How to Find and Close Off-Market Land Deals in 5 Steps With Acres

Finding off-market land deals takes more than luck—it requires strategy, data, and speed. Acres.com helps land professionals streamline their search, uncover high-potential properties faster, and pre-qualify opportunities based on real criteria. 

This guide walks you through a 5 step strategy to search, vet, and act on land opportunities before the competition.

Contents

Step 1: Define Your Criteria and Use Layers to Pre-Qualify Parcels

Step 2: Conduct Due Diligence

Step 3: Estimate Land Value with Instant Valuation Reports

Step 4: Build Targeted Lead Lists Using Ownership Data

Step 5: Generate Custom Reports and Shareable Map Links

Step 1. Define Your Criteria and Use Layers to Pre-Qualify Parcels

The key to off-market success is narrowing in on the right properties. Acres gives you the tools to do exactly that—apply powerful map layers and filters to quickly surface parcels that meet your specific criteria.

Use layers to zero in on parcels based on:

• Zoning and future land use to ensure compatibility with your intended project.
  
  
• Infrastructure, including roads, utilities, power access, and more.
  
  
• Mortgage Data filters allow you to quickly find qualified leads. 

Instead of combing through scattered data, you can start with a focused set of high-potential properties. Acres makes it easy to skip the noise and quickly pre-qualify parcels. 

Step 2: Conduct Due Diligence

Once a parcel looks promising, it’s time to verify its potential. Acres gives you the complete land intelligence needed to validate a property’s viability:

• Topographic overlays (slope, elevation).
  

• Floodplain and wetlands data.
  

• Sales history and vacancy indicators to spot underutilized parcels.

Due diligence helps ensure you're not blindsided by deal-breakers and can move forward with confidence.

Step 3: Estimate Land Value with Instant Valuation Reports

If you're doing targeted outreach, understanding land values before contacting owners helps you craft a more compelling, credible, and realistic offer. Acres equips you with data and tools to generate instant valuation reports that reflect real market conditions.

Use Acres to:

• Filter and analyze relevant comparable sales.

• Search for sales within defined boundaries, like zoning or school districts.

• Use listings to evaluate what nearby properties are priced at.

• Review parcel characteristics like acreage, soil data, zoning, and more.

With these insights, you can build data-backed instant valuation reports to guide your offer and strengthen your pitch.

Step 4: Build Targeted Lead Lists Using Ownership Data

Once you’ve narrowed your parcel search, Acres makes it easy to find out who owns the land and how to reach them. Detailed parcel records, including ownership names and mailing addresses, are built right into the platform, so there’s no need to dig through county records or bounce between websites.

From there, you can turn your selected parcels into targeted lead lists.

Export your lead list as a CSV, complete with owner and parcel details—ready for direct mail campaigns or outreach workflows. 

Step 5: Generate Custom Reports and Shareable Map Links

Once you have your lead list, create professional reports and map links that make your outreach more compelling.

With Acres, you can:

• Build custom property reports with parcel-level insights, aerial imagery, comps, zoning, and more.
  
  

• Create interactive map links you can share with partners, customers, or team members.

You can customize each report to highlight insights most relevant to your target audience and make it easier for recipients to understand potential at a glance.

Master Your Off-Market Land Strategy

Off-market land deals need more than guesswork or quick instincts. They require a clear, structured strategy. Each step, from pre-qualifying parcels to due diligence and valuation, builds a stronger foundation for successful offers.

With Acres, you can do it all in one place—search, vet, value, and share land opportunities without bouncing between tools or data sources. The result? A repeatable, scalable strategy backed by data to find and close land deals.

Start building your off-market pipeline today at Acres.com.