Land for sale in the Sacramento region

Where land is still available near Sacramento

The Sacramento region still offers buildable land within an hour of downtown, and it changes character quickly as you move outward. In South Placer County, the custom-home lots of Granite Bay, Loomis, Penryn, and Newcastle run from one-acre parcels inside established neighborhoods to ten-acre and larger properties with orchard, pasture, or oak woodland. Up Highway 50 in El Dorado County, Shingle Springs, Cameron Park, and the Placerville area carry a deep inventory of rural residential parcels, many zoned for horses and some planted to vines.

West of the river, Yolo County is agricultural land: row crops, orchards, and ranch ground around Woodland, Winters, and the Capay Valley. In Nevada County, the foothill parcels around Nevada City, Grass Valley, and Penn Valley are forested or mixed oak and pine, often with seasonal creeks and ditch water rights that matter as much as the acreage.

Questions to answer before you buy land

A parcel’s price means little until you know what it will cost to make it usable. Our agents work through these items with every land buyer:

• Zoning and the general plan: what the county allows on the parcel today, including minimum lot size, second units, agricultural uses, and animal keeping.
• Water: a public connection, a well with a documented yield and water quality test, or irrigation district water with its own rules and fees.
• Sewer or septic: whether a septic system is feasible under current county standards, which requires a percolation test and soil evaluation on most rural parcels.
• Access and utilities: recorded legal access, road maintenance agreements on private roads, the distance to power and the cost to bring it in, and internet options.
• Fire hazard severity zone, defensible space requirements, and the availability and cost of homeowners insurance, which now shapes what can be built in much of the foothills.
• Easements, mineral rights, Williamson Act contracts on agricultural land, and any flood or wetland constraints.

Building a custom home on your lot

Buyers who find the right parcel often build rather than wait for the right house. The brokerage’s agents have represented custom-home lots in guard-gated and gated communities as well as rural parcels, and can connect you with builders, architects, and civil engineers who work in the county you are buying in. Expect the sequence to run: parcel purchase, survey and soils work, design and county permitting, site work and utilities, then construction. Timelines vary with the jurisdiction and the season; permits in the foothills can take longer where fire and septic reviews apply.

Selling land and acreage

Land sells on information. A listing that documents zoning, water, access, soils, and buildable area attracts serious buyers and shortens escrow, while a bare listing invites low offers and long contingency periods. Our agents assemble that package before the parcel goes on the market, photograph it from the ground and from the air, and market it through the Sotheby’s International Realty network to buyers who are specifically looking for land in Northern California. Start with a valuation request and note that it is land.