Why I Don't Predict Trends in Land — and What I Watch Instead
I get asked all the time where I think the land market is going. My honest answer is: I don't try to predict trends, because predicting trends is a losing game. What I do instead is watch the slow-moving structural stuff that doesn't reverse on a tweet.
The trend-prediction trap
"In general, I don't try to predict trends because it seems pointless. But I think if you look at what Americans are moving towards and if you look at how the off-grid technology is improving, you can have a hypothesis that the demand for rural vacant land will only continue to increase." — Drew, on Land Investing Business Secrets (Feb 2026)
Most "trend predictions" in land are guesses dressed up as analysis. They sound smart in a podcast intro and look ridiculous 18 months later. The funders who built durable businesses didn't get there by being right about interest rates or recession timing. They got there by working a model that survives in multiple scenarios.
What I actually watch
Two slow-moving structural things, both of which point the same direction for rural vacant land:
1. Where Americans are moving
The data on out-migration from urban cores has been remarkably consistent for years. People are spreading out. Remote work didn't reverse that. Cost of living didn't reverse that. The baseline trend is more Americans wanting to own a piece of rural ground than there are clean parcels available.
2. What's getting cheaper / better off-grid
Off-grid tech keeps improving. Solar is cheaper than it was three years ago. Battery storage is better. Satellite internet (Starlink and competitors) eliminates a major historical objection to rural land. Water solutions, septic alternatives, even modular structures are getting more accessible. Each one of those incrementally expands the universe of buyers who can imagine living on a rural parcel.
Stack those two and the structural picture is: more demand and a wider buyer pool, against a fundamentally fixed supply of well-located rural ground. That's the hypothesis I'd defend even if I couldn't predict the next 18 months.
What I don't bet on
| I don't try to predict | Because |
|---|---|
| Interest rate moves | Plenty of smart people lose money trying to. I'd rather underwrite a deal that works at the rate I have today. |
| Recession timing | I can't time it, and the operators who did "wait it out" missed three years of deals. |
| Which states will heat up | By the time it's predictable, the margin is gone. |
| Single-year market shifts | The signal-to-noise ratio is awful at that timescale. |
What this looks like as a funder
I underwrite each deal at today's market conditions, not at projected ones. If a deal only pencils because rates drop in six months or because a state heats up next year, I don't fund it. The deals I fund have to make sense at the rates and the velocity we're seeing right now.
For operators
If your business model relies on a market shift that hasn't happened yet, you don't have a business model. You have a bet. Build for the conditions that exist. The operators who built durable land businesses in 2024 didn't predict 2025 right. They just kept doing the boring thing through both years.
Funding deals on today's math
We underwrite to current conditions, not predictions. Submit a deal that pencils today.
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