Nation’s Land Prices Up 77% Since Pandemic

AUSTIN – (By Dale King, Realty News Report) – The COVID pandemic had a profound impact on virtually every aspect of our lives – our health, jobs, family life, business conditions, travel, schools and churches, to name a few.

And while that plague has largely been largely relegated to history, its influence persists today – particularly in the hard-hit real estate market.

Realtor.com just issued its first-ever, in-depth analysis of land listings for sale in the U.S., a document that explores land prices and home inventory during and since COVID. It offers some startling facts – among them, that various aspects of the pandemic’s influence on land sales are still unresolved and remain problematic.

The report, which draws on land listing data from June 2016 through March 2026, finds that the pandemic-era buying frenzy has permanently altered the land market. It says housing inventory has contracted 23.6% since the first quarter of 2019 and has yet to recover while land prices per acre have surged 76.6% during that same period.

In the first quarter of 2026, 426,986 pieces of land were listed for sale on Realtor.com — with a median price per acre at $62,365.

Pandemic Burned Up Nation’s Land Inventory

“The pandemic didn’t only drain home inventory, it drained land inventory, and that loss is permanent,” said Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com. “When a builder develops a parcel, that land never returns to the market. The construction boom of 2020 to 2022 burned through years of supply, and the market is still paying for it.”

“Prices sit 77% above pre-pandemic levels,” Bernier pointed out. “Inventory has gone nowhere, and until the development pipeline catches up, neither of those things will change and future new construction could be more costly.”

A ‘dent’ in land supply

Realtor.com’s report says the track of land listings closely corresponded to those of home listings during the past few years — until recently. Before the pandemic, prices for both categories were rising steadily.

In early 2020, inventories for both fell while prices soared. The years 2021 and 2022 saw strong, sustained price growth and inventory reduction during the very low-interest rate period, and in 2023, growth rates for both land and homes started to settle back down before flattening in 2024.

The critical deviation between land and home listings began that year. While for-sale home listings were posting 20% year-over-year gains as sellers began returning to the market, land inventory made little headway in returning to pre-pandemic counts.

Many land listings purchased from 2020 to 2022 became new homes from 2023 to 2025 — homes that eventually returned to the listing roster when put up for resale. But land that was developed is permanently converted. “The post-pandemic buying frenzy put a lasting dent in the supply of land for sale across the United States,” says the report.

The home buying surge was fueled by low mortgage rates that dipped to 3% and even a bit lower. Despite the Covid impact, Houston had a record 96,151 home sales in 2020, up more than 10% over 2019.

Regional data

Since the first quarter of 2019, land prices per acre have grown most in the Northeast, followed closely by the Midwest and South. The West, which entered the pandemic with the highest land prices in the U.S., has seen the least appreciation and is the only region displaying meaningful year-over-year price decreases.

The Northeast’s persistent price hikes underline the fact that the area is already densely developed. Land still undeveloped is often subject to constraints such as restrictive zoning, historic preservation laws and environmental regulations. Pandemic-era construction used up a significant share of what was available – a difficult trend to reverse.

Western markets experienced the steepest cutback in new residential construction activity, with single-family building permits declining faster than in any other region in 2025. Combined with the area’s already-high starting price point, Western land prices have cooled significantly — falling 5.9% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2026.

Land inventory in the Northeast continues to decline — a direct result of demand greatly outpacing supply — while in the South and West, it has started to bounce back as land in those areas is generally more available.

Raw land appreciated most

Realtor.com classifies land listings by development status: raw land (no development), partially developed lots (some clearing or utilities in place) and build-ready lots (immediately suitable to build on). Raw land has seen the steepest price gains of any category since the pandemic, rising 86.5% per acre since the first quarter of 2019 compared to 53.3% for build-ready listings.

Raw land’s outperformance reflects both its lower starting price point and its status as a more speculative asset class. In the current environment of softening construction activity, raw land has also led the recent pullback, declining 2.4% year over year compared to -1.1% for build-ready and +0.8% for partially developed listings.

Markets most impacted since pandemic

Among metros with at least 500 land listings in the first quarter of 2026, the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton-Port Royal, S.C., area has seen the steepest inventory drop compared to the first quarter of 2019 (-72.1%) followed by Morristown, Tenn. (-65.7%) and Wilmington, N.C. (-61.2%). All ten of the hardest-hit markets are located in the eastern half of the country where raw land is less abundant.

For price appreciation, Port St. Lucie, Fla. leads all markets with a 314% gain in price per acre since the first quarter of 2019, followed by Fargo, N.D. (+311.1%) and Spearfish, S.D. (+286.7%). Philadelphia and Kansas City, both noted for relative affordability, also rank among the top ten, with price-per-acre gains of 285.4% and 260.8% respectively.

Land prices softened in past year

Overall land prices per acre fell 0.5% from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026 as demand diminished. The main driving force was the slowdown in new residential construction activity, which finished 2025 below 2024 levels as builders had to deal with increased cost pressures and weak demand from potential homebuyers. Regionally, the South (+1.3%), Northeast (+0.9%) and Midwest (+0.2%) posted modest gains while the West declined sharply (-5.9%).

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