Finding the perfect plot of land to build a new home can be a daunting task, especially when you’re shopping for your own piece of the planet via the internet, thousands of miles from where you plan to break ground. The Tiny House Blog is here to help you on your mission to realize your dreams of lifestyle freedom. Check out these top seven websites to find top notch land for sale.

(You can potentially save a lot of time and money by buying an existing tiny house in the area where you want to live. Check out TinyHouseListings.com to start searching for your new dream home.)

Top 7 Places to Shop for Land Online

7. Billy Land

One of the best spots to find high quality land at a great price is Billy Land – they’ve been in business for over three decades, and they bring all of their experience to bear to help pass savings on to you. The tradeoff is a somewhat limited selection, but if you keep your eyes peeled and check back regularly, you may happen upon the perfect plot of land for your new home.

They offer a convenient, at-a-glance page to see all of the land they currently have available in their portfolio for you to choose from. Many of the sites describing individual plots include an interactive map interface that you can use to scope out the topography of the land you’re viewing.

Make sure to read the plot description carefully and make note of any restrictive covenants that may apply to that particular location. Also, take notice that your initial payment is not the overall price of the land, but a bid to secure a given plot for yourself.

6. Zillow

Growing in popularity all the time, Zillow has become one of the first places people think of to look for homes available for sale or for rent – this means that you will find a massive selection, made up by scads of private sellers as well as real estate agents around the country. Their built-in analytics also give a good sense of how pricing markets behave around the country.

Much of the land they have on offer is being sold because of foreclosure, and may be slated for an upcoming auction or available at a rock bottom set price. Make sure to take advantage of the search criteria available on the website to narrow your options down to exactly what you’re looking for.

5. LoopNet

Though they specialize in commercial real estate, Loop Net also has a wide selection of farmland and rural land zoned for residential use. Many of the spots available for sale feature video footage, offering a better sense of what it might feel like to be on the property in person.

4. Land and Farm

If your dream is to get back to the land with your own farmstead, then Land and Farm could be the ideal site for you to begin your search. You may even be able to lease an existing farm and try your hand at your new way of life before laying down a fortune.

Make sure to take note of how each plot is zoned, to ensure that you’re taking stock of land that can legally be used in the way that you intend. Some locations, for example, are suitable for occasional hunting and camping, but building a tiny home would not be permitted.

3. Land Leader

Also specializing in rural land for homesteader wannabes, hunters and new generation farmers, Land Leader is another great place to start your search. Many of the plots in their selection are on the larger side of the spectrum, so if you’re not in the market for a section and a half to start a unicorn ranch, make sure to restrict your search results by acreage.

2. Lands of America

A useful feature on Lands of America is their directory of real estate agents around the country who specialize in rural land. It could be to your advantage to work with a real estate agent, because they have the expertise to help you source a plot that is the right size to meet your needs and in the location where you want to live, while avoiding the pitfalls that many inexperienced land buyers are likely to encounter. They’ll charge a commission, of course, but avoiding the headache of spending hours and hours shopping on your own, and then doing the follow-up with sellers to boot, could be well worth it.

1. Land Watch

With one of the largest selections currently available online, coupled with an excellent search mechanism, Land Watch is my top pick for online sources to look for rural land. If you want waterfront property or a spot amongst the trees for instance, you will have an easy time rarifying your search to hone in on those kinds of locations.

Additionally, Land Watch is one of the few websites that offers a selection of international land to choose from, for those of you whose tiny house dreams are likely to take you overseas. They also have an excellent deals section, with land that you can secure for as little as $500 down.

What if buying land is too expensive?

After poking around a bit, you may find that purchasing land for your tiny home is prohibitively expensive, and even if you have enough money stuffed under your mattress to pick out any parcel that strikes your fancy, you may find that living out in the middle of nowhere is lonely and unfulfilling without friends and neighbors to share your life with.

An excellent solution to both problems could be to consider joining the community where I live in northeast Missouri. We have more than a dozen tiny houses located within a short walk of each other in the same village, and we own our property collectively in the form of a non-profit land trust.  Below is an aerial view of our village.

This means that we are able to lease land for new construction, gardening and most anything else you might want to do at an exceptionally affordable price, and that’s not even counting any of our three swimming ponds, or more than 200 acres of land where you can go hiking, bird watching and mushroom hunting.

Additionally, you’ll have the convenience of shared infrastructure like kitchen and bathing facilities, along with high speed internet, well-maintained roads, a tavern/restaurant that has the best selection of beer for miles in any direction, and a grocery store within a few steps of your front door. (Those organic chocolate-covered almonds are going to be the death of me…)

Best of all, you’ll also have access to lots of skilled people to provide useful input on your project. In fact, we even have a handful of houses available for sale in our community right now. Make sure to take a peek at our website and schedule some time to visit us soon, we’d love to share our sustainable tiny house lifestyle with you.