Key Takeaways
The same method a broker or appraiser uses, run from public records and a spreadsheet.
- You can run a full comparable sales analysis yourself. No licence is required, only sold data and honest adjustments.
- Five steps: find recent sold comps, select the best three to five, convert to price per acre, adjust for differences, reconcile to a value.
- Always use SOLD prices. Listing prices show what sellers hope for, not what buyers paid.
- Smaller parcels sell for more per acre, so a raw price-per-acre average across different sizes is misleading.
- If a comp is worse than your parcel in a feature, adjust it up. If it is better, adjust it down.
Working out what your land is worth does not require paying for an appraisal or handing a broker your listing. A comparable sales analysis is the method professionals use, and the inputs are public.
This is how to run one yourself, from finding real sold comps to building an adjustment grid and reconciling to a defensible number, with a worked example you can copy. For the wider picture of how land gets valued, start with our guide to how much your land is worth.
Quick verdict: do your own CMA if you want a data-backed price without paying for an appraisal and you are willing to dig for sold comps and adjust honestly. It works best when several similar parcels have sold nearby recently. If your land is genuinely unique, or almost nothing has sold near it, widen the search, treat the result as a broader range, and cross-check it.
What Is a Land Comparable Sales Analysis?
A method of estimating a parcel’s value by comparing it to similar parcels that recently sold.
It is the do-it-yourself version of the sales comparison approach appraisers use and the CMA land brokers prepare, and it rests on a simple idea: your land is worth roughly what comparable land nearby has been selling for, once you account for the differences.
Three routes exist and they differ in cost and formality. A licensed appraiser produces a formal valuation for a fee. A land broker prepares a CMA to win your listing. You can run your own for free. For most by-owner sellers a careful self-run analysis is enough to set a confident asking price, and it teaches you exactly how buyers will judge your number.
Why Are Land Comps Harder Than Home Comps?
Because land sells far less often, every parcel differs, and there is no square-footage shortcut.
A home appraiser can usually find several nearly identical houses sold within a mile in the last few months. For land you may search a wider area and a longer window just to find three or four rough matches, and even those differ in access, utilities, terrain and permitted use.
The second complication is that price per acre is not linear. A 2-acre lot might trade at $8,000 an acre while a 40-acre tract nearby trades at $3,000, purely because smaller parcels carry a per-acre premium. You cannot average price per acre across different-sized comps without adjusting for size.
It helps to have a national reference point for scale. USDA’s 2026 Land Values summary puts the national average at $2,000 an acre for pasture and $4,500 for farm real estate. Your county will differ, sometimes enormously, but a comp set landing far outside that range deserves a second look before you build a price on it.
Accept up front that a land CMA produces a reasonable range rather than one perfect number, and you will use it correctly.
Step 1: Find Recent Sold Sales, Not Listings
Sold prices are the only reliable evidence of value. Active listing prices tell you what sellers are asking, which is often optimistic and sometimes wildly so.
You want closed, recorded sales from roughly the last 6 to 12 months, stretching to 18 months if sales are scarce.
Public records are the best free source. County recorder and appraisal district or assessor sites publish recorded deeds and, in many states, sale prices. Plat maps and GIS portals show parcel size and location. A local title company or county office can fill gaps. Browsing active parcels on our land marketplace shows you what comparable land is being asked for and how quickly it moves, which is useful context, but confirm actual sold figures through the records.
Gather at least five to eight candidate sales before you narrow down.
Step 2: Select Your Three to Five Best Comparables
Quality of comps matters far more than quantity. The closer each comp is to your parcel in the ways buyers care about, the fewer adjustments you make and the more accurate the result.
Rank candidates on what actually drives land value: proximity, similar acreage, the same or similar zoning and permitted use, comparable legal access, similar utilities, and a recent sale date.
A parcel of the same size with the same access and utilities, sold three months ago a mile away, is gold. One that is triple the size, landlocked, and sold two years ago in the next county is close to useless.
Match intended use as well, since a recreational tract and a development lot follow different highest and best use logic even at the same acreage. Our guide to what factors affect land value covers which differences move a number and roughly how much.
Step 3: Convert Every Comparable to Price Per Acre
Divide each sale price by its acreage. This is the standard unit and it lets you line up parcels of different sizes.
A 10-acre parcel that sold for $52,000 is $5,200 an acre. An 8-acre parcel that sold for $48,000 is $6,000 an acre.
Do not stop there, because size itself changes price per acre. Smaller parcels sell for more per acre and larger ones for less, so a raw comparison between a 5-acre and a 40-acre comp misleads. Note each comp’s size beside its price per acre and plan to adjust for the gap in the next step.
One useful cross-check while you are here: assessed value is not market value and should never be used as a comp. Our explainer on assessed value vs market value covers why the two diverge and what the assessor’s record is actually good for.
Step 4: Adjust Each Comparable for Differences
One rule governs every adjustment: if a comp is inferior to your land in some feature, adjust its price up. If it is superior, adjust it down.
You are answering a single question. What would this comp have sold for if it were just like my parcel?
Make adjustments in dollars per acre for each meaningful difference: size, access, utilities, terrain, water, zoning and date of sale.
Here is a worked example. Your subject parcel is 10 acres with legal road access, power at the road, and gently rolling buildable ground.
| Feature | Comp 1 | Comp 2 | Comp 3 |
| Sold price per acre | $5,200 | $4,500 | $6,000 |
| Size vs 10 acres | 10 ac, $0 | 12 ac, +$200 | 8 ac, -$700 |
| Power at road | Yes, $0 | No, +$500 | Yes, $0 |
| Terrain | Good, $0 | Good, $0 | Steep, +$300 |
| Adjusted price per acre | $5,200 | $5,200 | $5,600 |
Comp 2 started lower because it lacked power and was larger, so it adjusts up to match your parcel. Comp 3 started higher because it was smaller, but its terrain is worse, so it nets out slightly above.
Keep adjustments honest and modest, and base them on real cost differences a buyer would recognise, such as what running power actually costs or what recorded legal access is worth. If you would not accept an adjustment from a buyer arguing the other way, do not make it in your own favour.
Step 5: Reconcile Your Comps to a Final Value
Weight your most similar comps most heavily, then settle on a range rather than a single figure.
In the example above the three adjusted figures are $5,200, $5,200 and $5,600 per acre. Comp 1 needed no adjustments at all, so it deserves the most weight. Weighting it at half and the other two at a quarter each gives $5,300 an acre, so a reasonable conclusion is roughly $5,200 to $5,300.
Apply that to your acreage. Ten acres at $5,200 to $5,300 is a value of about $52,000 to $53,000. That range is your data-backed asking guide. Price at the top of it if you can wait for the right buyer, or toward the middle for a faster sale. Our guide to price vacant land for sale covers how to choose between those depending on your timeline.
Common Mistakes in a Do-It-Yourself Land CMA
The three biggest are using listing prices instead of sold prices, skipping adjustments, and choosing convenient comps over comparable ones.
Listing prices reflect hope rather than value, and building on them almost guarantees overpricing. Averaging raw price per acre without adjusting for size, access and utilities produces a figure that is precise and wrong. A comp that was easy to find is not the same as a comp that is genuinely similar.
The quieter errors: comps that are too old or too far away, ignoring the size effect entirely, and letting optimism inflate the adjustments. When comps are genuinely scarce, widen your radius and window, note the added uncertainty, and treat the result as a broader range rather than pretending to precision you do not have.
When Should You Use AI or a Professional Appraiser Instead?
Use a self-run CMA for most by-owner sales, an automated estimate as a fast cross-check, and a licensed appraiser when the stakes or the parcel demand it.
On the automated cross-check, one thing is worth knowing. An automated valuation model does by machine what you just did by hand, across far more data. But the federal quality standard for these models, the CFPB’s AVM rule, defines a covered model as one valuing “an individual’s principal dwelling collateralizing a mortgage”.
Bare land sits outside it, so none of the five federal safeguards on confidence, data manipulation, conflicts of interest, testing or nondiscrimination apply to a land estimate. That is a reason to treat an automated number as a cross-check on your own work rather than a replacement for it, which is exactly how our AI land pricing workflow uses it.
On appraisals, the useful question is when one is actually required rather than merely available, and two federal thresholds answer it. Under 12 CFR 323.3 a federally regulated institution does not need an appraisal where a commercial real estate transaction is $500,000 or less, or a residential one $400,000 or less. Below those it obtains an evaluation instead.
Separately, IRS Publication 561 generally requires a qualified appraisal where a claimed deduction for donated property exceeds $5,000. Both thresholds are worth knowing before you assume you need to pay for one.
Most land sales sit under both. A court order or an estate valuation is the other common trigger. Outside those, your own CMA plus a cross-check is what most sellers need.
Turn Your CMA Into a Listing
A researched price backed by real sold comps is what serious buyers respect, and it is what defends your number when the first offer comes in below it.
Want a second opinion on your number? Run a free valuation and compare it against the figure your comps produced.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find comparable sales for land for free?
Use public records. County recorder or clerk sites list recorded deeds, and county appraisal district or assessor portals often show parcel sizes and, in many states, sale prices. GIS and plat maps show location and acreage. A local title company can fill gaps. Aim for closed sales within the last 6 to 12 months near your parcel.
How many comps do I need for a land CMA?
Three to five good comparables are enough, and quality matters far more than quantity. One nearly identical parcel that sold recently nearby is worth more than ten distant, dissimilar sales. If you can only find one or two close matches, widen your search area and time window, and treat your final value as a broader range to reflect the uncertainty.
Should I use price per acre or total price for land comps?
Use price per acre to compare parcels of different sizes, then adjust for the size effect. Smaller parcels sell for more per acre and larger ones for less, so a raw average across very different sizes misleads. Convert each comp to price per acre, adjust for the size gap against your parcel, then apply the reconciled figure to your acreage.
Can I do a land CMA without a realtor or appraiser?
Yes. A comparable sales analysis requires no licence, only public sold data and honest adjustments. Many by-owner sellers run their own and use an automated estimate to cross-check it. A formal appraisal is generally needed only when a lender, court or tax authority requires one, or when the parcel is unusual enough that reliable comps are hard to find.
How is a land CMA different from a home CMA?
A land CMA relies on price per acre and must account for size, access, utilities, terrain and zoning, while a home CMA leans on square footage, bedrooms and condition. Land sells far less often, so comps are sparser and you search wider areas and longer windows. There is also no building to inspect, so every clue comes from the parcel itself.
Resources and Further Reading
- USDA NASS Land Values 2026 Summary publishes national and state per-acre values, a useful scale check against any comp set.
- 12 CFR 323.3 gives the transaction thresholds below which a federally regulated institution may use an evaluation rather than a full appraisal.
- IRS Publication 561: Determining the Value of Donated Property sets out when a qualified appraisal is required and treats comparable sales as a foundational method.
- CFPB: Quality Control Standards for Automated Valuation Models defines a covered AVM as one valuing a principal dwelling, and sets out the five quality control factors.
