10 Land Buying Red Flags That Wreck Deals (And What Each One Could Cost You)
- Wayne Turner
- Aug 13
- 5 min read
If you're thinking about buying land — whether it's a homesite, a hunting tract, or an investment parcel — the mistakes are different from buying a house, and they're a lot easier to make. There's no home inspection contingency to save you. No agent walking you through a standard checklist. Just you, a plat map, and a lot of assumptions that can turn into expensive surprises.
I've bought, flipped, and built on land for nearly 30 years, and I've learned most of these lessons the hard way so you don't have to. Here are the 10 things I check, in the order I check them, before I ever put money down on a piece of land. Prefer to watch it instead of read it? I walk through all 10 in the field — literally, in the rain — in the full video on my YouTube channel, The Real Wayne Turner. Subscribe there for a new real estate breakdown every week.
1. Walk the Property — In the Rain, Not Just on a Sunny Day
Don't just drive by. Walk the boundaries. Know where the property starts, where it ends, and how much road frontage it actually has. Look for anything sitting on the land that isn't owned by the seller — sheds, fences, equipment, or structures that could complicate the sale.
And walk it after a rain, not just on a pretty day. A dry, sunny walkthrough will hide problems that show up the moment water hits the ground — problems that matter a lot more once you own it.
2. Pull Comparable Sales So You Don't Overpay
Before you agree to a price, find out what comparable land has actually sold for. You have two solid ways to do this:
Have a real estate agent pull comps on similar properties in the area
Pay for a formal appraisal, which typically runs a few hundred dollars
If you're financing the purchase with a bank loan, you'll likely need to put roughly 10% down, and the lender will require an appraisal anyway — they want to confirm the land is actually worth what they're lending against.
3. Get a Survey — Even If the Seller Already Has One
Never buy land without a survey. If the seller has a recent recorded survey — say, two or three years old — that can work, but still walk the property yourself. You never know what's changed.
A survey shows you exactly where the property begins and ends. Surveyors drive steel rods at every corner where the boundary line changes direction — the shape isn't always a clean rectangle; I've seen tracts shaped like a stop sign. Survey costs vary quite a bit depending on the size of the land and how difficult the terrain is to access.
4. Check for Wetlands
Before you get attached to a price, check whether the property sits in a wetlands area. FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) publishes this information, and you can look up a specific property's wetlands status directly on their site. This is something you can — and should — research yourself before you get further into the deal.
5. Check the Flood Zone
Flood zone status is different from wetlands status, and you'll want to check both. You can find this on the survey or by getting a flood elevation certificate, which tells you the property's official flood zone designation. If the land is in a flood zone, that designation will be clearly listed; if it's not, the certificate will state that too. Either way, you need this number to decide whether the property is worth it to you at the price being asked.
6. Read the Deed Restrictions
A lot of buyers don't realize land can come with real restrictions on what you're allowed to build or keep on it — whether you can put up a single-family home, build a barndominium, how large a structure has to be, or whether livestock is allowed at all. It's common to see restrictions that allow horses and cows but not pigs or chickens.
These restrictive covenants are public record. Get a copy from the register of deeds office in your parish or county before you commit.
7. Find Out If the Property Will Perk
This one trips up a lot of buyers. Is the property on city sewer, or will you need a septic system? And if it's septic, do local rules require a modern treatment plant, or is a traditional septic system allowed?
Here's the part people miss: some land simply won't perk — meaning water won't absorb into the ground the way it needs to for a septic system to function. If a property won't perk, you may not legally be able to put a septic system on it at all. A great price on an acre of land means nothing if you can't legally build or live on it.
8. Confirm the Water Source
Does the property connect to city water, or will you need to drill a well? Well costs depend heavily on how far you have to dig through rock to hit water — the deeper and rockier the dig, the more expensive it gets. In southern Louisiana, our water table runs high, so wells tend to be more affordable here than in rockier parts of the country.
9. Talk to the Neighbors
This step can happen early or later in your process — it really depends on timing and opportunity. Catch neighbors on a weekend if you can. Ask what they think of the property, whether they'd buy it again, whether they're thinking of selling their own place, and whether they know anything about the parcel you're looking at. You'd be surprised how much useful information comes from a five-minute conversation over a fence line.
10. Never Skip the Title Policy
Do not buy land without a title policy. The closing attorney researches the property to confirm there are no back taxes, liens, or encumbrances attached to it — so no one shows up later claiming you owe them money for work done on that land before you owned it.
A title policy is a one-time fee, not a monthly premium, and it covers you for as long as you own the property. It's inexpensive relative to the protection it provides, and it's not optional in my book.
Wayne's Bottom Line
Buying land isn't complicated once you know the order to check things in — and that order matters.
Walk the land first.
Confirm the value.
Rule out wetlands and flood risk.
Check what you're legally allowed to build.
Then confirm water, sewer, and title. S
kip a step, and you can end up owning land you can't legally build on, live on, or resell easily.
If you're actively looking at land in southeast Louisiana- speciafically St. Tammany Parish and the surrounding areas- and want a second set of eyes on a property before you make an offer, reach out through contactwayne.com. And if this kind of breakdown is useful to you, the full video library — including this one, filmed live on a piece of land in the rain — is on my YouTube channel, The Real Wayne Turner. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one.
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