The Questions to Ask Before You Buy Your First Few Acres

Four things decide whether a piece of land is usable: how you legally get onto it, where the water comes from, where the waste goes, and what it costs to bring power to the spot you want to build. Everything else is preference. If any one of those four goes badly, the acreage is a place you visit on weekends, not a place you live.

The listing won't tell you. The agent may genuinely not know. Rural listings get written from a tax card and a drone photo, and "buildable" in the description means nothing legally. So you ask.

Start with access, not acreage

Walk the property line where it meets the road and ask one question: is my access recorded?

Frontage on a public road is the clean version. You touch the county right-of-way, you apply for a driveway permit, you're done. Everything else is a degree of complication.

If you reach the land over somebody else's property, you need a recorded easement, in writing, in the deed, with a description of where it runs and what it's for. A gravel track people have used for thirty years is not an easement. A handshake with the neighbor is not an easement. A gate that's always been unlocked is not an easement, and the day that neighbor sells, you'll find out.

Ask the title company to pull the easement language and read it yourself. Look for width, and look for permitted use. Some easements are written for agricultural access only, which becomes an interesting conversation when a concrete truck shows up.

Also ask who maintains it. A shared gravel drive with no recorded maintenance agreement is a future argument with a person you'll be stuck living beside. If there's no agreement, propose one before closing while everybody's still friendly.

Water is a location-specific question

In some counties, you drill and you hit water at a predictable depth. In others, you drill three times and get a dry hole twice.

Call two local well drillers, give them the parcel number, and ask what they've hit nearby and how deep. They keep records and they'll usually tell you. Ask about yield in gallons per minute, not just depth. Ask about sulfur, iron, and hardness, because water you have to treat forever is a running cost.

In much of the western United States, water rights are a separate matter from the land and don't automatically come with it. If you're buying anywhere water is allocated, ask your attorney specifically what rights, if any, transfer.

If the property already has a well, get it tested and get a flow test, not just a bacteria sample. A well that produces fine for a weekend cabin can fall over under a family, a washing machine and a garden.

Get a perc test before you're committed

Septic is where people lose the most money without seeing it coming.

The soil has to accept water at a workable rate, and the county has to approve a system. A failed perc test doesn't always mean no house, but it can mean an engineered system that costs multiples of a conventional one. Some parcels won't support anything at all.

Make the perc test a contingency in your offer, at your expense, before the money is non-refundable. Ask the county health department what they require, who's approved to do the testing, and how long the permit stays valid once issued. Some permits expire. Some are site-specific, meaning the approval is tied to one location on the parcel and not the one with the view.

While you're on the phone with the health department, ask about minimum lot size for a septic permit, and whether the county requires a reserve drain field area. That reserve eats buildable space.

Call the power company with coordinates

Electric cooperatives will give you an estimate to run service to a specific point. Do it early, get it in writing, and be specific about where the meter goes.

The cost isn't the length of wire so much as what's in the way. A creek crossing, a road bore, rock, or a stretch where they need new poles changes the number substantially. Moving your build site two hundred feet closer to the existing line sometimes saves more than you'd expect.

Ask the same question about internet. Fixed wireless, fiber, satellite, or nothing. If you work from home, that's a deal point, not a detail.

Read the zoning before you fall in love

County planning offices answer the phone and they're used to this call. Give them the parcel number and ask, plainly:

• What's the zoning, and what's allowed by right?
• What are the front, side and rear setbacks?
• Can I put a shop, a barn, or a second dwelling on it?
• Can I live in an RV or a camper while I build, and for how long?
• Are there deed restrictions or covenants recorded against this parcel?

That last one catches people. Covenants can exist on rural land with no HOA and no signage. They can ban mobile homes, livestock, outbuildings over a certain size, or commercial activity. They run with the land and you inherit them.

If the property currently has an agricultural tax valuation, ask what happens when you change the use. Some states claw back several years of tax savings at transfer or at conversion. Your closing attorney should confirm how it works where you're buying.

Walk it when the weather's bad

Anybody can love a pasture in October. Go back after two days of rain.

Where does water sit? Where does it run? Is there a low spot that tells you the whole back half is wet in spring? A property that drains across your building site is a drainage project before it's a house.

Pull the FEMA flood map for the parcel. Then ignore the map and look at the ground anyway, because maps lag reality and creek behavior is local knowledge. Ask the neighbors how high it got the worst year they remember.

Check the slope where you want to build. Gentle slope is a gift; it drains and it's cheap to work with. Steep ground means retaining walls, longer driveways, and equipment charges every time you need anything done.

Survey, title, and what's underneath

Order a boundary survey. Not a mortgage inspection, not the old plat the seller found in a drawer. A current survey with pins you can go find and stand on.

Fence lines wander. Over decades, a neighbor's fence built on the wrong side can turn into a legal claim on the ground. Find out now.

Then ask the title company about mineral rights and about any easements you can't see. Mineral rights are often severed from the surface in oil, gas and coal country, and whoever owns them may have the legal right to come get them. That's not automatically a dealbreaker, but you want to know before you site a house.

Look for utility easements, pipeline easements, and anything giving a third party the right to cross. They're on the title commitment. Read all of it, including the exceptions page nobody reads.

Structure the offer to protect you

Write a due diligence period into the contract, long enough to actually do the work. Thirty days is tight if a well driller is booked out. Make the perc test, the survey, and satisfactory zoning confirmation all contingencies with your earnest money refundable if they fail.

Rural sellers are often reasonable about this. They'd rather give you sixty days than have a deal collapse at the closing table.

And use a real estate attorney who practices in that county, not the one your brother-in-law used in the city. Easements, water and mineral severance are intensely local, and local counsel has read the same recorded documents a hundred times.

The land will still be there in three weeks. The bad surprise won't wait that politely.