The Cheapest Places to Buy a House With Land

The cheapest place to buy a house with land in the United States is not a single town. It is a belt of rural counties that runs from the coalfields of eastern Kentucky down through Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and central Louisiana. There, a house on an acre or more is typically worth $100,000 to $150,000.

Most lists of “cheapest places” rank land alone, or houses alone, and neither answers the question most buyers are asking: where can I afford a house that comes with some ground around it? So we went to the source. The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey records the lot size of every surveyed home, together with what the owner says it is worth. We processed the 2024 microdata for all 50 states, covering about 17.8 million owner-occupied homes on an acre or more.

Below you will find the state ranking, the 20 county groups where a house with land is still cheapest, and a finding that surprised us: in 14 states, a house on 10 acres or more is worth less than a house on a small lot.

Cheapest place to buy a house with land: the numbers in short

The short answer

By state, the cheapest place to buy a house with land is a four-way tie: Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia and Arkansas, where the median house on 10 or more acres is worth $200,000. By area, eastern Kentucky’s coal counties come first, at about $100,000 for a house on an acre or more. Mississippi has the deepest pool of bargains: more than a third of its homes on 10+ acres are valued under $150,000.

State ranking: what a house on 10+ acres is worth

To find the cheapest place to buy a house with land at the state level, the ranking uses the median, the value in the middle: half of the homes are worth more and half are worth less. We picked 10 acres as the yardstick because that is roughly where a house stops being a house with a big yard and becomes a small homestead, with room for a garden, a few animals and some privacy.

The cheap end of the table is almost entirely Southern and Appalachian, with a few Plains states mixed in. Oklahoma, Kansas and North Dakota join them at $250,000, in wide-open farm country. So does New Mexico, which has the cheapest farmland per acre in the country: a reminder that on a homestead, the house carries most of the price. At the other end, California, Idaho, Oregon, Massachusetts and Colorado all sit at $550,000 or more.

The full ranking also shows two columns that matter as much as the price: the share of homes on 10+ acres worth less than $150,000, and what the property tax would be on the median home. The first tells you how deep the bargain bin is. The second tells you what the house will cost you every year after you buy it.

Rank	State	House on 10+ acres (median value)	Share under $150,000	House on under 1 acre	Property tax rate	Yearly tax on the median
1	Mississippi	$200,000	36.5%	$180,000	0.58%	$1,160
1	Kentucky	$200,000	33.3%	$220,000	0.74%	$1,480
1	West Virginia	$200,000	32.8%	$150,000	0.51%	$1,020
1	Arkansas	$200,000	32.1%	$200,000	0.56%	$1,120
5	Louisiana	$220,000	28.8%	$210,000	0.55%	$1,210
6	Alabama	$245,000	29.3%	$230,000	0.37%	$906
7	Oklahoma	$250,000	30.3%	$200,000	0.79%	$1,975
7	North Dakota	$250,000	27.3%	$250,000	0.92%	$2,300
7	New Mexico	$250,000	26.7%	$269,000	0.63%	$1,575
7	Kansas	$250,000	25.1%	$220,000	1.21%	$3,025
7	South Carolina	$250,000	24.9%	$300,000	0.49%	$1,225
7	Illinois	$250,000	24.8%	$270,000	1.88%	$4,700
7	Missouri	$250,000	22.5%	$245,000	0.89%	$2,225
14	Iowa	$280,000	17.7%	$200,000	1.33%	$3,724
15	Georgia	$300,000	23.5%	$350,000	0.79%	$2,370
15	South Dakota	$300,000	23.2%	$280,000	1.00%	$3,000
15	Arizona	$300,000	21.3%	$400,000	0.48%	$1,440
15	Nebraska	$300,000	20.9%	$250,000	1.44%	$4,320
15	New York	$300,000	19.9%	$430,000	1.30%	$3,900
15	North Carolina	$300,000	19.6%	$325,000	0.66%	$1,980
15	Indiana	$300,000	18.7%	$225,000	0.76%	$2,280
15	Pennsylvania	$300,000	18.4%	$250,000	1.26%	$3,780
15	Michigan	$300,000	17.9%	$230,000	1.19%	$3,570
15	Ohio	$300,000	16.6%	$220,000	1.36%	$4,080
15	Wisconsin	$300,000	12.2%	$273,000	1.32%	$3,960
26	Texas	$317,000	19.3%	$300,000	1.40%	$4,438
27	Tennessee	$330,000	16.4%	$305,000	0.52%	$1,716
28	Florida	$350,000	23.1%	$400,000	0.78%	$2,730
28	Maine	$350,000	13.3%	$300,000	0.98%	$3,430
28	Minnesota	$350,000	12.8%	$325,000	1.00%	$3,500
31	Virginia	$370,000	16.8%	$400,000	0.78%	$2,886
32	Nevada	$420,000	14.5%	$450,000	0.50%	$2,100
33	Vermont	$430,000	8.9%	$300,000	1.51%	$6,493
34	New Jersey	$475,000	9.5%	$490,000	1.88%	$8,930
35	New Hampshire	$485,000	5.4%	$400,000	1.50%	$7,275
36	Wyoming	$497,000	12.5%	$300,000	0.53%	$2,634
37	Montana	$500,000	14.3%	$350,000	0.61%	$3,050
37	Utah	$500,000	8.1%	$500,000	0.48%	$2,400
37	Connecticut	$500,000	3%	$350,000	1.54%	$7,700
40	Maryland	$520,000	10%	$400,000	0.92%	$4,784
41	Washington	$525,000	7.5%	$575,000	0.75%	$3,938
42	Colorado	$550,000	11.4%	$550,000	0.50%	$2,750
43	Oregon	$600,000	9.4%	$480,000	0.81%	$4,860
43	Idaho	$600,000	5.6%	$400,000	0.50%	$3,000
43	Massachusetts	$600,000	4.1%	$600,000	1.00%	$6,000
46	California	$683,000	10%	$750,000	0.70%	$4,781

Values are what owners told the Census Bureau their house and land would sell for, not asking prices. Medians come from a one-year survey sample and are rounded the way owners answer, which is why many states land on round numbers. Yearly tax is the median value times the state’s average effective rate on owner-occupied homes; your county’s rate and any farm or homestead exemption will change it.

The 20 cheapest areas to buy a house with land

State medians hide a lot. Kentucky as a whole sits at $200,000 for a house on 10+ acres, but its eastern counties run half that. To find the places, we went one level down, to the Census Bureau’s Public Use Microdata Areas: groups of neighboring counties with about 100,000 people each. We kept the roughly 1,000 areas with at least 60 surveyed owner-occupied homes on an acre or more and sorted them by median value. If you want the cheapest place to buy a house with land down to the county, this is the list.

#	Area	State	House on 1+ acres (median value)	House on 10+ acres
1	Pike, Floyd, Johnson, Magoffin and Martin counties	Kentucky	$100,000	$100,000
2	Whitley, Harlan, Knox and Bell counties	Kentucky	$110,000	$100,000
3	Letcher, Perry, Breathitt, Knott and Leslie counties	Kentucky	$120,000	$90,000
4	Neshoba, Scott, Leake, Smith and Kemper counties	Mississippi	$120,000	$125,000
5	Washington, Bolivar and Sunflower (the Delta) counties	Mississippi	$120,000	—
6	Wayne, Logan, Mingo, McDowell and Boone counties	West Virginia	$120,000	$185,000
7	Boyd, Greenup, Carter and Lawrence counties	Kentucky	$124,000	$125,000
8	Tazewell, Wise, Russell and Buchanan counties	Virginia	$125,000	$120,000
9	Jones, Wayne and Covington counties	Mississippi	$130,000	$200,000
10	Bibb, Marengo, Hale and Pickens counties	Alabama	$140,000	$150,000
11	Union, Ouachita and Columbia counties	Arkansas	$140,000	$150,000
12	Avoyelles, Grant and Concordia counties	Louisiana	$140,000	$150,000
13	Covington, Pike and Barbour counties	Alabama	$150,000	$150,000
14	Coffee, Ware and Pierce counties	Georgia	$150,000	$170,000
15	Saline, Union, White and Massac counties	Illinois	$150,000	$200,000
16	Alcorn, Prentiss and Tishomingo counties	Mississippi	$150,000	$160,000
17	Robeson, Columbus and Bladen counties	North Carolina	$150,000	$160,000
18	Orangeburg, Barnwell and Calhoun counties	South Carolina	$150,000	$200,000
19	Clearfield, McKean, Elk and Potter counties	Pennsylvania	$160,000	$250,000
20	St. Lawrence County	New York	$165,000	$200,000

Three kinds of places fill the list, and each one is cheap for its own reason.

Cheap here is not a trick of the data, but it does come with a story. Many of these counties have been losing people for decades, which means older houses, fewer buyers and fewer services. That is exactly why the prices are low, and it is the trade you are making. If you work remotely, are retired, or want land more than you want a town, it can be a very good trade. If you need a local job, check the job market before you check the listings.

For the state-level rules on buying in these places, start with our guides to buying rural property in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana.

The land that comes free

You would expect a house on 10 acres to be worth more than a house on a quarter acre. Ten acres is forty times the land. In most of the Midwest and the Mountain West, that is how it works: in Wyoming the house with acreage is worth 66% more, in Idaho 50% more.

The reason is location. Houses on small lots are mostly in and around towns and cities, where jobs pull prices up. Houses on 10+ acres are mostly far from them. In New York, the house on a small lot is often in the suburbs of New York City or Albany, while the house on acreage is upstate, so the farmhouse ends up worth 30% less. In Georgia, the Carolinas, Florida and Kentucky the same split plays out between the metro areas and the countryside.

For a buyer, this is the most useful number on the page, and it changes what “the cheapest place to buy a house with land” means. In these 14 states, moving from a subdivision lot to a country place does not have to cost you more. You are mostly paying for the house, and the acreage comes along with it. In the gold states at the bottom of the chart, the opposite is true: land itself is in demand, and every extra acre shows up in the price.

House or mobile home on the land?

If the budget is tight, the single biggest lever is the type of home. A mobile or manufactured home on 10+ acres is typically worth a quarter to a third of a site-built house on the same amount of land. In Arkansas the median is $65,000 against $230,000.

State	Mobile home on 10+ acres	Single-family house on 10+ acres
Arkansas	$65,000	$230,000
Alabama	$69,000	$250,000
Louisiana	$75,000	$250,000
Georgia	$75,000	$350,000
Mississippi	$80,000	$220,000
Kentucky	$80,000	$250,000
South Carolina	$80,000	$300,000
North Carolina	$82,000	$350,000
Michigan	$84,000	$300,000
Missouri	$85,000	$290,000

Two cautions. Many of these homes are older units, some built before the 1976 federal construction standard, and lenders treat them very differently from newer homes on permanent foundations. And the value of a mobile home on land is mostly the land, so check the land as carefully as you would if it were vacant. Our guide to putting a manufactured home on land covers titles, foundations and financing in detail.

Cheap to buy is not always cheap to own

Illinois and Oklahoma share the same $250,000 median for a house on 10+ acres. At their average effective tax rates, the Illinois owner pays about $4,700 a year and the Oklahoma owner about $1,975. Over ten years, that difference is more than $27,000. Alabama, at 0.37%, has the lowest rate in the continental United States: about $907 a year on its median home with land.

Property tax is only the first line. A house with land also brings costs a city house does not:

• Well and septic. Most homes on acreage have both. Replacing a failed septic system often runs into five figures, so ask for the last inspection and pumping records before you make an offer.
• Insurance. Distance from a fire station raises premiums, and some carriers will not write older rural homes at all. In the Gulf states, flood and wind add more. Get a quote before closing, not after.
• The road. A private gravel drive is yours to maintain. On a hillside in Appalachia, that can mean regrading after every hard rain.
• Internet and distance. Many of the cheapest counties still lack fiber, and the drive to a hospital or a big grocery store can run 45 minutes or more. Price in the gas.

Our hidden costs calculator lets you add these up for a specific property before you commit.

How to buy a cheap house with land in these places

Cheap areas reward buyers who do their homework, because the problems that keep prices low are often invisible in the photos. Work through these in order:

1. Search by lot size first, price second. On any listing site, set the lot size to 1 or 10 acres and up, then sort from low to high inside the counties above. Searching by price alone fills the screen with houses on small lots.
2. Check the flood map before you fall for the house. The FEMA Flood Map Service Center is free. In the coalfield hollows and the Delta, a low price is often a flood zone in disguise.
3. Ask who owns the minerals. In Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia coal and gas rights were often sold off a century ago. Owning the surface does not always mean you control what happens under it. Our West Virginia guide explains how to check.
4. Look hard at the title. In the Black Belt and the Delta, much land passed down without a will and is now owned by many heirs at once. Insist on a title search and owner’s title insurance.
5. Get a full inspection. The cheapest houses tend to be the oldest. Budget for an inspector who checks the foundation, the roof, the wiring and the septic, and walk the property line.

How we got these numbers

Every figure on this page comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2024 one-year Public Use Microdata Sample, the anonymous household records behind the survey. For each owner-occupied home, the survey records its lot size (under 1 acre, 1 to 10 acres, or 10 acres and more), the type of building, and the owner’s estimate of what the house and land would sell for. We kept houses and mobile homes owned by the people living in them, weighted each record by its survey weight, and took the median for each state and each area. That is about 240,000 surveyed homes on an acre or more, enough to compare the cheapest place to buy a house with land in one state against another.

Three limits to keep in mind. These are owners’ estimates, not sale or asking prices, and owners tend to round. A one-year sample is small in thinly populated places, so we required at least 100 homes on 10+ acres for the state ranking and at least 60 homes on an acre or more for each area; even so, treat the area figures as close estimates, not appraisals. And the data describes the homes people live in today, not what is for sale this week. To match the counties to each area we used the Census Bureau’s 2020 tract-to-PUMA relationship file.

Common questions about the cheapest places to buy a house with land

Where to look next

If the land matters more to you than the house, our ranking of the cheapest states to buy land uses USDA values per acre. If you plan to bring your own home, start with the manufactured home guide. And to weigh climate, taxes and growing season together, see the best states to homestead.