Short version: you don't pay us anything, and you don't pay for due diligence.
A genuine warning about this industry. If any land buyer asks you to pay an upfront fee — for an appraisal, a listing, a "title report," a marketing package, or a membership — stop. Legitimate cash buyers make money by buying land, not by charging sellers. Advance-fee schemes are common in vacant land specifically, because owners are often remote and hard to sell to. We will never ask you for money.
These are the seller's or the parcel's regardless of who buys it, and they're settled at closing from the sale proceeds rather than out of your pocket:
Exactly what's customary varies by state; the title company or closing attorney confirms it for your specific closing.
Higher asking price — if it sells. Then subtract commission, and factor in that many agents won't take a low-priced land listing at all, that land routinely sits for one to three years, that buyers commonly want a survey or perc test before closing, and that every year it sits you pay taxes and any HOA dues. A meaningful share of vacant-land listings simply never sell.
Lower price, wholesale not retail. Then subtract nothing: no commission, no due-diligence spend, no carrying costs beyond closing, no travel, and no risk of a year of waiting followed by nothing. A firm written number now.
For a parcel you want and can comfortably hold, listing is likely better and we'll say so. For one you've been carrying for years and never use, the maths usually favours being done with it.
Selling land can have tax consequences, and they differ depending on how long you've held it, what you paid, whether you inherited it, and whether it was ever used in a business. Land also can't be depreciated, which changes the picture relative to rental property.
Talk to a CPA before you sell, particularly if the parcel has been held a long time or was inherited. It's usually a short, inexpensive conversation and it is not something to take from a website — including this one.
On a conventional land listing, buyers commonly want a boundary survey or a soil and percolation test before they commit, particularly where a septic system would be needed. Who pays is negotiated, and sellers often end up paying to keep a deal alive. With us, any survey that turns out to be needed is our cost, and we don't ask for a perc test to make an offer.
Even when taxes are current, the year's bill is usually split between buyer and seller based on the closing date, and that adjustment shows up on the settlement statement. It's normal and isn't a fee. If taxes are behind rather than current, our back taxes page explains how a delinquent balance is generally paid from proceeds rather than out of pocket before the sale.
Lots in an association can carry their own closing items: a payoff of any dues owed and, in some developments, a charge the association levies when ownership changes. What applies depends on the recorded covenants for that development. Our page on HOA dues on an empty lot covers arrears and liens, and the title company confirms the actual figures for your closing.
The cost people overlook most is the one that never appears on a closing statement: every year of taxes, dues and mowing or weed-abatement notices while the land sits listed. On a small parcel those carrying costs can rival the gap between a retail asking price and a cash offer. Our four-step process is designed so none of that waiting falls on you.
A written offer costs nothing and accounts for what's owed, so you can see what you'd really walk away with.
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