Land Inventory Has Fallen Nearly 24% Since The Pandemic

The effects of the pandemic are still rippling through the market six years later — especially in the land sector, where the supply of buildable land has shrunk and prices have soared compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Raw land listings have decreased 23.6% since the beginning of 2019, according to a Realtor.com report. 

Land listings and home listings typically moved in tandem, but that changed in 2024 when more new homes entered the market. That supply stems from the land that was acquired between 2020 and 2022 when interest rates were low being developed into new housing between 2023 and 2025. 

While housing inventory has picked up, increasing 20% year-over-year, the buying frenzy has put a "permanent dent in the land for sale in the U.S.,” according to the report.

“When a builder develops a parcel, that land never returns to the market,” Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner said in a statement. “The construction boom of 2020 to 2022 burned through years of supply, and the market is still paying for it.”

Across the 425,986 land listings on Realtor.com in the first quarter of 2026, the median price per acre was $62,365.

That is a 76.6% increase since 2019 — an uptick most notable in the Northeast, which has increased by 101%, and the Midwest, which has increased by 89%, according to the report.

For raw land, which has no development, prices have risen by 86.5% per acre since the beginning of 2019, compared to a 53% uptick in pricing for building-ready sites. That is due to raw land starting at a lower price and its development potential being speculative.

“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,” Berner said.