How to Find Land to Build a Dream Home On (Without a Realtor)

House hunting for an actual house is something most people have experience with—but what about hunting for land to build a house on?

It can be a long and complicated journey to not only find land you can afford, but also land you can afford to construct a brand-new home on.

This is exactly what we did to find land to build on, and maybe these six tips could help you, too, if you want to buy land one day for building your dream home.

01.

Narrow down our target neighborhoods.

In the same way that people focus on certain neighborhoods and amenities when they look for a house, we had a list of must-haves when looking for land.

02.

Work with a real estate agent.

One thing to note is if you’re looking to purchase acreage, a land broker is worth consulting. That type of real estate agent specializes in large tracts of undeveloped land (like farms and ranches) and would have more leads for those kinds of listings.

03.

Scour Google Earth.

It’s how we find secret campsites, paths less traveled on our road trips, and hidden gems in our own neighborhood. It’s also how we initially found the neighborhood that we would eventually buy in.

04.

Track down information from the county assessor’s office.

For the lots that didn’t have signs, we wrote down their addresses and looked them up on our local assessor’s website.

05.

Tell everyone—and I mean everyone—we were looking for land.

We told all of our friends and our friends’ friends that we wanted to build a house. I told my hairstylist, my dental hygienist, and my mom friends that we were looking to buy land.

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