This Is the Most Expensive Place to Buy Land

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 6, 5:00PM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

This Is the Most Expensive Place to Buy Land — © Spondylolithesis / E+ via Getty Images

“Buy land. They ain’t making any more of the stuff,” said Will Rogers. The famous actor and comedian was right. (See which people own the most land in America.)

The cost of real estate has soared in the past year. According to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index Reports, nationwide home prices rose 19.5% in September, compared to the same month in 2020. (In Phoenix, the figure was 33.1%.) But residential land prices have soared, too, and the most expensive place in America to buy residential land today is San Francisco County.

Land prices usually are measured by geographic area, which most often includes cities, states or counties. Lawn Love, an online lawn care marketplace, recently released its report on 2022’s Most Expensive Counties to Buy Residential Land. Examining the 300 of the biggest counties in America as measured by population, it considered price per acre and both annual property tax rate and annual property tax rate per acre, using data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency and SmartAsset.

Counties that Americans are leaving because of high home prices topped the list. In first place, San Francisco County had a score of 90.12. There, reports Lawn Love, the average price of an acre of vacant residential land is $20.6 million. The county also had the highest average annual property tax rate per acre – and, not surprisingly, it’s also California’s entry on the list of the most expensive county to buy a home in every state.

Click here to see the most expensive counties in America to buy residential land

Next after San Francisco County came Kings County – synonymous with the New York City borough of Brooklyn – which had a score of 57.46. All but one of the top 10 most expensive are near San Francisco or New York City. The cheapest place to buy land out of the 300 surveyed? Montgomery County, Alabama.

Atlantic County Route 619 - Ne... by Doug Kerr

Atlantic County Route 619 - Ne... (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Doug Kerr

25. Atlantic County, New Jersey
> Overall Score: 11.65
> Price rank (out of 300) 101
> Tax rank (out of 300) 12

[in-text-ad]

24. Middlesex County, New Jersey
> Overall Score: 12.29
> Price rank (out of 300) 53
> Tax rank (out of 300) 15

[recirclink id=833576]

23. Suffolk County, New York
> Overall Score: 12.50
> Price rank (out of 300) 47
> Tax rank (out of 300) 13

22. Camden County, New Jersey
> Overall Score: 13.23
> Price rank (out of 300) 142
> Tax rank (out of 300) 7

[in-text-ad-2]

21. Passaic County, New Jersey
> Overall Score: 14.23
> Price rank (out of 300) 56
> Tax rank (out of 300) 8

Bergen County, New Jersey (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Doug Kerr

20. Bergen County, New Jersey
> Overall Score: 14.31
> Price rank (out of 300) 30
> Tax rank (out of 300) 9

[in-text-ad]

19. Marin County, California
> Overall Score: 14.44
> Price rank (out of 300) 16
> Tax rank (out of 300) 103

[recirclink id=956511]

18. Honolulu County, Hawaii
> Overall Score: 14.62
> Price rank (out of 300) 7
> Tax rank (out of 300) 254

17. Los Angeles County, California
> Overall Score: 15.32
> Price rank (out of 300) 14
> Tax rank (out of 300) 106

[in-text-ad-2]

16. Union County, New Jersey
> Overall Score: 16.50
> Price rank (out of 300) 34
> Tax rank (out of 300) 5

15. Essex County, New Jersey
> Overall Score: 16.77
> Price rank (out of 300) 31
> Tax rank (out of 300) 4

[in-text-ad]

RichmondtownStreet (CC BY-SA 3.0) by GK tramrunner

14. Richmond County, New York
> Overall Score: 17.03
> Price rank (out of 300) 15
> Tax rank (out of 300) 56

[recirclink id=911070]

13. Suffolk County, Massachusetts
> Overall Score: 17.67
> Price rank (out of 300) 11
> Tax rank (out of 300) 78

12. Orange County, California
> Overall Score: 17.79
> Price rank (out of 300) 9
> Tax rank (out of 300) 90

[in-text-ad-2]

11. Alameda County, California
> Overall Score: 18.04
> Price rank (out of 300) 10
> Tax rank (out of 300) 70

10. Arlington County, Virginia
> Overall Score: 18.11
> Price rank (out of 300) 13
> Tax rank (out of 300) 52

[in-text-ad]

9. Nassau County, New York
> Overall Score: 18.51
> Price rank (out of 300) 20
> Tax rank (out of 300) 6

[recirclink id=875431]

8. Bronx County, New York
> Overall Score: 18.93
> Price rank (out of 300) 12
> Tax rank (out of 300) 39

7. Washington County, DC
> Overall Score: 25.12
> Price rank (out of 300) 5
> Tax rank (out of 300) 77

[in-text-ad-2]

6. Queens County, New York
> Overall Score: 27.30
> Price rank (out of 300) 6
> Tax rank (out of 300) 17

5. San Mateo County, California
> Overall Score: 28.22
> Price rank (out of 300) 3
> Tax rank (out of 300) 38

[in-text-ad]

4. Santa Clara County, California
> Overall Score: 28.60
> Price rank (out of 300) 4
> Tax rank (out of 300) 24

[recirclink id=975170]

3. Hudson County, New Jersey
> Overall Score: 33.99
> Price rank (out of 300) 8
> Tax rank (out of 300) 2

2. Kings County, New York
> Overall Score: 57.46
> Price rank (out of 300) 2
> Tax rank (out of 300) 3

[in-text-ad-2]

1. San Francisco County, California
> Overall Score: 90.12
> Price rank (out of 300) 1
> Tax rank (out of 300) 1

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.