Vacant land, Texas
Selling Vacant Land in Texas — Lots, Acreage, and Inherited Tracts
Raw land is the asset most retail buyers cannot buy. Conventional mortgages do not finance dirt, the buyer pool is a fraction of the residential pool, and the diligence questions — ag-use rollback, severed minerals, pipeline easements, access, survey, flood plain, utilities — kill most retail contracts during the option period. We underwrite all of that as part of our normal process. Residential lots, suburban infill, country acreage, ranchettes, lake lots, leftover commercial dirt. Cash close. No financing contingency.
Why vacant land sells differently
Why selling raw land is not like selling a house — the structural differences nobody warns you about
Most land sellers come to us after a frustrating run on the open market — six months, twelve months, sometimes longer with a sign in the ground and no real activity. That experience is not bad luck. The vacant-land market is structurally different from the residential market in four ways that compound, and once you see the mechanics, the "why has nobody bought my lot" question answers itself. None of this is your fault, and a clean residential listing on the same street would have sold in 14 days.
No conventional financing for raw land
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VA, USDA — none of the major loan programs that move 90+ percent of residential transactions in Texas finance vacant land. The loan products that do exist come from Texas land banks (Capital Farm Credit, Heritage Land Bank, Lone Star Ag Credit), agricultural lenders, and a handful of local community banks and credit unions. They require 20 to 50 percent down, charge 1 to 3 percentage points above conventional residential rates, and underwrite the tract\'s use case — agricultural, recreational, or development — rather than just the borrower\'s income. That underwriting takes weeks longer and approves fewer applicants. The result: most retail buyers who could afford the house cannot afford the land loan, and the buyer pool collapses to cash buyers and a small slice of qualified specialty borrowers.
Comparable sales are noisier and slower
On a house, three closed comps within half a mile in the last six months triangulate the price within a tight band. On vacant land, the comp set is often spread across 10 to 50 square miles of geography, runs back 12 to 36 months instead of 6, and has to be adjusted heavily for road frontage, utility availability, topography (flat usable vs. flood plain vs. slope), soil type, road access (paved vs. caliche vs. easement-only), and shape (square buildable vs. odd-shaped pipestem). Two five-acre tracts on the same county road can close at very different prices for reasons that are not obvious from a drive-by. The market price discovery on land is genuinely harder, which slows everything down — both for retail buyers trying to evaluate value and for agents trying to price the listing right.
The diligence questions kill most option-period contracts
Retail buyers who finally write an offer often walk during the option period once they actually start asking the diligence questions. Survey reveals an encroachment from a neighbor\'s fence. Title reveals a forgotten easement. County permitting reveals that the septic perc test will fail. Utility check reveals that getting electric to the building site costs $15,000 in line extension. Flood-plain map reveals that the buildable area is smaller than the drive-by suggested. The buyer rescinds, the earnest money refunds, the lot goes back on the market with three months of seasoning, and the next retail contract repeats the same cycle. Cash buyers like us underwrite all of these questions on the front end instead of using them as escape hatches.
Agents under-list land because the commissions are smaller
On a $400,000 house at a 3 percent listing-side commission, the agent makes $12,000 — enough to justify the marketing, the photography, the open houses, and the negotiation. On a $40,000 lot at the same percentage, the agent makes $1,200 — which does not justify the same effort, and many residential agents quietly deprioritize land listings as a result. Land specialists exist, but they are concentrated in rural markets and they typically run on a different commission structure (sometimes flat-fee, sometimes higher percentages on small deals). Most residential MLS land listings get the bare minimum treatment — an aerial photo, a generic description, and a sign in the ground — and then sit. That is not a reflection of the value of the land. It is a reflection of how the residential brokerage business is structured.
The takeaway: long days on market on vacant land is the system, not the lot. The retail path can work if you have patience and the lot has obvious development appeal — and we will tell you that honestly if it does. But the path is often a year of friction for a sale that closes within $5,000 of where we would have closed it in 21 days. The math on your time matters too.
What we underwrite
The categories of Texas land we underwrite regularly
"Vacant land" covers a lot of ground. The math is different for each category, but the willingness to underwrite is the same. Five buckets cover most of what comes through our intake.
Residential infill lots in growing DFW suburbs
Single lots in established neighborhoods that builders skipped — usually because the prior owner did not sell, the lot had an issue (drainage, setbacks, an old foundation), or the platting predated current building standards and needs a replat. These are some of the most actively traded land assets in DFW because there is genuine builder demand once the obstacles get resolved. We underwrite the path to a buildable lot and account for the platting or permitting work in the math.
Country acreage and ranchettes (5 to 100+ acres)
The classic North Texas exurban tract — 5, 10, 25, 50 acres in Parker, Wise, Hood, Johnson, Jack, Montague, or Erath counties — often with a stock tank, a barn or shed, fencing, road frontage on a county road, and either an ag-use valuation or a wildlife exemption. Many of these came to current ownership through inheritance from parents or grandparents who bought decades ago at much lower prices. The next generation often lives somewhere else and has no use for the land.
Lake lots and recreational property
Cedar Creek Lake, Lake Granbury, Possum Kingdom, Lake Texoma, Lake Whitney, Richland-Chambers, Eagle Mountain — Texas reservoir country produced a generation of waterfront and water-view lot subdivisions in the 1970s and 1980s that were sold to weekend owners who never built. Many of those lots are now in second- or third-generation ownership with nobody using them. Lake lots have their own valuation logic — waterfront vs. waterview vs. dry lot, deeded boat slip vs. no slip, lake-authority shoreline rules — and we underwrite to it.
Tax-delinquent and abandoned lots
Lots that have been carrying property tax arrears for years, often because the owner forgot they owned them or inherited them without realizing. We pay the arrears at closing out of proceeds — same as we do for tax-delinquent houses (see our tax-delinquent Texas guide). The county taxing authorities are paid in full at the title table and the seller does not need to come out of pocket to clear them first.
Inherited land — sometimes multi-heir, sometimes out of state
Common: grandparents or parents bought rural acreage decades ago, paid it off, and held it until they passed. The land is now owned by adult children — sometimes one, often multiple — and at least one heir lives out of state. Nobody is using the land, the property tax bill arrives every year, and the heirs have been talking about selling for two years without anyone driving the process. The probate path overlaps with this category — see our inherited house Texas guide for the procedure detail. Land probates the same way houses do.
Leftover commercial and industrial dirt
Outlots from stalled subdivisions, undeveloped pad sites from retail projects that never broke ground, rural commercial corner lots on a farm-to-market road where the convenience store never got built. These sit because the commercial buyer pool is small, the lender approvals for commercial land are tight, and the marketing channels are different from residential MLS. We underwrite them on a case-by-case basis.
Send us whatever you have. If the tract does not fit a category cleanly, the underwriting math still works the same way: comp set, diligence on the legal and physical attributes, carry analysis, offer.
The ag-use rollback question
Ag-use valuation and rollback risk — the expensive surprise most sellers do not see coming
Texas land that has been on agricultural special-use valuation can carry a hidden tax liability that fires when use changes. The mechanics are governed by Texas Property Tax Code sections 23.51 through 23.55, and the dollar exposure on a long-held ag-valued tract can be material — five-figure rollback bills are common, six-figure bills happen on larger tracts. This is one of the most expensive issues we encounter on land deals, and the title company will surface it during the closing process whether you knew about it or not.
What ag-use valuation is — and how to tell if your land has it
Texas allows qualifying agricultural land to be appraised on its productive agricultural value rather than market value, which dramatically reduces the annual property tax bill. The qualifying uses include traditional categories (cattle grazing, crop production, hay) and several modernized categories (beekeeping in some counties, wildlife management with a written plan, exotic game). The valuation is sometimes called "1-d-1" or just "ag exemption" colloquially, though it is technically a special-use appraisal, not an exemption. To check whether your land carries the valuation, look at your county appraisal district\'s public record for the parcel — most CADs list productive-use acreage and market-use acreage as separate line items. If the productive-use value is dramatically lower than market value, the land has the ag valuation.
How the rollback fires — and the 2021 change that shortened the window
The rollback is triggered when the land changes from agricultural use to a non-agricultural use. The county appraisal district recalculates what the taxes would have been at full market value for the lookback period, subtracts what was paid under ag valuation, and bills the difference plus interest. Senate Bill 1 in 2021 shortened the rollback period from five years to three years on most transactions and reduced the interest component, which lowered the dollar exposure compared to pre-2021 deals — but a three-year rollback on a large appreciated tract is still meaningful. Critical nuance: the rollback is triggered by the change of USE, not by the change of OWNERSHIP. If the new owner continues qualifying ag use (the cattle stay on the land, the hay keeps getting cut, the wildlife management plan stays in force), the rollback does not fire.
How we handle it in the offer math
We underwrite the rollback exposure up front. If we plan to continue ag use after closing — running cattle, leasing for hay, continuing a wildlife plan — no rollback fires and the offer reflects that. If we plan to develop or change use, the rollback is on our side of the closing math, not yours, and the contract is explicit about who bears the cost. Either way, the seller is not on the hook for a surprise rollback bill after the deal closes. This is the kind of mechanic where a retail buyer with a residential agent often misses the issue entirely and the seller ends up with an unexpected CAD letter six months later. We handle it at the table.
Nothing on this page is legal or tax advice. Texas ag-use rollback rules are statute-specific and the application varies materially by county appraisal district and by the specific facts of the use change. For your tract, talk to a Texas property tax consultant or a CPA familiar with agricultural taxation. The Texas Comptroller\'s ag and timber guidance is a starting public reference, not a substitute for professional advice on your specific situation.
The diligence checklist
Minerals, easements, access — the diligence items we underwrite
On a vacant-land deal, the diligence work is the deal. Six items account for most of the surprises we encounter on Texas tracts. We handle each of them as part of our normal underwrite — meaning the title commitment, the survey, the easement search, and the access review happen on our timeline and at our cost, not on yours.
Severed mineral interests
In Texas, surface and mineral estates can be severed permanently — and across East Texas, the Barnett Shale footprint, and the Permian Basin counties, severance is the norm. The title commitment shows whether the current owner holds both estates or only the surface. We do not require you to convey minerals you do not own. If you own both and want to reserve minerals, we can structure that — the deed language is standard.
Pipeline and utility easements
Pipeline easements (DCP, Energy Transfer, Targa, Atmos, Oncor, gathering systems) are common across North Texas and East Texas. Some restrict surface use within a defined corridor, some require setbacks for structures, some include operator access rights. We pull the easement documents during title and read them as part of the underwrite — the easement affects buildability and therefore affects price, but it does not stop the deal.
Access — paved, caliche, or easement-only
Some Texas rural tracts front a paved farm-to-market road. Some front a caliche county road. Some have no road frontage at all and rely on a deeded access easement across a neighboring tract. The access type affects buildability, insurability of the access, and resale value. Land-locked tracts (no recorded access) are a category we still buy, but the math reflects the access risk and the legal work to formalize the easement post-close.
Survey — required by title on vacant land
Title underwriters require a current survey for vacant-land closings — no structure to anchor the legal description against, and boundary disputes on rural land are common. If you have a recent survey, we use yours. If not, we order it as part of diligence and pay for it. Surveyor backlog in rural Texas can run 4 to 8 weeks on large tracts, which sets the closing calendar.
Flood plain and FEMA mapping
FEMA flood-plain maps cover all of Texas and we check the parcel against the current maps during diligence. A tract partly inside Special Flood Hazard Area Zone A or AE has reduced buildable area and tougher insurance requirements; that affects the math but does not kill the deal. Zone X tracts have no flood-plain issue. Houston-area and Gulf Coast tracts get extra attention here for obvious reasons.
Utility availability and connection cost
On rural tracts, "utilities available" can mean anything from "lines run at the road" to "the nearest meter is half a mile away and you pay for line extension." Electric (Oncor in DFW, varies elsewhere), water (rural water supply corporation membership in most counties), septic feasibility via perc test, and propane vs. natural gas — we map all of this during diligence and the cost to bring utilities in is a line item in the offer.
The hold-versus-sell math
What it actually costs to hold a vacant lot in Texas each year
Most vacant-land sellers underestimate their carrying cost because they only look at the property tax bill — and even that, they often look at last year\'s bill, which is already out of date. The honest annual carry on a held Texas lot is the property tax (without homestead, so the full stack), plus liability insurance, plus minimal maintenance to avoid code violations, plus the opportunity cost of capital tied up in non-yielding dirt. Run those four numbers and the "I have been meaning to sell it for years" lot is a slow drain that compounds.
Annual property tax rate
County + city + school + special district stack on a vacant lot WITHOUT homestead exemption (which only applies to a primary residence). DFW counties typically run 2.2 to 2.7 percent; rural counties run lower but usually still above 2.0 percent. On a $100,000 lot, that is $2,000–$2,700 per year, every year, growing as the appraisal grows.
Annual liability insurance
Most landowners do not realize they need vacant-land liability coverage until somebody asks. Trespasser injury, hunting accident if the land is leased for hunting, ATV incidents — the exposure is real and a standalone vacant-land liability policy typically runs $200 to $600 per year in Texas depending on tract size and use.
Annual mowing and brush
Lots in city limits often have ordinance requirements for grass height and weed control, and the city will mow and lien if the owner does not. Suburban residential lots in growing season can need mowing 3 to 6 times. Rural acreage may not need mowing but periodic brush clearing, fence-line maintenance, and dump-trash removal add up.
Opportunity cost of capital
The honest math nobody talks about. A $75,000 lot sitting idle for ten years is $75,000 not earning anything anywhere else. At a modest risk-adjusted return assumption, the opportunity cost dwarfs the property tax bill over a long hold — and unless the lot is appreciating faster than that benchmark, holding is a losing trade.
We do not push sellers to sell. If you are genuinely planning to develop the lot or you have a near-term use case, holding is the right call. But the "I have been meaning to sell it for years" lot is the one where the math is worth running honestly. Most of our vacant-land calls are people who finally did that math.
The math, shown
How we underwrite a vacant-land deal
Same transparency we use on house deals, different inputs. A vacant-land offer comes out of a five-line spreadsheet, and we will walk you through ours in writing. The point of showing the math is that an unexplained number is the wrong way to start a conversation, particularly on an asset where the seller is often unsure what the dirt is actually worth.
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Comp set — same submarket, similar attributes
We pull closed land sales for the submarket, adjusted for tract size, road frontage, utilities, topography, soil, and access. On rural land, the comp set may run 12 to 36 months back and 10 to 50 square miles wide; on a suburban infill lot, the comp set is tighter. We show you the comps we used.
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Title, survey, easements, mineral status
Title commitment pulled. Existing survey reviewed or new survey ordered. Easements identified and documents read. Mineral status confirmed. Flood plain checked. Access reviewed. The diligence cost is on us; it shows up in the offer math, not as a separate seller invoice.
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Ag-use rollback exposure
If the land is ag-valued, we determine whether our post-close use continues qualifying ag use or changes it, and the rollback liability under Property Tax Code sections 23.51-23.55 is built into the offer. No surprise tax bill lands in your name after closing.
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Carrying and development cost (if we are developing)
If the deal includes platting, utility extension, septic perc work, variance applications, or other development steps, we underwrite the cost and the time. The longer the path to a buildable lot, the more carry we are absorbing, and the offer reflects it.
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Exit value minus everything else minus margin = offer
Comparable exit value, minus diligence cost, minus rollback exposure, minus utility and access cost, minus carry, minus our underwriting margin — and the residual is your offer. We tell you each input so you can see what we are actually solving for. If you have your own comps in mind that we missed, send them and we will reconsider.
How it works
Our process for a vacant-land sale
Four steps. Built around the assumption that you already tried the open market or considered it and decided not to. We do not ask you to fund a survey before talking to us, we do not ask you to clear a tax lien before closing, and we do not require you to come out of pocket for anything.
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Send us the tract — address, legal, or CAD account number
If the land has a street address, give us that. If not, the county appraisal district account number works — it pulls everything we need from the public record. If you have a deed, a survey, or any prior transaction paperwork, send it. We do not need it to start; we just read it faster if it is in hand.
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We run title, comp, and diligence at our cost
Title commitment. Survey (existing or new). Easement check. Mineral status. Flood plain. Access review. Comp set. Carrying-cost analysis if ag-valued. We pay for all of it. You see the results.
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Written offer with the math attached
We send a written offer with the comp set, the diligence findings, the rollback math if applicable, and our underwriting summary. What you sign is what funds — no inspection-driven renegotiation, no surprise reduction the week before closing, no contingency that lets us walk after you have spent two months in our pipeline.
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Close at title — arrears paid, deed recorded, you exit
Title company opens escrow, runs the lien search, and closes once title is clear. Property tax arrears (if any) are paid at the table out of proceeds. Mobile notary if you are out of state. Funds wire on the day of close. Whatever happens with the land after closing — development, hold, resale — is our business, not yours.
Our broader process is documented on the how it works page. The general cash-offer flow is on sell your house — the mechanics carry over to land, with the diligence differences this page spells out.
Where this intersects
Where vacant-land sales overlap with other situations
Land deals frequently overlap with other situations. Three combinations come up regularly enough to call out — each has its own pillar with the Texas mechanics spelled out.
Inherited land — probate and multi-heir
Land probates the same way houses do in Texas — independent administration, muniment of title, small estate affidavit, depending on the estate and the will. Multi-heir tracts where heirs live in different states are some of the most common land calls we get. The procedure is covered on the inherited-house pillar.
Inherited house Texas →Tax-delinquent land
Lots and tracts that have been carrying property tax arrears for years — sometimes because the owner forgot, sometimes because the bill exceeded the lot value and the owner gave up. We pay the arrears at closing out of proceeds, the same way we do for tax-delinquent houses.
Tax-delinquent Texas →Out-of-state owners
Land calls disproportionately come from out-of-state owners. Mobile notary signing is standard, remote closings are routine, and we do not require you to travel to Texas to transact. The relocation pillar covers the broader out-of-state-seller mechanics.
Relocation Texas →If your situation does not match any of these neatly, the broader situations index covers the full list. For the general cash-offer process, see sell your house.
Statewide service area
Where we buy Texas land
Statewide. We are most active in North and Central Texas because that is where our operating base sits and where the land calls concentrate, but rural acreage in any market with a functional comp set is in scope. The farther we drive, the more travel and logistics enter the offer math, but the willingness is the same.
North Texas exurban acreage
Parker, Wise, Hood, Johnson, Jack, Montague, Erath, Palo Pinto, Somervell, Cooke, Grayson, and Fannin counties. Ranchettes, country tracts, lake lots, ag-valued land, and inherited family land. Our densest land footprint.
DFW infill lots and suburban single lots
Single residential lots in Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving, Garland, Mesquite, Plano, McKinney, Frisco, and the surrounding suburbs where builders skipped a parcel or the prior owner held out. Active builder market for buildable infill — once obstacles get resolved.
East Texas piney woods and lake country
Smith, Henderson, Van Zandt, Wood, Rains, Anderson, and Cherokee counties. Recreational land, hunting tracts, lake lots on Cedar Creek, Lake Tyler, Lake Palestine, and Lake Bob Sandlin. Severed minerals common — title pulls the chain.
If your tract is in West Texas, the Hill Country, South Texas, or anywhere else in the state, send the address or CAD account number and we will look. The drive is part of our process.
Vacant land FAQ
The questions landowners ask first
Do you really buy raw land with no house on it?
Yes. Vacant land is its own category for us. Residential lots in DFW infill, suburban lots that builders skipped, country acreage in Parker, Wise, Hood, Johnson, and Ellis counties, ranchettes that ended up with the kids after a parent passed, lake lots that nobody has used in a decade, ag-use tracts that the next generation does not want to keep farming, leftover commercial lots from a stalled subdivision plat. We do not need a structure to underwrite a deal. Land has its own comp set, its own carrying-cost math, and its own legal complications, and we have a workflow for each of those. Send us the legal description or the address — if there is no street address, the county appraisal district account number works — and we go from there.
Why is it so hard to sell vacant land on the open market?
Three structural reasons, and they compound. First, financing. Conventional mortgages do not finance raw land — the loan products that exist are specialty land loans through a small number of lenders (Texas land banks, agricultural lenders, some local credit unions), and they require 20 to 50 percent down, shorter terms, and higher rates than a normal mortgage. Most retail buyers cannot get a loan and therefore are not in the buyer pool. Second, the buyer pool that does exist — cash buyers, builders, ranchers, recreational owners — is much smaller than the buyer pool for houses. Most agents focus on residential listings because that is where the volume and the commission sit, so land listings often sit on the MLS for 12 to 24 months without serious activity. Third, due diligence on raw land is more complicated than on a house — survey, mineral check, easements, access, utility availability, flood plain, ag rollback exposure — and many retail buyers walk during the option period once they see what is involved. The combination is why land sellers often end up calling cash buyers after a year of listing produced nothing useful.
My land has been on ag-use valuation — what is the rollback risk?
This is one of the most expensive surprises in a Texas land sale, and a lot of sellers do not know it exists until the title company runs the calculation. Texas Property Tax Code sections 23.51 through 23.55 govern agricultural special-use valuation, often called 1-d-1 or just "ag exemption" colloquially (technically a special-use appraisal, not an exemption). When ag-use land changes to a non-agricultural use, the county appraisal district can issue a rollback tax — the difference between the taxes the owner paid under the ag valuation and the taxes they would have paid at market value, for the five years preceding the change, plus interest. On a sizable tract that has been ag-valued for decades, the rollback can run tens of thousands of dollars. Important nuances: the rollback is triggered by the change of use, not by the change of ownership — meaning if the new buyer continues qualifying ag use (cattle, hay production, beekeeping in many counties, wildlife management with a plan), the rollback does not fire. The 2021 changes (Senate Bill 1) shortened the rollback period from five years to three years on most transactions, but the math is still material. We underwrite this risk into our offer — if your land has been ag-valued and we plan to develop it, the rollback is on us. If it has been ag-valued and we plan to continue qualifying ag use, no rollback fires. The contract reflects which path applies. This is not tax advice — talk to a Texas property tax attorney or a CPA for your specific facts.
What about mineral rights — do you need them?
Honest answer: it depends on the tract and the market. In a lot of rural and East Texas land, the minerals were severed from the surface decades ago — sold off to oil and gas operators in the 1950s, 1960s, or earlier, and inherited downward through families that may not even know they own them. In the Barnett Shale footprint (Tarrant, Johnson, Wise, Denton, Parker counties) and across the East Texas oil basins, severed minerals are the norm rather than the exception. We do not require you to convey minerals you do not own — title will show what you have and what you do not, and the deed reflects exactly that. If you own the surface only, we buy the surface. If you own both, we will discuss whether minerals are included in the purchase or reserved by you. On undeveloped suburban land where nothing has been drilled and no royalty interest exists, the question is largely academic and we treat the minerals as a standard accommodation either way. On producing tracts with active royalty income — different conversation entirely, and we underwrite the royalty stream separately from the dirt.
My land has pipeline easements running through it — does that kill the deal?
No. Pipeline easements are common across North Texas — DCP Midstream, Energy Transfer, Targa Resources, and various gathering systems run through huge swaths of Wise, Denton, Parker, Jack, and Montague counties because the Barnett Shale infrastructure was built out across the entire region. Easement language varies — some easements restrict surface use within a defined corridor, some require setbacks for buildings, some include access rights for the operator to come and go for maintenance. We pull the easement documents during title and read them as part of the underwrite. A 50-foot pipeline easement crossing the front 200 feet of a 40-acre tract affects how the tract can be developed and therefore affects the math; it does not stop a deal. If you have the easement documents handy, send them with the call. If not, title pulls them.
Do I need a survey to sell my land to you?
Not before talking to us, no. For a closing, the title company will typically require a current survey for any vacant land transaction — partly because there is no improvement to anchor the legal description against, partly because boundary disputes on rural land are common, and partly because title insurance underwriters specifically require it for land. If you already have a recent survey from a prior transaction, send it and we use that one. If not, we order the survey as part of our diligence and the cost is built into the deal — we do not ask the seller to fund a survey before closing. On larger acreage tracts, the survey can take 4 to 8 weeks depending on the surveyor's backlog and the size of the property, which sets the closing calendar. On smaller residential lots in platted subdivisions, the existing plat usually suffices.
I am paying property tax every year on a vacant lot I am not using — what is the math on holding vs. selling?
This is one of the most common reasons we get vacant-land calls. Carrying cost on vacant land in Texas is steeper than people expect, because vacant lots do not qualify for the homestead exemption (which is the biggest single property tax reduction in the state). On a vacant lot without homestead, the effective tax rate is the full county-plus-city-plus-school-plus-special-district stack — often 2.0 to 2.7 percent of assessed value per year in DFW counties. On a $40,000 lot, that is $800 to $1,100 per year. On a $150,000 lot, it is $3,000 to $4,000 per year. Layer in liability insurance (sellers often forget — but vacant land does carry liability exposure if someone trespasses and gets hurt), and minimal maintenance to keep the lot from becoming a code-violation magnet (mowing in growing season, sometimes brush clearing), and the annual carry on a held lot can easily run $1,500 to $5,000 depending on size and assessed value. Over five years that compounds. The seller-side question is honest: if you are not going to develop the lot and you are not actively planning to flip it, the held position is a small but persistent drain on your finances every year. That is the math behind most "I have been meaning to sell this lot for years" calls.
Is this legal or tax advice?
No. We are real-estate operators, not attorneys, not CPAs, and not certified Texas property tax consultants. The descriptions of ag-use rollback mechanics under Texas Property Tax Code sections 23.51-23.55, mineral severance, easement law, and carrying-cost math on this page are operational framing intended to help you ask better questions — not a substitute for a Texas land attorney, a property tax professional, or a CPA familiar with your specific situation. Rollback exposure, severed mineral interests, easement enforcement, and tax basis on inherited land are all areas where the right professional advice can save real money or avoid real headaches. For an actual legal opinion on your tract, hire a Texas real-estate or land-use attorney; for tax questions, talk to a CPA. Our job is to underwrite the property and write you an honest cash offer with the survey, title commitment, and easement work in hand.
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