This would be a per acre price for nice building lots.

Sorry, can't help you much with this.

In this town in central Massachusetts, building lots aren't typically carved out of large swaths of former farmland, and so what comes to market tends to be priced uniquely per each lot. If there's a lot of "wet" areas on the lot, the price is accordingly lower. If there's open dry fields, higher. If it has "views" (we live in the foothills of a small mountain), much higher.

Are you looking for a cheap place to build? Or just curious how costs where you are compare to other places?

The latter is a potential way to madness, BTW. :-) It will drive you nuts to hear how little good buildable lots are going for in cheaper locations.

--Steve

Your question is very open ended. Are you looking for something in a subdivision, with associated infrastructure costs absorbed by the developer, or are you looking for raw land that is completely undeveloped? Around here, the latter runs from about $5,000 an acre for junk acre lots to as high as $20,000 an acre for the better properties. The former can easily go as high as $100,000 for an acre lot in a high end subdivision--more if it is a waterfront subdivision--much more if it is a waterfront lot.

This is in East Tennessee.

As stated by others, asking about what should be paid for raw land is like asking what a fair wage is...minimum wage up to $130 million for a CEO position.

In 2000 (before the RE boom), we sold our house on a 1/3 acre lot for $1.5 million. The house was immediately bulldozed to build a new house; the buyer only wanted the land. It had no view, no water access, just a nice sleepy neighborhood in the town of Atherton, CA in Silicon Valley (home to Joe Montana, Charles Schwab and a bunch of other rich guys). Bare land in that town was going for $6-8 million/acre...at the time. It later went up to well over $10 million/acre during the boom.

Does that help?

We're in the Columbus, Ohio area. Standard sized lots in the better suburbs around here go for anywhere from $50,000 to over a million, depending on the location. Unimproved acreage within a 30 minute commute is more widely varied, from about $8,000/acre on up, depending on where it is and whether or not there are woods and/or a stream/river/lake/pond. We choose to go a bit further out, about a 35-40 minute commute, and paid $37,500 for 8 acres with woods, a ravine overlooking a flowing stream and a pond, with a nice rise that gives us a great view.
Our closest neighbors are almost a mile down the road and we have Amish farms all around us.

Anywhere you look for a building site, the price is determined by location, amentities and commute time to major employment centers.

There is very little open land inside the capital beltway in northern Virginia.
Small single story houses are now pretty routinely demolished for the lot and a million dollar plus house built.
The lot value is easily $500,000 for one sixth of an acres.
That would give a per acre price of ~$3 million.

The few larger buildable lots often go for well into the $1 million zone.

Our rural subdivision is a planned "equestrian community" of ten lots. It's located twenty miles north of the MS gulf coast. The smallest lot is five acres, the next is eight acres and the rest are ten acres to twenty five acres. Underground power lines, no sewer, dig your own well, brick entrance way.

I bought one month before Hurricane Katrina and got what I think is quite a deal, and combined three lots for a total of 32 acres.

There is one lot left, 25 acres that they want $250,000 for.

In the town of Ocean Springs, just south of us, lots sell for a minmum of 20K per acre. Waterfront lots sell for a half acre for 250K, beach front lots for half a million to a million.

After Katrina, they can keep them.

Hope that helps.

In October, purchased our .79 acre lot in middle TN for $26k (not a steal, but a good deal). It's in a 7-8yr old above average subdivision in the city limits with homes in the 2-4000sqft range. Not super ritzy, not crappy.

Around here, multiple acreage lots go for 10-20k per acre. But you pretty much can't find a lot in a subdivision for less than $20 no matter what size (.5 acre is a typical lot size).

Central VA- our subdivision has lots of 2-3 acres. All are currently selling at $300K+ depending on location in the subdivision. You can find stand-alone, rural lots for about $40K/acre, but they are usually zoned so that you must purchase a 5-10 acre parcel. Of course, river views/access will up all of those numbers.

I don't think that this is a valuable exercise unless you state where you are looking to buy land...

Guess I was a little vague with the question. I was just curious how prices vary in different parts of the country.
We have 10 acres about 3 miles from town. We are building our house on part of it. We did have to put in the power, well, and septic system. It would be as dixiedoodle called it a stand alone, rural lot.

In Nassau County, Long Island a lot that is about 75 feet by 100 feet will sell for about $200,000. More if the location is closer to the water etc.

If you could FIND a building lot here in FL, you might pay $200K for 1/4 acre in a good neighborhood. We bought 7 acres in upstate SC for $10K an acre- that's for usable (but heavily wooded) land with a mountain view. For land that has issues, such as steep and rocky, or in a flood zone, you might find $5K an acre there. Of course, SC too has fancy subdivisions with high prices. One that I read about has 2 acre mountain view lots starting at $350K!

Similar to the last two responses here too. Inside the urban growth boundary of Portland there is no such thing as an acre lot to build on. If you're lucky you might still find a quarter acre and the going rate is about $350,000.

The assessed value for .9 acre of land at 1126 Chain Bridge Road, McLean, VA is $1,045,000. In 2000, the owner bought the property for $1,350,000 and tore down the structure. The owner's name is withheld by request, but the mailing address of the owner is 1 Observatory Circle, Washington, DC.

That would be the VP Dick.

58x120 lot in the "Lakeview" area of New Orleans that we just bought was appraised for 86thousand.

We paid $90,000 for our acre in Northern California, east of Redding approx. 3 years ago. It's wooded, backs up to national forest and is at the end of a culdesac. Water and power are there already, but we'll have to install a septic system.

Blessings,
Haley

Without getting too much into specifics (location, size, how much is buildable, etc.), it is pretty hard to find any type of decent buildable lot in a desirable town in Massachusetts for under $300k.

We don't really have lots here. Every house is built on a coupe of acres and the competition is with buyers who want to increase their farm or forestry holdings. Good farmland seems to sell for between $1000 and $2500 per acre. Good woodland is similar or maybe a bit higher. On the other hand, cut over woodland is still selling for about $1000 and acre even though the value has been removed.

We bought about 100 acres for $59,000 when the sellers really needed to sell. They knew we were looking and wanted a quick sale for personal reasons so they contacted us with the much lower price than when we viewed the land a half a year earlier.

In the North Shore suburbs of Chicago an acre lot starts at $1 million. We sold our 2000 sq ft ranch on a 1/3 acre lot for about $450K in 2000 -- as a teardown. There aren't a lot of homes on one acre within 15 miles of Chicago on the North Shore. Our buyers wanted the pretty little neighborhood, that particular grammar school, and New Trier HS.

We moved 15 miles further north along the lake; bought a treed and landscaped acre beside a creek, backed by a conservancy; 3 minutes to town and RR on a 'country-looking' 2-lane road. Five minutes to the beach. We also did a teardown of a ranch to build new.

The acre west of us sold as a teardown in 2004 (on a corner w/4-way stop, no creek, no buffer of trees). It brought $1,050,000.

From the time we built and moved in (2001) many smaller, older homes on our street (not classics, that's not permitted) have been replaced by some pretty huge houses -- several on just one acre; some on up to five.

All these properties have excellent city services and schools, and are served by good hospitals, rail and highways; O'Hare airport is 30 minutes away. We watch all manner of wildlife from our porch, but I can be pushing my grocery cart in the Jewel in five minutes.

Now, you wouldn't have to go far from our doorstep to find a former corn field being subdivided for houses. There are no trees, no schools or city services -- not yet, and when they are built taxes will zoom. Speaking of RE taxes, ours are 1% of TRUE market value -- not assessed value.

Sorry to go on so. I wanted to try to illustrate that 'Value' can be determined a LOT of different ways!

How much is land selling for in your area....this would be a per acre price for nice building lots.

After 1 year and 3 attempts to buy our over priced lot, we finally made it through escrow. The discouraged owner trying to get a special-use permit from our country planning department would call us only to have a change of heart before we could make it into escrow. We went through this nightmare because this lot "spoke" to us. After a 3 year build we've been in our home 1 year now.

What was our lot per acre?
.....
PRICELESS!

In early 2006 we paid just over $30,000 for a .453 acre lot in Fort Mill, SC which is just outside Charlotte, NC. It's on a private road and requires septic. We're convinced that if the land becomes annexed by the town in the next few years (and thus hooks into the sewer system) the land will double in value.

But that's neither here nor there - as we plan to build on it someday (once it's annexed so we don't have to worry about having septic - which limits the # of bedrooms we can have).

In the old NW neighborhoods within Chicago a 25 X 150 lot is $300K. (But you get a nice alley. LOL)

Without getting too much into specifics (location, size, how much is buildable, etc.), it is pretty hard to find any type of decent buildable lot in a desirable town in Massachusetts for under $300k.

Does "desirable" mean, "close to Boston"? If one is willing to travel outside of the Route 495 belt, you can find acres for well under that.

We paid $127k in 2004 for 11 acres in a central MA town that we are loving living in.

--Steve

Pacific Northwest, 20 miles from Seattle, Zoned Rural 5 (1 house per 5 acres) = 5.5 acres $170,000 before wetlands studies, well drilling and septic design.

After all that (took 20 months) bank appraised it at $300,000.

Well, we have raw land that could be divided into buildable lots. We have 90 +/- acres, currently priced at $2,000/acre. There is rural water service and electricity available in one spot on the 90 acres, so I guess we could offer one lot that has utilities already there. This is rural Missouri.

foolyap, yes I was talking about land that is within what most would consider a reasonable commuter distance to Boston ...not outside the 495 belt. Certainly there is land to be had in central and western MA for much less.

foolyap, yes I was talking about land that is within what most would consider a reasonable commuter distance to Boston ...not outside the 495 belt.

I figured that's what you meant. The term "desirable" just seemed a bit strong to me. I find our current town plenty desirable. :) Can't argue that jobs are more plentiful the farther east one goes though.

--Steve

My place is in Mongolian beautiful place. My place very, very nice nature. There may use tourist camp or for golf. My land's size is 400m*400m. Very big and wide. I want to buy my land. If you interested my land you recieve e-mail to me

We paid $82000 four years ago for our unserviced lot, which is just over three acres in size. We live 6 miles from the nearest town (pop around 10000) and 20-25 minutes from two smaller cities and one large city in central Alberta.

Housing and land prices really skyrocketed after we bought, but are cooling slightly. Similar three acre lots in our area are now selling for $190000-$25000.

Carrie

Where we are going to build: White Salmon, WA area
Depends on views and whether it has utilities but the range seems to be 50,000-600,000 per acre for properties available right now.

Palouse area WA
(where we live now)
10,000 sq ft lot 10-50,000
acreage 20-400,000/acre

We bought 5 acres for $130k earlier this year. Utilities available at the road, needs septic. About half of it is wooded. It's about 10 mins from our town and 30 minutes from St Louis on the Illinois side of ole Miss. Probably overpaid a bit.

Cary, NC - looking at multiple lots at $160-240. Range from .45 acre with city water and sewer to 2.2 acres with neither.

Five years ago we paid $55K for a 3.8 acre lot 15 miles east of Austin, Tx. It is a flat (easily build-able) lot in a residential development with nice homes, reasonable deed restrictions, and city water tho we had to put in our own septic system. The property has lots of nice trees but no particular "view".

A 2.0 acre lot in the same development (actually right around the corner from us) with very similar typography was just listed for sale at $106K! i.e, more than 3X as much per acre as we paid five years ago. Who knows if it will actually sell for that much. I'm hoping it won't b/c if it does, our taxing authority will use the sale as an excuse to raise our property taxes.

The Town of Atwood in Atwood Kansas is giving lots away, in order to get folks to move to their town. There is another town in eastern Colorado doing the same thing, but can't remember name of the town. You have to stay and build there for so many years - something to that effect. These are out in extremly rural, isolated communities.

That's great......are they offering jobs to?........:)

If you can find one, two-acre lots in the Bridle Path area of Toronto go for $3-$4 million++. Nearby more affordable lots range from $900-$1.65m. Last month, an 80x110 foot lot a block from us sold for $920,000, plus the Provincial and City Land Transfer Tax of $29,000. All these lots have houses on them that are demolished.

Contrary to the American notions I still come across, there's not much hunting and fishing in the backcountry around here. (Which accounts for the infestation of racoons, geese and bunnies.)