Last reviewed September 10, 2026 · County data updated as new figures are released.
Looking for land for sale in Phelps County, Missouri? Justin Head and Ryan Record, land specialists with Whitetail Properties, help landowners around Rolla and St. James buy and sell hunting land, cattle farms, and rural homesites in trout-stream country — the Gasconade, Little Piney, and Mill Creek — and Justin is also a licensed Missouri attorney with 20 years in real estate law, handling the title, access, and estate questions that come with farm and hunting ground.
Farms & Land for Sale in Phelps County, Missouri
Whitetail Properties · Justin Head & Ryan Record
Phelps County combines the best of two worlds: the bedrock Ozarks landscape of timber, springs, and the upper Gasconade River drainage, and the steady economic base of Rolla and Missouri University of Science and Technology. The result is a land market with consistent demand from a mix of local buyers, university families, retirees, and out-of-state hunters who want quality timber and proximity to public land. The Mark Twain National Forest blankets a meaningful part of the county, and the rolling country between Rolla, St. James, and Newburg holds some of the most underrated land in Missouri.
2026 Phelps County Land Snapshot
- 2026 median: $4,160 per acre across 12 qualifying closings (through August 31, 2026)
- Three-year median: $3,491 per acre across 26 closings (Aug 2023–Aug 2026)
- Median time to contract: 52 days (full dataset)
Full closed-sale data, price zones and methodology: The Bare Dirt Report: Phelps County. All five counties side by side: Bare Dirt Reports. Checking utilities or development potential? Start with our guide to rural electric service in Missouri.
Land for sale in Phelps County
We list hunting, farm, timber, and recreational land throughout Phelps County. Our active inventory changes throughout the year. See our current listings, or use the county Bare Dirt Report for closed-sale prices. Browse what we currently have, or find out what your own ground is worth.
What Phelps County Land Is Known For
- The Gasconade River and the Little Piney — classic Ozark float water with strong smallmouth bass and trout populations on certain stretches
- Mark Twain National Forest — substantial National Forest acreage that effectively expands the hunting territory of adjacent private tracts
- Rolla and Missouri S&T — a steady professional buyer base and solid local economy
- St. James wine country — a smaller, less crowded version of Hermann with strong vineyard activity
- Productive timber — hardwood and pine country with marketable standing timber on many properties
Towns of Phelps County
Phelps County pairs a real college town with spring-fed water and wine, giving it more amenities than most counties this far into the Ozarks.
Rolla is the county seat and largest city at about 20,000, home to Missouri University of Science and Technology and sitting right on I-44 — a regional hub for healthcare, shopping, and jobs that keeps steady demand for nearby acreage.
St. James is a wine town just up the interstate, home to St. James Winery — the largest in Missouri — and the gateway to Maramec Spring Park, where the state’s fifth-largest spring feeds a celebrated trout fishery. Land near St. James carries both the wine-country and spring-water appeal.
Newburg is a small former railroad town on the Little Piney River south of Rolla, surrounded by the timbered, water-laced ground that draws hunters and floaters.
From the I-44 corridor to the spring branches and the Little Piney, Phelps County offers recreational land with town conveniences close at hand.
Property Types Common in Phelps County
- Hunting land — managed tracts with strong deer populations, often adjacent to public ground
- Cattle and hay farms — working ag land in the rolling country between the river drainages
- Recreational acreage — weekend retreats and cabin sites, often near rivers or public land
- Timber tracts — hardwood ridges and pine plantations
- Rural homesites — small acreage near Rolla, St. James, Newburg, and Edgar Springs
- Country homes and horse property — houses on acreage with barns, shops, and pasture around Rolla and St. James
Farm Ground Benchmarks: Phelps County
Sources: USDA NASS county cash rent estimates (Aug. 2024); USDA FSA CRP contract data (Sept. 30, 2025); 2022 Census of Agriculture; MU Extension 2024 Cash Rental Rate Survey. Reviewed July 2026.
Phelps County is the value county of our footprint on both columns: non-irrigated cropland rents average $24.00 per acre and pasture $18.00 — the lowest figures of the five counties we serve, against statewide averages of $148 and $37.50. Livestock does the work here: 81% of the county’s ag sales come from livestock, poultry, and products, with 30,589 cattle on 748 farms and hay on 20,991 acres — plus a wine-country wrinkle, with grapes among the county’s top crops around St. James.
CRP is essentially absent: 30.60 acres in the whole county. For a buyer, $18 pasture and $24 cropland mean the carrying math on a Phelps County tract is the friendliest in our five counties; for a seller, it means pricing against rent multiples alone undersells ground whose real market is recreation — which is exactly why we track what land actually sells for each quarter in the free Quarterly Ozarks Land Report.
Farms for Sale in Phelps County
Phelps County is the most grazing-weighted county we serve. USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture counts 748 farms on 174,422 acres, and 80,677 of those acres — 46% — are pastureland, the highest share of the five. Livestock accounts for roughly four out of every five dollars of agricultural sales in the county, with 30,589 head of cattle and $11.8 million in cattle sales.
Phelps also grew while others shrank: farms up 3% and land in farms up 9% since the 2017 census. If you own grass here, you own the thing this county is actually built on — and the buyer pool for it is local, active, and does not need to be sold on the area.
- Pasture and grass — the core asset here — stand quality, rotation history, and carrying capacity
- Hay ground — what can be cut and hauled, and what the ground has produced in a normal year
- Cattle infrastructure — pens, chutes, barns, and handling facilities a working buyer will actually use
- Water — springs, ponds, and wells — in this county water availability sets the stocking rate
- Fencing — condition and layout, including cross-fencing for rotational grazing
- Road frontage and access — legal access, county-road frontage, and whether equipment can get in
Selling a farm in Phelps County
A grass farm and a hunting tract are appraised by different buyers using different math. In Phelps County the grass buyer is usually the stronger one, and pricing a working farm as if it were recreational acreage undersells it. We price it as what it is, then run access, easement, and title questions before it ever goes live. Country homes and horse property work the same way, with the house, barn, and improvements valued separately from the pasture and timber.
Public Hunting & Conservation Land Nearby
Phelps County buyers have easy public access around Rolla — Little Prairie, Bohigian, and Beaver Creek Conservation Areas — plus the Houston/Rolla/Cedar Creek district of Mark Twain National Forest and the large Woodson K. Woods CA to the north. See our guide to public hunting in the Missouri Ozarks for acreage, allowed game, and official maps across all five counties.
Deer & Turkey Harvest
In the 2025–26 season, hunters reported 2,723 deer taken in Phelps County across all methods, along with 809 turkeys in the 2025 regular spring season. See our Deer & Turkey Harvest by County page for five-year trends across all five counties we serve.
Floating & Rivers Nearby
Phelps County offers two very different floats: the spring-fed Little Piney trout stream out of the national forest, and the broad, family-friendly Gasconade River at Jerome. See our guide to our favorite floats in the Missouri Ozarks for access points and outfitters across all five counties.
Where to Stay Nearby
Phelps County makes an easy base around Rolla and St. James, with a luxury farm retreat, wine-country suites, and plenty of cabins close to the Little Piney and Gasconade. See our guide to where to stay in the Missouri Ozarks for direct-booking cabins, inns, and rentals across all five counties.
Selling Land in Phelps County, Missouri
Thinking about selling your Phelps County land? Phelps gives you the bedrock Ozarks — timber, springs, and the upper Gasconade River drainage — plus the steady pull of Rolla and Missouri S&T, which keeps a real economy and buyer base in the county. Demand here comes from hunters after spring-fed creek bottoms and hardwood ridge, recreational buyers drawn to the water around St. James and Maramec Spring, and folks who want acreage within reach of Rolla and I-44. Whether your ground is a timbered hunting tract, creek frontage, or pasture, it sells when it’s priced and marketed right.
We price Phelps County land on what comparable parcels are actually closing for — not a fantasy number the market won’t support — using real local sales, including the closed price-per-acre data we track every quarter in the Ozarks Land Report. As landowners and hunters here ourselves, we handle the whole sale: valuation, drone and mapping work, qualifying buyers, and closing. If you want a straight answer about what your property is worth, request a free, no-obligation land valuation or call Justin or Ryan directly.
Before you price anything, see the closed-sale numbers: The Bare Dirt Report: What Phelps County Land Is Actually Worth reports the median price per acre by year, price zones, tract-size tiers, and time to contract from three years of qualifying MLS closings in this county.
Thinking of selling? Start with our guide to selling land in Phelps County — valuation to closing, step by step.
Talk to a Local Land Agent
Justin Head · (573) 308-7376 · justin.head@whitetailproperties.com
Ryan Record · (573) 259-6360 · ryan.record@whitetailproperties.com
Things to Do in Phelps County
Even if you are not buying or selling land yet, Phelps County has a lot worth coming for. A few of our guides:
What our clients say
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Other Counties We Serve
Ozarks Land Report covers five Missouri counties. Whether your property sits across the line in another county we serve, or you are searching for land in a different part of the Ozarks, here is where else we work:
- Land for sale in Franklin County, Missouri
- Land for sale in Gasconade County, Missouri
- Land for sale in Crawford County, Missouri
- Land for sale in Dent County, Missouri
Frequently Asked Questions
What is land selling for in Phelps County, Missouri?
A cattle farm outside Rolla, a creek-frontage recreational tract, and a rural homesite near St. James are three different markets wearing one county name. We publish what actually sold each quarter in the free Ozarks Land Report, and we’ll put a specific number on your property with a free valuation.
Do I need a survey before selling my land?
Often no — but Phelps County ground with old easements, shared driveways, or legal descriptions written generations ago benefits from a careful review before listing. Catching those issues early keeps contracts from falling apart later, and with a licensed Missouri attorney on the team, that review is built into how we list land.
How long does it take to sell land in Phelps County?
Properties with good access and realistic pricing draw activity within the first weeks; remote or hard-to-finance tracts take longer. We’d rather tell you the honest timeline up front than promise speed we can’t deliver.
Can I buy Phelps County land if I live out of state or hours away?
Yes — a large share of our buyers shop from St. Louis, Kansas City, and out of state. We walk properties on camera, fly FAA-licensed drone tours, and provide the kind of detailed video and documentation that lets you evaluate a tract seriously before you ever make the drive, and much of the transaction can be handled remotely.
Why are farm rents lower in Phelps County than the Missouri average?
USDA’s 2024 county estimates put Phelps County pasture at about $18 per acre and non-irrigated cropland at $24, against statewide averages of $37.50 and $148. The gap reflects the county’s livestock economy — 81% of ag sales come from livestock, poultry, and products — and thinner row-crop ground, not weak demand: recreational buyers, not rent multiples, set the pace for land prices here. Justin Head and Ryan Record, land specialists with Whitetail Properties, track Phelps County rents, land values, and closed sales — get a free valuation of your land on the What Is My Land Worth page.
Phelps County Land Research — The Tools We Use
When you’re sizing up land in Phelps County, the county’s GIS map does most of the heavy lifting — and a quick check of the state survey index can save you real money. Here are the two we reach for on every Phelps County tract.
Phelps County GIS / parcel maps (Integrity GIS)
The Phelps County GIS viewer is the workhorse here. Search by owner, parcel number, or address and the parcel draws right on the aerial — its shape, approximate acreage, road frontage, and the surrounding ground. It’s the fastest way to understand a property before you ever set foot on it, and it’ll often surface ownership and parcel details too. Keep in mind the mapped lines are a planning approximation, not a survey.
Missouri Land Survey Index — recorded surveys statewide
Pair that with the Missouri Land Survey Index from the Department of Agriculture. It lets you find and purchase any survey already recorded on a Phelps County tract — so if the corners have been pinned before, you can pull that work instead of paying to survey it again.
For more on vetting rural ground, see our guides on checking legal access before you buy and Missouri’s purple paint law.
These are third-party and government resources — information can be outdated or incomplete, and none of it replaces a current survey or a title search. When you’re ready to buy or sell in Phelps County, or want help reading any of it, call Justin Head at (573) 308-7376 or Ryan Record at (573) 259-6360.