We’ve all seen McMansions crammed into small lots, with a sad little strip of grass marking the boundary between the many. In some cases, residents can reach out the window and high-five a neighbor through their window.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Anyone who wants to buy vacant land and build on it needs to know: How much land do I need? Is one acre enough? half an acre? two acres?
Of course, it depends on your plans and goals. If you are planning to build a farmhouse and work on it then you will need a lot more land as compared to a manufactured home in the suburbs. but again depends on This isn’t a very satisfying answer, let’s dig a little deeper into how much land you need for different types of buildings and uses.
Land Measurement: A Quick History of the Acre
The acre dates back to Roman times, measuring 40 rods by 4 rods—the area that a pair of oxen could typically plow in a day. In today’s units it is 660 feet long (one furlong) and 66 feet wide. Bullocks could plow a furlong without stopping and could repeat that length four times in a day. Tuck it away for your next casual night out.
One acre is equal to 43,560 square feet. People like to compare it to a football field, except for the end zones, as an easier way to visualize it. Football fields are slightly larger at 48,000 square feet, but the analogy is good enough for a rough estimate.
If you prefer tennis whites instead of gridiron pads, about 16 tennis courts can fit in one acre (each tennis court at about 2,808 square feet).
It sounds like a lot of land, but it doesn’t feel like it when you have noisy neighbors. While theoretically you can have 43 homes per 1,000 square feet of acres (with almost no space between them), most subdivisions create three to four homes per acre.
How much land do I need to build a house?
The average land to house footprint ratio in the US is about 3:1.
In other words, if you buy something that’s 3,000 square feet, a typical home footprint could be up to 1,000 square feet.
But most homes with low land-to-building ratios exist in suburban developments. New single-family subdivisions have an average lot size of 8,456 square feet, just under a fifth of an acre. For townhouses, it’s even less.
If you’re planning on building a custom home, you’ll probably want about an acre of land. But the exact amount you need depends on a few other factors.
water and sewer lines
Many people with access to existing water and sewer lines do not need as much land for residential homes, as they do not need a well and septic system or new pipeline lines to connect to city water and sewer.
The American Planning Association recommends at least a half-acre of land if a location does not have water and sewer connections. If the lot has one but not the other, they recommend at least a quarter acre. If the plot has both, less than an acre may be sufficient.
Remember, if the property doesn’t have access to public sewer lines, you’ll need to do a perks test before you can get zoning approval to build a home. Consider this part of the due diligence process before purchasing a building lot.
zoning regulations
When you build a house (or anything else, for that matter), plan for a number of headaches from your local zoning board.
Among simpler zoning regulations, some municipalities require a minimum building to land ratio, or a minimum perimeter of land between buildings and property lines. Alternatively, they may mandate a minimum lot size for building construction.
Zoning requirements can get more complicated from there, but start by contacting your local zoning office to determine how much land you need to build on.
land required for other buildings
Are you looking to build more than just a single family home?
Here are some other types of buildings you might consider.
supportive housing units
Instead of building just one house to live in, you can build an addition as an in-law suite or income suite. Real estate professionals call these auxiliary housing units, or ADUs, and you can rent them out to long-term or short-term Airbnb guests as a way to home hack.
Or, if you’re greedy for puns, you can have your in-laws in there for free.
Although ADUs don’t require a very large footprint, you still need to plan for them. This includes not only allocating space, but also checking zoning regulations and obtaining building permits.
A quarter-acre plot would start to feel awfully claustrophobic for two separate buildings. If you’re buying a relatively small lot, you might want to consider setting up a tiny house as an ADU.
garage
Adding a garage, whether detached or as part of your home’s structure, will also increase the building’s footprint.
For smaller lots, consider attached garages first. It’s a more efficient use of land, and you can always find pricing by adding an upstairs garage apartment as its own ADU.
Single-car garages require a minimum footprint of approximately 14 feet x 20 feet. For a two-car garage, count on at least 20 by 24 feet. However, more space makes the garage more comfortable and easier to use.
Talk to as many builders as possible about the cost, layout and how much land they recommend for adding a garage to the plot.
The more land you buy, the more options you have for a detached garage. In addition to parking cars, you could potentially park boats or RVs, or build a larger and more private ADU above the garage. You can rent a parking space for RVs or boats, or rent all or some of a garage for storage space.
Which, as it turns out, is a concept you can measure.
self-storage facilities
With enough land, you can construct a commercial building such as a self-storage facility.
Self-storage units require minimal wiring, no plumbing, and often no heat or air conditioning. This makes them extremely simple structures to manufacture and maintain.
It is much faster and cheaper to evict defaulting tenants on self-storage rentals than on residential rentals. You can automate most of the management to reduce labor.
In fact, self-storage investing often feels more like an automated business than real estate investing. The biggest challenge is often marketing to maintain high occupancy rates.
As a business, you shouldn’t enter into this lightly. Read about due diligence before building a self-storage facility, and check your local zoning requirements for permitting requirements as well as land and building ratios or perimeters for self-storage facilities.
How much land do I need for farming?
The amount of land you need for farming depends on the type of farming you want to do, the quality of the soil and of course the yield you want.
If you want to have a small chicken coop and vegetable garden to supply your food, an acre of land can be great for you. Technically, one acre of land can produce 50,000 pounds of strawberries or 2,784 pounds of wheat, according to the US Farm Bureau. But this is at industrial capacity, not hobbyist farmer capacity.
Still, you can do a lot with one acre. See what Weed ‘Em & Reap did with an acre of farmland.
Most people looking to start farming probably want more than one acre. For example, for raising livestock, see Texas A&M’s guide to acreage requirements.
If you want to do farming professionally, talk to a local consultant about the type of land, location and the type of farming you want to do.
Requirement of land for recreational use
You can do a lot more than just farming with land investments.
Love to drive four wheelers? dirt biking? Mountain biking? Snowmobiling? Paintballing? Buy some land! You could potentially monetize it for recreational purposes as well. Read about creative land use here.
Some of the more common recreational land uses include the following.
Camping
If you want to camp on land, you don’t need much of it. You can pitch a tent on a few square feet of space. But you need to think about road or hiking access and local land features such as forests, rivers, trail networks, or nearby state or national parks.
Alternatively, you may want to build a small cabin on the land or park an RV, trailer or tiny house for camping. The rules are lighter for tiny homes and trailers on wheels rather than on permanent foundations – read about each state’s laws here.
Again, you don’t need much land, but you probably need road access. And if you build a cabin, you’ll probably need a building permit from the local government.
fishing
Fishing potentially requires more land. If you plan to fish a stream or river that runs through the property, you don’t need much land, but you may want to research where someone could develop the land upstream and can destroy the health of the ecosystem or river.
If you buy land with a pond or lake, the general rule of thumb is that you need five surrounding acres of land to keep one acre of water healthy. You can even make your own pond if you have supportive soil like clay. But it’s a big undertaking—consider getting professional help to build your fishing pond.
prey
Hunting requires a lot of land, if you don’t want to be accused of murder at the wrong time.
That said, how much land you need for hunting depends on the type of game you plan to hunt, what weapons you plan to use, and How many people are you planning to hunt with? Rifle hunting for deer often requires at least 50 acres of land, while turkey hunting with shotgun slugs only requires five acres.
Land parcels that are adjacent to national or state parks that allow hunting can help narrow down the acreage you need. You could also potentially negotiate hunting rights with like-minded owners of neighboring parcels.
Make sure you research the land features needed for good hunting in your area and for your target game. Water on the property helps, as well as shelter for animals such as forest cover.
Above all, do your homework on local hunting ordinances and regulations.
Where to find land to buy
For starters, some real estate agents specialize in selling land. Read about how to use realtors to buy land for more information.
There are also websites dedicated to listing land for sale. Check out LandHub, Landwatch, Lands of America, and Landflip as specialist marketplaces for buying and selling land. For that matter, you can also find land for sale on household real estate site names like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com and even Craigslist.
Professional land investors seek off-market deals, such as contacting owners by direct mail. Check out our interview with Callen Faulkner for some more creative ways to get land deals.
final thoughts
Depending on where you buy the land and what you plan to use it for, you can sometimes buy land cheap.
Before you get too far into the buying process, start by learning basic land terminology. It helps to know the language when you’re planning to invest tens or hundreds of thousands.
Finally, remember that some rules are written in stone for how much land construction will take up. This largely depends on your plans for the property and, of course, local zoning regulations. When in doubt, talk to zoning officials and developers long before you put a piece of land under contract.
