In what it called a “first-ever” analysis of land listings, Realtor.com’s economic research team found that land prices surged roughly 77% between early 2019 and March 2026, a time period in which the inventory of for-sale parcels fell 24%.
Realtor.com noted that the COVID-19 pandemic years triggered a land frenzy as developers lured by historically low interest rates snapped up vast tracts of land at a frenzied pace. The shift reshaped the market, sending raw land values surging faster than both semideveloped and build-ready lots, Realtor.com said.
The analysis showed that in the first quarter of this year, there were 426,986 land listings on Realtor.com with a median price per acre of $62,365. However, not all land listings are created equal.
Realtor.com noted that they are broadly categorized into three distinct tiers: raw lots, which have no development on them at all; partly developed parcels, which may feature some clearing or utility installation; and build-ready lots, which are marketed for immediate residential construction.
Three Categories of Land
The Austin-based Realtor.com said that among the three categories, untouched land has appreciated the most since 2019, with the median per-acre prices surging a remarkable 86.5%, leaving build-ready lots trailing with a 53.3% increase. Prices on semideveloped acreage followed closely behind raw land, rising over 80% over the same period, Realtor.com noted.
Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner attributed the dramatic surge in undeveloped land values to two main drivers.
“Raw land was able to appreciate more quickly than build-ready listings because the starting price point was much lower, and also because build-ready listings have a natural cap: the amount that a home built on them can be sold for,” Berner said. “Raw land can be more of a speculative investment, and when the market for it got hot, its prices shot up.”
Latham Jenkins, a real estate agent at Live Water Properties in Wyoming, said that the steep appreciation of raw land in premier markets such as Jackson Hole and the Greater Yellowstone area has been a powerful, yet little-discussed, undercurrent beneath headline-making property sales for many years.
“Buyers at the upper end of the market are not purchasing a finished product,” Jenkins told Realtor.com. “They are purchasing a position inside a landscape. The raw ground is the asset. What gets built on it is secondary. When that premise drives demand, raw land prices naturally decouple from the build-ready tier and begin to run on their own logic.”
Jenkins said that raw land’s biggest draw is that it offers the buyer maximum control.
Significant Trade-Offs
“The buyer selects the site, the architect, the builder, and the timeline,” he said. “At the estate level, that matters enormously. You are building a generational asset, not a spec home.”
But purchasing untouched land also comes with significant trade-offs, Realtor.com noted, from high infrastructure investment costs to lengthy permitting timelines and carrying costs during development.
For example, Jenkins said that in Teton County, Wyoming, which is home to Jackson Hole, environmental review alone can add years to a development project.
“Water rights, access easements, and utility extensions are not trivial,” Jenkins said. “Build-ready lots absorb those costs into the purchase price and offer certainty and speed.”
Ultimately, Jenkins said he believes the choice between raw land and a build-ready parcel is a personal one, dictated in large part by whether a buyer wants to shape a legacy from the ground up, or simply build a new home as soon as possible.
“For buyers with a specific vision and long-time horizons, raw land wins,” he said. “For buyers who want to be in the ground and building within 18 months, build-ready is often the more rational choice.”
In the past year, what was an intense demand for land has softened as the market returned to pre-pandemic norms, Realtor.com noted. In good news for developers, that shift has cooled prices across the board, with values of raw land lots experiencing the biggest correction.
Overall, land prices per acre have fallen by 0.5% from early 2025 to the beginning of 2026, Realtor.com said.
Raw land listings have seen their price per acre drop 2.4% year over year, while build-ready properties lost only 1.1% in value. Meanwhile, semideveloped lots experienced a 0.8% price increase.
“The primary culprit for falling land prices is the slowdown in new residential construction activity, which finished 2025 below 2024 levels as builders faced increased cost pressures and weak homebuyer demand,” Berner said.
