Key Takeaways
The nine checks that decide whether a parcel is worth buying, which three are pass or fail, and the one almost every buyer and every guide leaves out.
- Legal access is a recorded right, not a usable track, and without it the parcel is worth a fraction.
- You can own the surface and not the minerals, and in a split estate the mineral owner can generally use your surface.
- “Get a survey” is incomplete advice. The ALTA/NSPS standard took effect 23 February 2026 and names what to order.
- Recording, not signing, decides who wins when two people claim the same parcel.
- Soil, zoning and flood all move the price. Access, minerals and title decide whether there is a deal at all.
Good land and bad land look identical in a listing photo. The difference is nine checks, three of which are pass or fail, and one of which almost nobody runs until it is too late.
That one is the mineral estate. You can close on a parcel, record your deed, own the surface outright, and discover that someone else owns what is underneath it and has a legal right to come and get it. Every guide on this subject lists access, water, soil, zoning, flood and title. This one adds the check that can cost you the use of the ground you just bought.
This is for buyers working through a specific parcel. Everything below is verifiable before you sign. General information only, not legal advice, and land rules are county and state specific, so confirm with the county and a real estate attorney.
Quick verdict: run access, minerals and title first, because each is pass or fail and no price makes up for failing one. Then soil, zoning, flood and water, which set what the parcel can become and what it should cost. Order an ALTA/NSPS survey rather than asking vaguely for a survey. Write every unresolved item into the contract as a contingency with its own deadline. A parcel that clears all nine is worth pursuing at a fair price; one that fails access, minerals or title is worth walking away from at any price.
What Should You Look For When Buying Land?
Nine things, in a deliberate order: legal access, mineral ownership, water, soil, zoning, flood risk, title, survey and price. The order matters because the first three are pass or fail and the rest are price.
Most checklists give you eight of these and stop. They also present them as equally weighted, which they are not. A parcel with mediocre soil is a parcel you pay less for. A parcel with no recorded access is not a parcel you buy.
Work the pass-fail items before you spend money on anything else, because each can end the deal in an afternoon at the county recorder. Our guide on how to buy vacant land covers the full purchase sequence these checks sit inside.
Does the Land Have Legal Access?
Legal access means a recorded right to reach the parcel, not a track you can drive today. A road on the ground and a right to use that road are different things, and only one of them survives the neighbour selling.
What you want is an easement. Cornell’s Legal Information Institute defines an easement as “the grant of a nonpossessory property interest that provides the easement holder permission to use another person’s land.” Easements arise “by express grant, by implication, by necessity, and by adverse possession”, and critically they “are transferrable and transfer along with the dominant tenement.”
That transfer clause is the whole point. A properly recorded easement runs with the land, so it outlives the neighbour selling, dying or changing their mind. A verbal arrangement outlives none of those.
Without legal access, financing, permitting and resale all get harder and the parcel is worth a fraction of the asking price. Treat it as pass or fail.
Who Owns the Minerals Under the Parcel?
Possibly not you, and this is the check almost every buyer and every competing guide skips. The surface estate and the mineral estate can be owned separately, and where they are, the mineral estate usually wins.
The Bureau of Land Management states it directly. In a split estate, “When the surface rights to a piece of land and the subsurface rights (such as the rights to develop minerals) are owned by different parties, the mineral rights often take precedence over other rights.”
Take precedence means the mineral owner or their lessee can have a legal right to use the surface you bought to reach what they own. Not a nuisance, a property right, and one that was severed in a deed long before the parcel was listed.
This is not a frontier problem either. BLM notes that millions of acres of private land in the Montana and Dakotas region involve a split estate, with private surface and mineral rights retained by the federal government or other entities. Even the mundane version catches people: on sand, gravel, stone and scoria, BLM’s advice to landowners is that “these materials may or may not belong to the surface owner”.
Ask the title company to run the mineral chain, not just the surface chain, and ask in writing. If the minerals are severed, find out who holds them and whether anything is currently leased.
Is There Water, and What Will It Cost to Get?
Look for a water source you can actually reach and afford, because water is the constraint that most often turns a cheap parcel into an expensive one. A lot with water at the line is worth substantially more than a remote one without.
Where there is no municipal supply you are drilling a well, and the responsibility that comes with it surprises people. The EPA states that the quality and safety of drinking water from private drinking water wells are “not regulated by the Federal Government under the Safe Drinking Water Act nor by most state governments and laws”, and that private well owners “are responsible for delivering safe drinking water to their households.”
So budget for the well and for testing it, permanently. Around 15 percent of the US population relies on private wells, so this is ordinary rather than exotic, and most states run a public well log database that shows real depths and yields within a mile of the parcel.
Get a written quote from the utility for extending power to the specific parcel, and a driller’s quote at the depth the neighbouring logs actually show. Those two numbers move more deals than the asking price does.
Will the Soil Support What You Want to Build?
Check the soil before you visit, then confirm on the ground. Soil decides whether you can build at all, and where there is no sewer it decides whether you can install a septic system.
The USDA Web Soil Survey describes itself as the single authoritative source of soil survey information, with maps and data online for more than 95 percent of the nation’s counties, free. It flags heavy clay, shallow bedrock and poor drainage before you drive anywhere.
It does not replace a perc test. The county health department is the body that actually decides whether a standard septic system is permittable on that ground, and their criteria and approved-installer list are public. Call them before you make an offer, not after.
Poor soil rarely ends a deal outright. It narrows what the parcel can become and it should move the price.
Does the Zoning Allow Your Plan?
Confirm the zoning classification and any recorded restrictions permit the use you intend, before you get attached to the view. Zoning is local, it is written down, and it can quietly rule out your entire plan.
Check three separate things, because they are three separate documents: the county or municipal zoning classification, any deed restrictions or restrictive covenants recorded against the parcel, and any homeowners association rules. A parcel can be correctly zoned and still be barred by a covenant from 1978.
Treat the classification as fixed when you price the deal. Rezoning happens, but it is discretionary, slow, and not something to buy on the assumption of.
Zoning that fits your plan is the check that unlocks everything else. Our raw land due diligence checklist sets out the full sequence and the red flags that should change your price or end the conversation.
Is the Parcel in a Flood Zone?
Check it in five minutes before you drive out, because flood exposure lowers value, raises cost and can prevent building entirely. It is the cheapest check on this list.
The FEMA Flood Map Service Center is the official public source for flood hazard information produced in support of the National Flood Insurance Program, searchable by address or coordinates.
Read the result carefully, including what it does not say. FEMA has not mapped every area, so an unmapped parcel returns an absence of data rather than an absence of risk, which is exactly the situation rural vacant land is most often in.
A lot largely inside a floodway can require costly elevation, carry mandatory insurance obligations once there is a structure and a loan, or be effectively unbuildable.
Is the Title Clean, and Who Decides?
Look for clear, insurable title, and understand that the recording is what settles competing claims rather than the signing. This is the second pass-fail check and the one with the least visible failure mode.
Cornell’s Legal Information Institute explains that a recording act is “a law that regulates the recording of deeds and other interests in real property”, and that it “determines the priority between parties that have competing claims over the same property.” States run one of three types, race, notice and race-notice.
You do not need to know which type your state uses to act correctly: record promptly, and let the closing agent do it as part of closing rather than handing you a deed to file later.
Buy the owner’s title policy. On a land purchase it is the only protection against a defect that predates you, and the title search that produces it is what surfaces liens, gaps, easements and the severed mineral estate from the section above.
Which Survey Should You Actually Order?
Order an ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey rather than asking generically for a survey. There is a published national standard, it was updated this year, and naming it is the difference between a map and a document your title insurer will act on.
The ALTA/NSPS Minimum Standard Detail Requirements for Land Title Surveys are published jointly by the American Land Title Association and the National Society of Professional Surveyors, and the 2026 requirements took effect on 23 February 2026, superseding the 2021 version.
They set out required fieldwork, plat preparation, Table A optional items, certification and deliverables, and they exist to identify boundary issues, easements, encroachments, access concerns and other matters that may affect insurable title.
Table A is where you specify the extras you want for your particular parcel. Ask the surveyor which Table A items apply to raw land and make the survey a contract contingency with its own deadline, so a bad result is something you can walk away from.
What Questions Should You Ask Before You Offer?
Ask the questions whose answers you cannot get from a listing, and ask them in writing so the answers become part of the record. Nine questions cover the nine checks.
Is access recorded, and can I see the instrument? Are the minerals severed, and if so who holds them and is anything leased? Where does water come from, and what have neighbouring wells cost? Has a perc test been done, and will the county permit a standard system here? What is the zoning classification and are there recorded covenants?
Is the parcel mapped by FEMA, and what zone? Are there liens, judgments or unpaid taxes? When was the last survey and does a current plat exist? And what have comparable nearby parcels actually sold for, recorded rather than asking?
Anything the seller cannot answer becomes a contingency in the contract. Our guide to the land purchase agreement covers which contingencies belong on a vacant land deal and why the residential form omits most of them.
What Should the Parcel Cost?
Price it from recorded sales of comparable nearby parcels, adjusted for how it scored on the nine checks. A national average tells you nothing about a specific piece of ground.
The adjustment is the part buyers skip. Two neighbouring parcels with identical acreage can differ by a multiple on access alone, and a severed mineral estate, poor drainage or a floodway crossing each justify a real discount rather than a shrug.
Our breakdown of how much does an acre of land cost shows the range by type and location, and where the published averages mislead. Use it to sanity-check a listing, not to price a parcel.
Is the Right Land Worth the Price?
Yes, when it clears the pass-fail checks and the number is supported by recorded comparable sales. A parcel with recorded access, unsevered or accounted-for minerals and insurable title earns its price. A cheaper one failing any of those rarely does.
Rural parcels carry a second set of checks that suburban lots never raise, from road maintenance in winter to who plows and who pays. The companion guide on what to look for when buying rural land covers those.
Working through land for sale by owner lets you run several parcels past the first three checks quickly before committing to a site visit on any of them.
Shortlist the parcels that pass
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most important thing to look for when buying land?
Legal access, because a landlocked parcel is hard to use, finance or resell. What you need is a recorded easement rather than a usable track, since Cornell LII notes easements transfer along with the dominant tenement and a verbal arrangement does not. After access, mineral ownership and insurable title are the other two pass-fail checks.
Do I own the mineral rights when I buy land?
Not necessarily. Surface and mineral estates can be owned separately, and BLM states that where they are, the mineral rights often take precedence over other rights, so the mineral owner may use your surface to reach them. Ask the title company to search the mineral chain specifically, because a standard surface search may not surface a severance.
What kind of survey should I get when buying land?
An ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey. The Minimum Standard Detail Requirements published by the American Land Title Association and the National Society of Professional Surveyors took effect on 23 February 2026, and they cover fieldwork, plat preparation, Table A optional items and certification, identifying boundary, easement, encroachment and access matters affecting insurable title.
What should you avoid when buying land?
Avoid parcels with no recorded access, a severed mineral estate you have not investigated, title with liens or boundary disputes, soil that will not perc where you need septic, zoning that bars your plan, and ground inside a floodway. Also avoid paying above recorded comparable sales. Any single pass-fail failure is enough to walk.
Resources and Further Reading
- Bureau of Land Management, Split Estate Explains that where surface and subsurface rights are separately owned, mineral rights often take precedence.
- Bureau of Land Management, Who owns the minerals under your land Notes that sand, gravel and stone may or may not belong to the surface owner, and how to verify ownership.
- ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey Standards The 2026 Minimum Standard Detail Requirements, effective 23 February 2026, and what a land title survey must cover.
- Cornell Legal Information Institute, Easement Defines an easement as a nonpossessory property interest that transfers with the dominant tenement.
- Cornell Legal Information Institute, Recording act Explains that a recording act determines priority between parties with competing claims to the same property.
- EPA, Private Drinking Water Wells Confirms private wells sit outside the Safe Drinking Water Act and that the owner is responsible for water safety.
- USDA Web Soil Survey Free NRCS soil maps and drainage data covering more than 95 percent of US counties.
- FEMA Flood Map Service Center The official public source for flood hazard information, searchable by address or coordinates.
