How-To Guide / Deal Analysis
Land Comps
Land comps are recent sales of comparable raw or vacant land, normalized to price per acre and adjusted for use, size, access, and utilities. Unlike comping a house, there's no structure and no rehab step — the value is in the parcel itself and what it can legally become. Most land buyers use the same discipline as every serious investor: set value per acre, back out improvement and hold costs, offer below it.
What are land comps?
A land comp is a recently sold parcel of bare or thinly-improved land used to estimate the value of another parcel. Because nothing is built, you can't compare finish levels, condition tiers, or renovated baths. You compare acres, legal use, position on the map, and what infrastructure reaches the parcel. That's the whole discipline — and it trips up more buyers than any other step.
Three things separate a serious land comp from a guess:
Unit
Normalized to price per acre (or per usable sf on small lots) — never a flat parcel price.
Use
Zoning and permitted use matched — residential, ag, or commercial are different assets.
Parity
Bare land compared to bare land; structure value stripped out of any improved comp.
Land comps vs. flip comps: what's the difference?
| Criteria | Flip comps (houses) | Land comps (parcels) |
|---|---|---|
| Compares | Structures and their condition | Bare-acre parcels and their use |
| Unit of value | Total sale price vs ARV | Price per acre (or per usable sf) |
| Discipline step | Estimate repairs → MAO | Adjust for use, access & utilities |
| Condition filter | Renovated sales only | No-structure / raw-land sales only |
| Buyer pool | Fix-and-flip investors towards end buyers | Buy-hold, development, and rural land investors |
If the parcel carries a house you intend to renovate, use our Flip Comps guide. This page is for raw land and vacant lots.
How to run land comps step by step
- 01
Pull the subject parcel's recorded details — acreage, legal description, zoning, and any structure value tied to the property. In PropStream, the parcel card and county-records tab show these.
- 02
Sell the land as bare land — strip out structure value. If a comp parcel carries a house, value the house and lot separately so you compare land to land.
- 03
Search comparable land sales — vacant-plain, 0-lot, and county-record sales, not MLS homes-with-land. Use a wide radius: land is thinner data than homes, so 2–5 miles is normal.
- 04
Normalize everything to price per acre (or per usable sf for small lots). Pricing raw land at a flat parcel price hides half the story.
- 05
Adjust per comp for utility access, topography, road frontage, and what the land can legally be used for. Two 5-acre parcels can differ 3× in value on access alone.
- 06
Blend to a defensible per-acre range, multiply by your acreage, and set your lands value — your ARV, the land version.
- 07
Back out the value of streets, utilities, and any hold time before you name an offer. Raw land is slower to exit than a flip.
The four drivers of land value
Every per-acre adjustment on a land comp pulls from one of these four levers. Nail all four and your number is defensible to a seller, a lender, or in a closing room:
Use & zoning — The same parcel is worth different amounts as residential, ag, or commercial.
Zoning is value. A parcel zoned for a single home lot is worth more per acre than one restricted to agriculture, and less than one approved for commercial. If a comp has a different permitted use, adjust — or discard it.
Size & scale — Bigger tracts sell for less per acre.
A 1-acre residential lot can trade at $60k/acre while an adjacent 10-acre tract trades at $25k/acre. The buyer pool and depth of utility investment shrink as size grows. Apply this non-linearity instead of stretching one per-acre number across every size.
Access & position — Road frontage, easements, or a landlocked parcel.
A parcel with an improved public road at the line is worth materially more than one reached by a shared easement or none at all. Check legal access before you comp — land without access is functionally a holding cost, not a developable asset.
Utilities & improvements — Water, sewer/septic, power, and a legal driveway.
Buildable land demands the four utilities. A parcel with water and power at the road can carry 2–3× the per-acre value of raw land with none, because the new owner isn't paying for wells, line extensions, or road grading.
How to adjust land comps — a worked example
Subject parcel: 5 acres, raw, residential-rural zoning, public-road frontage, no utilities. You want a defensible per-acre range before you offer.
Comp A
4.2 ac · abuts power
Comp B
6.1 ac · no utilities
Comp C
5.0 ac · well only
LAND VALUE RANGE
Adjusted per-acre comps: $16k–$20k. Subject land value: 5 acres × ~$18,000 = ~$90,000. Before you offer, back out the value of driveway, well/septic, power connection, and any hold time. If those improvements cost $30k to bring in, your raw-land offer ceiling is ~$60k — not the full $90k.
Where land comps come from
Raw-land sales rarely flow through the MLS the way homes do, which is why county-record data matters more here than on any other comp type.
- County recorder deeds — every land transfer, including off-market and cash sales, with legal descriptions and acreage.
- Parcel & zoning data — PropStream's 160M+ parcel records carry use, zoning, and the improvements at the road.
- Vacant / no-structure sales filters — isolate raw land instead of accidentally comping against homes-with-land.
Common land comp mistakes
- ×Comping a flat total price instead of a per-acre (or per-sf) unit — hides 50% of the story.
- ×Using a home-with-land sale without stripping the structure value out.
- ×Ignoring zoning — paying residential land prices for a parcel that can't host a home.
- ×Treating 1 acre and 10 acres with the same per-acre number, instead of applying size scaling.
- ×Forgetting utilities — bidding raw-land prices on a parcel that needs $30k of well, septic, and power.
- ×Comping land that's landlocked or on a shared easement against road-front parcels.
Lead Categories
Where to find land worth comping
Land comps only matter once you have a parcel on the table. These are the lead categories raw-land and lot investors pull from most:
Where to go next
Land comps give you the parcel's value. If the deal carries a house instead, run Flip Comps for the rehab and MAO layer, or Sales Comps for as-is home valuation. For the tool that finds the parcel in the first place, read the full PropStream review.
Frequently asked questions
You comp on price per acre (or per usable square foot for small lots), using recent vacant-land sales. A flat 'it sold for X' is not a comp method — raw land has no structure to compare, so the unit, use, and level of improvements are everything. Normalize every comparable to a per-acre number, adjust it for the four value drivers (use, size, access, utilities), and blend to a range.
A sales comp compares similar structures — homes with a finished living area and condition tier. A land comp compares bare parcels — acres, shape, zoning, access, and utilities. Houses are valued on condition and square footage; land is valued on location and what it can legally become. You never comp a house against land or vice-versa.
It depends on size. Under about one acre in urban and suburban lots, price per square foot is the common unit. Above that — the classic 1, 2, 5, 10-acre chunk — price per acre is the unit. Very large tracts price lower per acre than small ones because the buyer pool and utility depth shrink. Never quote a flat lot price without the unit underneath it.
Use, size, access, and utilities. (1) Use: the same parcel is worth different amounts as residential, agricultural, or commercial — zoning is a value. (2) Size: bigger tracts cost less per acre. (3) Access: road frontage, shared easements, or landlocked parcels swing value hard. (4) Utilities: water, sewer/septic, power, and a legal driveway are the difference between buildable and a holding cost. Two otherwise-identical parcels can differ 3× in value on access and utilities alone.
Yes. PropStream's Comparables tool and county-record data include vacant and raw-land sales, with parcel and zoning details on 160M+ properties. Filter to no-structure or low-structure sales, normalize per acre, and apply the same four adjustments you would on a home comp.
No. A flip comp filters to renovated homes and pairs with a repair estimate to hit an ARV. A land comp is a bare-parcel sale, priced per acre, adjusted for use and improvements — with no rehab step. See our Flip Comps guide for houses.
Land math, done right.
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