain acreage bands that actually have a really good STR and low DOM. And then you have non-disclosure states to add even more complexity.
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@JoeR those are helpful metrics, thanks for sharing.
When you say ‘micro-markets,’ do you mean zip codes or something else? If it’s something else, how else would you isolate an area to determine what the ratios and other metrics are?
That’s probably the next AI bot someone needs to create - something that can scan the whole country and figure out which poor counties have specific acreage bands with a good STR and/or certain micro-markets within poor counties. That kind of work would be extremely time-consuming to do manually, but AI could probably figure it out in a few minutes.
I am unfortunately not sharing from experience. I am still very new to this game and have only done a few deals. I am a part of another community and am sharing what has been working for others.
But yes, Zips. Sumner’s Land Insights can show you metrics like sell through rate, days on market, Median PPA, and price variance down to the Zip level in specific acreage bands for the entire country (still not reliable for non-disclosure states though). You can sometimes find specific subdivisions that are are doing very well.
Like you said, I wouldn’t know how to do it with any other platform. Land Portal is pretty amazing, but I don’t think they go down to the zip level in their market selection tool on a country wide basis like Land Insights.