Where to Advertise Land for Sale - Get Land Buyers Looking at Your Listing
When it comes time to sell your land, you may not know where to get started. There are several steps to selling land by owner, but the most important is advertising land for sale. That's because it's not as easy to sell vacant land as it is a house. There are just fewer potential buyers for land and land buyers can be picky.
To sell land privately, you'll need an effective strategy to market your land for sale. We recommend advertising your land for sale in as many places as possible - both online and offline. Having many 'lines in the water' will give you the best chance of selling your land.
In this article, learn the best ways to advertise land for sale. We'll look at both free and paid ways to get attention for your land listing. Finally, if your marketing efforts fall short, we'll show you how you can sell your land for cash instead.
Key Takeaways
- Start your advertising offline with a for sale sign and a real estate letter to neighbors
- List land for sale by owner for free on Zillow, Facebook Marketplace, and Craigslist
- Consider paid real estate listings websites such as Land.com, Landflip, and flat fee MLS websites
- Selling land for cash is an option for speed and convenience
Start your advertising offline
You'll need a mixture of offline and online advertising to successfully sell your acreage. We recommend starting with two traditional ways of marketing property for sale: a for sale sign and a real estate letter to neighbors.
Put up a for sale sign
A real estate yard sign is a low-tech way to let people know that your land is for sale. A sign's main purpose is just to let people who are passing by your property know that your land is for sale.
A real estate for sale sign serves to:
- Notify passersby that your land is for sale
- Help prospective buyers find the property
Letter to neighbors
You can reach many potential buyers at once by sending a just listed letter to neighbors. You've probably received letters like these from real estate agents listing a home for sale. These letters actually work even better for land because nearby landowners are some of the most likely land buyers.
For more information, see our full guide on sending a real estate letter to neighbors.
Best website to list land for sale
Once your offline marketing is in place, you'll want to list your land for sale in several of the online marketplaces. Nowadays, there are so many ways to sell pretty much anything on the internet. Land is no exception. In fact, online land sales work really well because it makes it easy for buyers to find exactly what they're looking for.
List land for sale by owner for free
You may want to start with the free websites to list land for sale by owner (FSBO). These websites all get lots of traffic from people looking for land for sale. All of these websites also make it easy to post your land listing. The only drawbacks with these sites are that they don't specialize in land sales.
Zillow
When it comes to online listings, Zillow.com is the first website that comes to mind for many people, and with good reason. Zillow is the # 1 most visited real estate website, with tens of millions of visitors every month.
Zillow allows you to create detailed and very attractive FSBO listings, similar to ones posted by real estate agents. Zillow's interface makes it simple for buyers to contact you for more information. And Zillow has a specific category for lots and vacant land.
One drawback of Zillow is that prioritizes listings by real estate agents and makes it harder for a potential buyer to find for sale by owner listings. You can avoid this
Still, considering how easy it is to create a listing, and how many buyers search the platform, Zillow should be part of your strategy for selling rural land online. To learn more, see our complete guide on selling land on Zillow.
Facebook Marketplace
Facebook is used by approximately 200 million Americans, and about 75% of them use Facebook on a daily basis. Facebook Marketplace is the 'classifieds' area of Facebook and you can sell just about anything there. It's not surprising then that it's a great platform to buy and sell raw land.
Facebook is an easy way to sell rural properties with an ad that will be seen by many people looking for vacant land. As a social network your ad will also reach a wider audience when people share it with their friends.
There are a few downsides to Facebook, as well. There's not a specific category for buyers and sellers of land. Still, in our experience land listings get lots of views. You'll be using your Facebook profile to post the ad, which may create privacy concerns for some landowners. You'll also need to repost the ad frequently or yours will get buried under more recent ads.
As a free way to sell vacant land online though, Facebook is essential. What's so powerful about it is that people that see your ad will share it with friends they know are looking to buy land. For more information, see our complete guide on listing property for sale on Facebook.
Craigslist
With millions of visitors per month, Craigslist.org is one of the most visited websites in the US. If you think of Craigslist as just a place to pick up used furniture, think again. Craigslist is home to millions of real estate listings including land.
Craigslist has a specific category for listing land for sale. There is a map that allows buyers to search land for sale. The Craigslist listing template allows you to upload up to 24 photos. And there are many styling options to help make your listing stand out.
One the drawbacks of Craigslist is that it's known as a place for bargain hunters. That means there tends to be a lot of 'tire kickers' that will waste your time. Since it caters to bargain buyers it doesn't work as well for higher-value commercial property. Similar to Facebook Marketplace, you'll need to repost your ad frequently for it to get good exposure.
Still, considering it's free and the listing template is ideal for real estate, Craigslist should be part of your strategy to sell your land online.
To learn more, check out our article about selling land online with Craigslist.
Paid real estate listings websites
Free listing websites are a great place to start your real estate marketing. But if you don't get the results you are looking for with the free real estate websites there are paid sites that can be worthwhile.
Land.com
One is the Land.com family of sites which include Lands of America, Land And Farm and LandWatch. According to the Land.com home page these are three of the most visited land listing marketplaces on the internet with 12+ million visits per month to Land.com network of sites.
One of the real benefits of these websites compared to the free websites on this list is that all the visitors are actually looking for land. Land sales are not the focus of the free sites.
Landflip
Another platform for selling land and real estate is Landflip.com. Landflip does not have nearly as many monthly visitors as Land.com, but it's still one of the more popular land sites. They make it easy to search for different types of land. For example, they have property listing pages dedicated to ranch land, waterfront parcels, and even land auctions.
Loopnet
Loopnet is a website that caters more to commercial property listings. Both land sellers and real estate professionals use Loopnet to list commercial property for sale and also land for lease. It's more suitable for finding land for sale for real estate investors.
Flat fee MLS websites
Flat fee MLS listing services allow you to pay a fee to a broker to have a property listed on the MLS (multiple listing service). This is different than the traditional way of paying the listing real estate agent a commission (a percentage of the sales price).
The MLS is a database for real estate agents to post their listings for sale. These listings can then be seen by all the other realtors participating in that MLS. The public can also then see the MLS listings through websites like Realtor.com and Zillow that publish listings directly from the MLS databases.
The fee is paid upfront whether the land sells or not. A listing package generally costs between $100-$500 and lasts between 3 and 12 months. It's also typical to offer a buyer's real estate agent commission between 2.5 to 5%. So, flat fee listings are mostly about reducing the listing agent's commission.
To learn more, see our article about the pros and cons of listing your land on the MLS.
Selling land for cash
In some cases, marketing your land using the techniques described here still won't get results. The reality is that while there are many options for advertising land, it's not easy. It takes a lot of time to create advertisements, post them to various websites, and then respond to interested buyers.
For those reasons, convenience is more of a priority than getting the highest sale price for some sellers. A cash buyer like our company can make the transaction easy and painless for you as the seller. Typically, they can often buy your property quickly.
The downside to selling to a cash buyer is a discounted sale price since they need to make a profit (and go through all the steps to sell the land that you may not want to). For some sellers, this is a trade-off worth making when they consider the alternatives.
Conclusion - there's not just one marketplace
There's not just one way to sell your land. There are many different strategies and platforms, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Fortunately, you can get started on many of them for free. If you're not getting enough interest, you can try some of the paid websites. Finally, if nothing else works you can always get a cash offer from a company that buys vacant land.
