How to Comp Raw Land: County $/Acre, Pulling Comps, and Adjustments

Raw land does not comp like a house. There is no square footage, no kitchen, no comp within two blocks that sold last week. You value dirt with county $/acre data, real comparable sales, and a short list of adjustment factors. Here is the exact method I run before I make an offer.

Start with county $/acre, not Zillow

When I comp a 40-acre tract in Upshur County, TX, the first number I pull is the county average $/acre. Upshur County rural raw land trades around $3,200/acre right now. That is my baseline, not my answer. County averages smooth out everything from river frontage to scrub brush, so I treat them as a sanity check, not a valuation.

The mistake new wholesalers make is anchoring on the county average and stopping. The average hides the spread. In Upshur, I have seen 5-acre homesites close at $9,000/acre and 100-acre timber tracts move at $1,800/acre. Acreage alone bends the price hard.

Pull three to five real comps

I pull recent closed sales from the county CAD, the MLS if it is land-listed, and LandWatch or similar. I want sales within 12 months, within 15 miles, and close in size and use. For the 40-acre Upshur tract, here is what I found:

Raw comp $/acre lands between $2,900 and $4,000. Median is about $3,250/acre. That is my market number before adjustments.

Apply adjustment factors

No two parcels are identical, so I adjust. I keep it to four factors and put a real dollar figure on each:

• Road frontage: My tract sits on a county road, not a state highway. The Hwy 155 comp at $4,000 carries a premium I strip out, about -$400/acre.
• Utilities: No power at the line, no water. That is a -$300/acre hit versus the Lake O' the Pines comp that had co-op water nearby.
• Terrain and timber: Mixed pine/hardwood, gently sloping, buildable. Roughly neutral, no adjustment.
• Acreage discount: Larger tracts trade cheaper per acre. At 40 acres I am mid-pack, so no extra discount beyond the comp set.

So my indicated market value is about $102,000. If the seller is asking $140,000, I know there is a gap to negotiate, or I pass. If they are at $85,000, I move fast.

That is the whole loop: county average for sanity, three to five real comps for the market, four adjustments for the differences, then a 70% offer cap. The Land Value Calculator runs this for all 50 states off real county data, but you should still know the math so the tool does not blind you.