We’ve funded and sold hundreds of land deals. When a deal fails — and some do — it almost never fails because of the purchase price. It fails because nobody looked hard enough at the market before the contract was signed. The land was real. The price was reasonable. But there was no buyer. And there was no buyer because nobody checked whether buyers actually existed in that market, at that price, at that time.

This is the single most important thing we evaluate when a wholesaler submits a deal to us. Not the acreage. Not the photos. The market. Specifically: volume — how many parcels are actually trading — and trajectory — whether that number is growing, shrinking, or stalling.

Here’s how we do it, and how you should too before you put a property under contract.

Why comps alone will get you killed

A comp tells you what someone paid for a similar piece of land at a specific point in time. That’s useful. But it tells you nothing about whether that sale was one of fifty that month or one of two that year. It tells you nothing about whether the market has accelerated since then or quietly died. A comp from eight months ago in a market that peaked six months ago is not a comp — it’s a trap.

Volume tells you whether a market is real. Trajectory tells you whether it’s getting more or less real. Both numbers have to make sense before we’ll fund a deal.

What we mean by volume

Volume is simply the number of parcels that have sold in a defined area over a defined time period. We’re not interested in listings — listings are wishful thinking. We want closed sales. Recorded deeds. Money that actually changed hands.

For a market to be fundable, we want to see consistent transaction volume — not a handful of sales, but a pattern. Enough sales that we can draw a real distribution of prices and days on market. Enough sales that when we list a property, we’re not the only thing available. Enough sales that there’s a buyer pool, not just a buyer.

Where to pull volume data

• County assessor records — search by land use code and filter to vacant/unimproved parcels
• DataTree or PropStream — filter to deed transfers on land parcels, last 12 months
• Realtor.com or Zillow sold filters — rough but fast for a first pass on whether a market exists
• Land.com sold listings — specifically designed for land, shows actual closed deals
• Active listings alone — tells you what people want to sell, not what buyers want to buy
• Agent-quoted “hot market” without data behind it — we’ve heard this on markets with four sales in a year

What trajectory tells you that volume can’t

A market with strong volume right now might be declining. A market with modest volume might be accelerating fast. Trajectory is the rate of change — and it matters more than the snapshot.

We look at volume in three windows: the last 90 days, the last 6 months, and the last 12 months. Then we compare them. If the 90-day pace annualizes higher than the 12-month total, the market is accelerating. If it annualizes lower, the market is cooling. That’s the trajectory.

The first one is waking up. The second one just had its best year and is now pulling back. Same volume if you cherry-pick the right window. Completely opposite trajectory.

The price band problem

Volume at the market level doesn’t help you if the sales aren’t happening in your price band. A county might have 40 land sales in a year — but if 35 of them are $3,000 recreational lots and your deal is a $28,000 buildable parcel, you don’t have a comparable market. You have noise.

Always filter volume to a price range within roughly 40% of your expected sale price. If your target is $22,000, you want to see consistent volume between $13,000 and $31,000. Sales outside that range tell you about a different buyer.

Days on market: the number nobody talks about enough

Closed sale price tells you what buyers paid. Days on market tells you how long they took to decide. Both matter. A market with strong volume but 280-day average DOM is telling you something: buyers exist but they’re patient, selective, and have options. That’s a harder exit than a market with the same volume and 60-day DOM.

We want to see DOM trending down or holding steady. Rising DOM — even in a market with stable volume — is an early warning that the balance of power is shifting toward buyers. Price adjustments are coming. Plan for them.

A quick framework: the four-question market check

Before you put any land deal under contract, get answers to these four questions. If you can’t answer all four, you don’t know your market yet.

• How many parcels sold in the last 12 months in my price band and county?— You want a real number, not a guess. Pull it from the county or a data provider.
• Is the 90-day pace above or below the annual pace?— Above means accelerating. Below means cooling. Neither is disqualifying, but both change how you price.
• What is the median DOM on recent closed sales?— This tells you how long you’ll be carrying the deal if you win the bid.
• Are the sales spread across multiple buyers, or concentrated in one or two?— One buyer is not a market. Check the grantee names on recorded deeds. Concentration is a red flag.

When thin markets still work

We don’t automatically pass on thin markets. Some of our best deals have been in counties with modest volume — because the pricing reflected the thinness and the buyer, when found, paid accordingly. The key is going in with your eyes open. A thin market requires a longer hold assumption, a lower acquisition price, and often a seller financing structure that opens the buyer pool beyond the handful of cash buyers who exist.

What we won’t do is fund a deal in a thin market at a price that only works if the market is deep. That’s where wholesalers get stuck — they find a great-looking property, they find one comp, and they work backward from the comp to justify the price. The market doesn’t care about that logic.

Know your market before you know your price. In that order. Every time.

Finance Land Sales has completed 300+ joint venture deals and sold over $20 million in raw vacant land. Steve Hodgdon and Nick Curry have been in the land space for five years, with a focus on markets where the data supports the exit.