Buying Raw Land

The questions worth asking before you sign, and the ones most people find out about afterward. Deeds and easements, access and surveys, what a zoning designation actually permits. This is the homework, written by people who do it on every parcel they buy.

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A graded dirt road running dead straight to the horizon across open sage flats, snow-dusted peaks behind and tall cumulus stacked overhead.

Buying Raw Land

Is It Safe to Buy Land Online? An Honest Look

Land is one of the few big purchases you can verify yourself from a kitchen table. Six free county checks, about twenty minutes, and nearly every way an online land deal goes wrong is off the table. Access, not fraud, is what actually bites people.

Sep 1, 202610 min read

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Buying Raw Land

5 Questions to Ask When Buying Vacant Land

May 5, 20268 min read

Sage and bunchgrass upland on a Klamath Basin hillside, a dark juniper-covered butte rising behind under strong midday sun.

Buying Raw Land

Buying Land in Klamath County: The Questions That Matter

Apr 21, 202612 min read

Aerial view of a flooded neighbourhood, brown water standing between rows of red-roofed houses and green trees.

Buying Raw Land

Understanding FEMA Flood Zone Designations: A Complete Guide for Land Buyers

What each flood zone actually means for a land buyer, why your zone no longer sets your premium, and the FEMA statistic that should change how you shop: nearly a third of flood claims come from outside the high-risk zones.

Dec 19, 202514 min read

Aerial view of farmland divided into dozens of irregular parcels, with narrow roads and field tracks running between them.

Buying Raw Land

Property Access: What to Check Before You Buy Land

Legal access and physical access are two different things, and the gap between them is where buyers get burned. What the three kinds of access actually mean, what the fix really costs when nobody will publish a number, and the five checks to run before you sign.

Mar 25, 202511 min read

A plowed field running to a flat horizon under a wide blue sky, a dirt track curving along its near edge.

Buying Raw Land

Finding Property with No Address: Your Complete Guide

Land without an address is not land without a record. How to identify any parcel from a map, a coordinate or a neighbor, what the county actually holds on it, and why the unclaimed property database everyone recommends will never find you land.

Jan 25, 20259 min read

A narrow irrigation ditch carrying water across a dry brown hillside with patches of snow, bunchgrass and yucca on both banks.

Buying Raw Land

Understanding Water Rights: What Are They and Do You Need Them?

Most articles on this explain two legal doctrines and never answer the question you actually have: can you drill a well on this parcel. Here is the exempt well rule for all ten states we sell in, the two acreage thresholds that decide it, and how to check before you buy.

Dec 29, 202412 min read

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Buying Raw Land

50 Surprisingly Creative Uses for Vacant Land

Fifty things to do with raw land, split by what works while you are still making payments and what waits for the deed. Including an honest accounting of which income ideas are real on forty acres and which ones are not.

Sep 30, 202423 min read

A wire fence corner post with a red cap in open desert scrub, a dark volcanic peak rising behind.

Buying Raw Land

Zoning: What is it and How to Find the Rules and Regulations

On a lot of rural ground there is no zoning at all, and that is not the same as no rules. What actually governs your parcel, how to find it in an afternoon, and the four traps we have walked into ourselves.

Jul 18, 20246 min read

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Buying Raw Land

How Big Is an Acre, and How Much of It Can You Actually Use?

An acre is 43,560 square feet, which is the least useful fact on the page. What matters is how much of it survives setbacks, a drainfield and a well separation circle, why a 40-acre parcel is often not 40 acres, and what the federal data really says about price.

Mar 10, 202410 min read

Two people at a desk passing a navy folder of documents across a laptop and a calculator.

Buying Raw Land

Understanding Deed Vesting: A Guide to Property Ownership

How your name sits on the deed decides whether the land reaches your family smoothly or through a court. On owner financing you get the whole note period to decide. Here's every option, and what the rules look like state by state.

Jan 28, 202410 min read

A surveyor total station on a tripod standing on bare graded ground against a blue sky and a distant treeline.

Buying Raw Land

Land Surveys: What You Need and What You Don't

Your title policy insures that you own the parcel your deed describes. It takes an explicit exception for where that parcel sits, how big it is and what is encroaching on it. Here is which survey answers those questions, when you genuinely need one, and the comma in your deed that is worth 280 acres.

Dec 15, 20239 min read

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CHECKOUT TEST - Earthsure Equity 2 - DO NOT PURCHASE

Synthetic property for verifying live checkout and payment routing. Not a real parcel.

CHECKOUT TEST - EPeterson EV Roth - DO NOT PURCHASE

Synthetic property for verifying live checkout and payment routing. Not a real parcel.

CHECKOUT TEST - Earthsure Equity 1 - DO NOT PURCHASE

Synthetic property for verifying live checkout and payment routing. Not a real parcel.

The Buyers List

See new land before it goes public.

New parcels come in all the time, and the good ones move fast. Join the Buyers List and we will send you a note when land that fits hits the site. A short welcome series, then new land as it comes in. Unsubscribe anytime.

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