You can sell land without a realtor in every U.S. state, and doing so keeps the 5 to 6 percent commission an agent would earn. In exchange, you take on every step yourself: pulling documents, writing disclosures, marketing the parcel, drafting the purchase agreement, and getting the deed recorded at closing. One missing document or overlooked tax obligation can stall the sale for months or leave you exposed to liability after the transfer.
The work falls into four stages: getting your paperwork in order, finding a buyer, writing the contract, and closing. Taxes run alongside all of it and deserve their own planning.
Pull Your Documents Before You List
Start at the county recorder’s office with a copy of your current deed. The deed proves ownership and carries the legal description you’ll copy, word for word, into every document that follows. Note the type: a warranty deed guarantees clean title, while a quitclaim deed transfers only whatever interest you happen to hold. The deed itself will say which it is.
Order a professional land survey to confirm boundaries and flag easements or encroachments. Surveys for vacant land typically run $400 to $1,200 depending on acreage and terrain. A topographical map alongside the survey lets buyers evaluate slope, drainage, and access without a site visit.
Pull property tax records from the local tax assessor. These confirm the assessed value and, more importantly, that no delinquent taxes are sitting on the parcel as a lien. A tax lien discovered late can kill the deal or force you into rushed concessions at closing.
Most states require a seller disclosure form at or before the offer. Questions typically cover environmental hazards, flood zone status, soil conditions, drainage, and known encroachments or easements. Answer honestly. Omitting a known defect can bring fraud claims or let the buyer unwind the sale after closing.
Mineral Rights and Zoning
In regions with oil, gas, or mineral activity, check whether mineral rights were severed from surface rights somewhere in the chain of title. A previous owner may have sold or reserved them decades ago, meaning you own the surface but not what’s below. A title search will surface this, and your disclosures should address it.
A zoning verification letter from the local planning or zoning department confirms the parcel’s classification, any overlay districts, and permitted uses. It costs little and removes a major uncertainty for buyers who want to build, farm, or subdivide.
Market the Property Yourself
Flat-fee MLS services push your listing onto the same aggregator sites agents use, usually for a one-time fee of a few hundred dollars. For vacant land, marketplaces like LandWatch and Land and Farm reach buyers actively searching for undeveloped parcels. Use both.
Your listing needs high-resolution photos from multiple angles showing road access, vegetation, and surrounding land. Include exact acreage, the legal description, and a link to the parcel on Google Maps or a similar tool. Physical signage at the boundary catches neighbors and passing drivers. Social media groups focused on land investing, or local community forums, generate additional inquiries at no cost.
Reply to inquiries quickly. Without an agent fielding calls, a slow response loses motivated buyers. Set up a dedicated email address or phone number for the listing so you can track communications and keep them separate from personal contacts.
Write a Purchase Agreement That Holds Up
The purchase agreement is the legally binding contract that governs the transaction. Every term that matters has to be in the document, because verbal side agreements won’t survive a dispute. At minimum, the agreement should cover:
- The full legal description copied exactly from the recorded deed, whether it uses metes-and-bounds, lot-and-block, or a government survey reference, plus the assessor’s parcel number.
- The purchase price, stated in both numbers and words.
- Earnest money, held in a neutral escrow account. For land, this is commonly 1 to 3 percent of the sale price.
- Contingencies that let the buyer back out without penalty if due diligence turns up a problem. For vacant land, these typically cover soil percolation tests for septic, zoning verification for the buyer’s intended use, and environmental assessment results.
- Financing terms: cash, third-party loan, or seller financing, with the terms spelled out.
- Firm deadlines for the inspection period, financing approval, and closing. Open-ended timelines invite delays.
State bar associations and legal document services publish standardized purchase agreement templates. Templates cover the essentials, but an attorney should review the completed contract before both parties sign.
Rollback Taxes on Agricultural Land
Land taxed at a reduced agricultural rate can trigger rollback taxes when it’s sold for a different use. Rollback is the difference between what you paid under the agricultural assessment and what you would have paid at the standard rate, typically calculated over the prior three to five years depending on the state. It can run into thousands of dollars. Most counties bill the new owner, so address in the purchase agreement who pays. If the contract is silent, the buyer may get a surprise bill after closing and turn around and pursue you for it.
Consider Seller Financing
Financing the purchase yourself widens the buyer pool, particularly for rural or lower-value parcels where banks are reluctant to lend. The two common structures are a land contract, where the buyer takes possession and pays you over time while you keep legal title until paid in full, and a purchase-money mortgage, where the buyer receives the deed at closing and you hold a lien. The mortgage route gives the buyer stronger legal protections and is the more conventional approach. If the buyer stops paying, you foreclose the same way a bank would.
Seller financing is treated as an installment sale by the IRS. You report the gain proportionally as payments come in each year using Form 6252, rather than recognizing everything in the year of sale. You also have to charge at least the Applicable Federal Rate; if you charge less, the IRS imputes interest income to you regardless of what you actually collected. The purchase agreement and promissory note need to be drafted carefully, because the relationship will run for years.
Plan for the Taxes Before You Close
This is where sellers without an agent most often get blindsided. Vacant land does not qualify for the capital gains exclusion homeowners use when selling a primary residence. That exclusion, up to $250,000 for single filers and $500,000 for married couples filing jointly, requires the property to have been owned and used as your principal residence for at least two of the five years before the sale.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 121 Exclusion of Gain From Sale of Principal Residence Land you never lived on fails that test, so the full gain is taxable.
If you held the parcel more than a year, gain is taxed at long-term capital gains rates of 0, 15, or 20 percent depending on your taxable income for the year.2Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026 If you held it a year or less, the gain is short-term and taxed at your ordinary income rate, which reaches 37 percent at the top.
A separate 3.8 percent net investment income tax applies to gain from selling investment real estate when modified adjusted gross income exceeds $200,000 for single filers or $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. Those thresholds are not indexed for inflation, so they reach more taxpayers each year.3Internal Revenue Service. Questions and Answers on the Net Investment Income Tax On a high-value sale, the combined federal rate on gain can reach 23.8 percent before state tax.
The settlement agent files Form 1099-S with the IRS and sends you a copy reporting the gross proceeds; a sale of $600 or more triggers the requirement. If no settlement agent is involved, the obligation can shift to an attorney or the buyer.4Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1099-S Proceeds From Real Estate Transactions You report the gain on Schedule D, or on Form 4797 if the land was used in a trade or business.
Deferring Tax With a 1031 Exchange
If you plan to reinvest into another piece of real property held for investment or business use, a Section 1031 like-kind exchange lets you defer the capital gains tax. The rules are strict: you have 45 days from your sale to identify replacement properties in writing, and 180 days (or the due date of your return for that year, whichever comes first) to close on the replacement.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 US Code 1031 – Exchange of Real Property Held for Productive Use or Investment You cannot take possession of the sale proceeds at any point; a qualified intermediary has to hold them. Land held primarily for resale, such as a parcel bought to flip, doesn’t qualify.6Internal Revenue Service. Like-Kind Exchanges Under IRC Section 1031
Close and Record the Deed
Closing opens with an escrow account, where a neutral third party holds the buyer’s funds and the documents until every condition of the purchase agreement is met. A title company runs a title search to confirm the parcel is free of undisclosed liens, judgments, or competing claims, then issues a title insurance policy for the buyer. Title insurance premiums are calculated as a small percentage of the purchase price and vary by state and policy type.
FIRPTA Affidavit
If you’re a U.S. citizen or resident, the closing agent will ask you to certify your non-foreign status, typically by submitting a Form W-9. This satisfies the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act, which otherwise requires the buyer to withhold 15 percent of the gross sale price and send it to the IRS when the seller is a foreign person.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 US Code 1445 – Withholding of Tax on Dispositions of United States Real Property Interests The buyer keeps the certification on file for five years.8Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8288 Signing is quick; forgetting can hold up closing or trigger unnecessary withholding from your proceeds.
Transfer Taxes, Notary, and Recording
Most states impose a real estate transfer tax when property changes hands, from a flat nominal fee to several percent of the sale price. About a third of states impose no state-level transfer tax. Check with the county recorder for the exact figure, because local surcharges may add to the state rate.
Every deed must be notarized before it can be recorded. Notary fees typically run $2 to $25 per signature depending on the state, with remote online notarization usually costing more. Once signatures are verified and the buyer’s funds are deposited, the signed deed goes to the county clerk or recorder of deeds for official recording. A per-page recording fee applies. After recording, the escrow agent disburses your proceeds net of taxes, title fees, and administrative costs. The recorded deed is public notice that ownership has transferred.
Wire Fraud Precautions
Real estate closings are a prime target for wire fraud. Criminals compromise email accounts, watch a transaction develop, and send fake wiring instructions at the last minute. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported $173.6 million in real estate fraud losses in 2024. Before wiring funds or telling a buyer where to wire funds, verify the instructions by calling the title company or escrow agent at a number you already had on file. Never rely on wiring details that arrive by email without a voice confirmation. If instructions change at the last minute, treat that as a warning sign and verify independently before sending anything.
When to Bring in an Attorney
About half a dozen states require an attorney at real estate closings. If you’re in one, you don’t have a choice. Even where it isn’t required, hiring a real estate attorney for a few hundred dollars pays off when the stakes or the facts get complicated. Seller-financed deals, parcels with severed mineral rights, land subject to agricultural rollback taxes, and properties with unresolved easement disputes all justify legal review. An attorney can draft or review the purchase agreement, confirm the deed is prepared correctly, and catch issues a title company will not flag. Selling without a realtor doesn’t mean selling without any professional help.