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8111 Preston Rd, Ste 725 Dallas, TX 75225
Get in Touch
Get in Touch
8111 Preston Rd, Ste 725 Dallas, TX 75225
Selling Texas land is a valuation problem before it is a marketing problem. There is rarely a clean comp, so price is built from access, water, topography, soils, and tax status rather than square footage. Get a survey, clear title, document the ag history, and settle rollback exposure in the contract — Tax Code §23.55 looks back three years, and HB 3833 removed the interest entirely for a change of use on or after June 15, 2021. Expect months, not weeks.
A house sits inside a set of near-identical houses. Three sold on the same street this quarter, you adjust for square footage and condition, and the number is defensible within a few percent.
A tract has no street. The 60 acres two miles north sold for a number that reflects a paved road, a stocked tank, and 100% of the minerals conveying. Yours fronts a gravel easement, has a dry draw, and the minerals were severed in 1953. Same county, same soils, completely different value — and there is no adjustment table anywhere that converts one into the other.
So a land valuation is built rather than looked up. It starts from whatever genuinely comparable sales exist, which usually means widening the radius and the time window until you have something to work with, then adjusting for the drivers below. Larger tracts almost always carry a lower price per acre than smaller ones in the same market, because the buyer pool for 300 acres is a fraction of the buyer pool for 20. That effect surprises more sellers than anything else on this page.
Land sale data is thin by design, too. Texas is a non-disclosure state — sale prices are not public record. That is why a broker who works a county consistently is worth more on land than on residential: the comp set lives partly in the MLS, partly on the land networks, and partly in what brokers know about closings that were never published anywhere.
Driver | What moves value up | What moves it down |
|---|---|---|
Access | Frontage on a county-maintained or state road, a hard surface entrance, more than one point of entry | Landlocked, access by unrecorded easement, shared drive with an unclear maintenance obligation |
Water | Live creek, a tank that holds, a producing well with a known depth and yield, lake frontage | No surface water, a tank that only holds after rain, no well and no rural water district meter available |
Topography | Rolling ground with defined building sites, elevation change, views | Flat with no drainage, or ground so broken that no site works |
Soils | Productive loam, good pasture, soils that will perc for a conventional septic system | Tight clay that will not perc, heavy floodplain acreage, shallow rock |
Fencing and improvements | Sound perimeter fence, cross-fencing, working pens, a barn with power | Down fence, condemned structures the buyer must remove, an old septic of unknown status |
Minerals | A conveying mineral interest, no active surface operations | Severed minerals with an active lease, a pad site, or salt water disposal |
Tax status | Active 1-d-1 open-space valuation with clean history, or qualified wildlife management | No ag history, or an ag valuation that lapsed and would have to be re-established |
Location | Inside the growth path, near an interchange, in a school district with pull | Three hours out with no growth story, or immediately downwind of an industrial use |
Two of those deserve a note. Ag valuation raises value because the buyer inherits a carrying cost they can live with, and it shortens the rollback conversation — mechanics on the ag exemption page. Minerals cut both ways: a conveying interest is a real premium to an investment buyer and irrelevant to a recreational one, while an active surface operation is a discount to nearly everybody. The mineral rights page covers what to ask.
Do this before the sign goes up, not after a buyer finds the problem during their option period.
Land buyers are frequently not local, and they do not shop the way home buyers shop. They search by county, acreage band, and feature — water, timber, hunting, road frontage — on land-specific platforms, and then they drive.
Most land that sits too long sits because it was listed like a house — three exterior photos, no map, no soils, no answer on water, and a price built from an aspiration rather than a comp. Fixable, but much cheaper to not create.
Rollback is the assessment that recaptures the tax savings when land under 1-d-1 open-space valuation changes use. Two amendments got it to where it stands today. HB 1743, 86th Legislature, effective September 1, 2019, cut the lookback from five years to three and the interest from seven percent to five. HB 3833, 87th Legislature, effective June 15, 2021, then removed interest from §23.55 entirely. For a change of use on or after that date, the current law is a three-year lookback with no interest. Plenty of published pages — including competitors' — still quote the five percent, and some still quote five years at seven.
The point most sellers get wrong: rollback is triggered by a change of use, not by the sale itself. Sell 100 grazing acres to a buyer who keeps grazing it and timely files their own 1-d-1 application, and there is no change of use and no rollback. If the buyer closes and starts a subdivision, the change of use is theirs.
The Farm and Ranch Contract, TREC No. 25-16, addresses this at Paragraph 13, Prorations and Rollback Taxes. In broad terms, assessments triggered by the buyer's use or the sale itself fall to the buyer, and assessments triggered by the seller's use or change in use before closing fall to the seller. Those obligations survive closing.
In practice it gets negotiated three ways: as written in the promulgated form, with an escrow holdback sized to the estimated exposure, or with a specific allocation written into the contract. What you should not do is leave it to be discovered. Get the estimated rollback figure from the county appraisal district before you go under contract so both sides are arguing about a real number. Full mechanics on the rollback taxes page.
One more timing item that costs buyers real money and reflects badly on the seller who did not mention it: the new owner must file their own 1-d-1 application, between January 1 and April 30, on Comptroller Form 50-129, with the county appraisal district. The ag history runs with the land, not with you, but the application does not carry over.
Longer than a house, and the honest answer depends more on price and access than on anything else.
Stage | What is realistic |
|---|---|
Preparation before listing | Two to eight weeks — survey, title commitment, curative, cleanup |
Days on market | Commonly months rather than weeks, and longer as tract size and price rise |
Under contract to closing | Frequently 45 to 90 days, driven by survey, title curative, and financing |
Land loan underwriting | Slower than residential; expect larger down payments and appraisal delays |
Two structural reasons the timeline stretches. The buyer pool is smaller and national, so the right buyer may not be looking this month. And land diligence is genuinely more work — a survey has to be walked, easements pulled, a well tested, septic feasibility evaluated. Cash buyers compress the second half of that. Nothing compresses the first half except correct pricing.
If you have owned the land a long time, your basis is low and your gain may be larger than you expect. A 1031 exchange under Internal Revenue Code §1031 allows deferral of gain when real property held for productive use in a trade or business or for investment is exchanged for like-kind real property. Since the 2017 tax law, §1031 applies to real property only.
The deadlines are unforgiving and they are calendar days, not business days:
Two structural points. A qualified intermediary must be engaged before closing — if the sale proceeds touch your hands, the exchange is generally blown. And a personal residence does not qualify, which matters if the tract includes the house you live in, because that portion is treated differently.
We are not tax advisors and this page is not tax advice. If your gain is meaningful, talk to your CPA and engage a qualified intermediary before the closing date is set, not after. The order of operations is the entire game here.
Not automatically. Rollback under Tax Code §23.55 is triggered by a change of use, not by a sale. If the buyer continues an agricultural use and timely files their own 1-d-1 application, no rollback is assessed. If the use changes, the assessment reaches back three years, and since HB 3833 (87th Legislature, effective June 15, 2021) no interest is added to the rollback itself. Who pays is addressed in Paragraph 13 of the Farm and Ranch Contract and is negotiable.
By building a value rather than looking one up. A land valuation starts from the closest genuinely comparable sales — often widening the radius and the time window to find any — then adjusts for access, water, topography, soils, fencing, minerals, tax status, and tract size. Larger tracts typically carry a lower price per acre than smaller tracts in the same market. Texas is a non-disclosure state, so sale prices are not public record.
Effectively, yes. A title company will require an acceptable survey, and a lender will not fund without one. An old survey with no current certification usually will not satisfy either. If you are splitting acreage out of a larger parent tract, a new survey is required and county subdivision rules under Local Government Code Ch. 232 may apply as well.
That depends on what you own and who your buyer is. A conveying mineral interest is a genuine premium to an investment buyer and close to irrelevant to a recreational buyer. Decide your position before pricing, put it in writing, and be candid in the marketing. Discovering a reservation in the title commitment mid-option is how deals die.
Plan on months rather than weeks. Preparation runs two to eight weeks. Days on market commonly run into months, and stretch as tract size and price rise, because the buyer pool is smaller and national. Contract to closing frequently runs 45 to 90 days on survey, title curative, and land loan underwriting, which is slower than residential financing.
It is negotiable, on every transaction, and it is set by agreement between you and the broker — not by law, custom, or any association. Land rates commonly run above residential rates because the marketing window is longer and the spend is higher: aerial flights, mapping, soils and topographic overlays, and paid placement on the land networks. Ask what the rate buys.
Often, yes, but it is a platting question before it is a sales question. A split creates a new tract, which requires a new survey and may trigger county subdivision and platting review under Local Government Code Ch. 232. It can also affect the ag valuation on both the piece you sell and the piece you keep, since degree-of-intensity standards are set county by county. Ask the appraisal district before you draw the line.
Real property held for productive use in a trade or business or for investment can generally qualify under §1031, and ranch land commonly does. The deadlines are 45 calendar days to identify replacement property in writing and 180 calendar days to close, both running from the transfer of the relinquished property. A qualified intermediary must be in place before closing. Talk to your CPA first.
Sources and method
Texas Tax Code §23.51 et seq. and §23.55, as amended by HB 1743, 86th Legislature, effective September 1, 2019, and HB 3833, 87th Legislature, effective June 15, 2021 · Texas Constitution Art. VIII §1-d-1 · Texas Comptroller Form 50-129 · TREC No. 25-16 Farm and Ranch Contract, Paragraph 13, 22 TAC §537.32 · Texas Local Government Code Ch. 232 · Texas Health & Safety Code Ch. 366 · Internal Revenue Code §1031 and IRS guidance on deferred exchanges · USDA NRCS Web Soil Survey · FEMA Flood Map Service Center · NTREIS Matrix · CoStar Group, Land.com network. Figures verified August 2026.
County appraisal districts set their own degree-of-intensity and acreage standards. Confirm current requirements with the appraisal district for the county your land sits in before you rely on anything here. This is general information, not tax or legal advice.
Before you price it, let us walk it. Bring the survey, the last tax statement, and whatever you have on the ag history, and we will tell you what the ground is worth and what it needs first. Talk with The Agency Dallas, or start at Texas Land & Ranch.
The Agency Dallas is independently owned and operated by Damon & Megan Williamson.
Damon Williamson, Broker-Owner · Licensed Real Estate Agent, State of Texas.
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas 75205. Equal Housing Opportunity.
Texas Real Estate Commission Information About Brokerage Services and Consumer Protection Notice are available at trec.texas.gov.
This is not intended as a solicitation of property currently listed for sale.
8111 Preston Rd, Ste 725 Dallas, TX 75225
8111 Preston Rd, Ste 725 Dallas, TX 75225