The No-BS Guide to What Bare Land Is Actually Selling for Per Acre

By Justin Head | Ozarks Land Report | Updated September 2026 · Data through August 31, 2026. No qualifying closings posted in August 2026, so figures are unchanged from the July edition. Updated monthly as new closings post.

Buying or selling land in Gasconade County? Start with our Gasconade County farms and land page.

Here’s the number, right up front, because that’s the whole point of this report:

What is bare land worth per acre in Gasconade County, Missouri?

Median: $5,458 per acre in 2026 (call it $5,500)
2026 range: $4,990-$6,995 per acre
2026 sample: 8 qualifying closed sales, approximately 442 acres and $2.56 million in total volume
Full dataset: 42 qualifying closed sales from August 1, 2023 through August 31, 2026, totaling 2,828 acres and $15.2 million in volume

These figures describe qualifying transactions reported in MARIS under the report’s stated screening method. They are not a census of every transfer of land in the county.

In the eight qualifying 2026 transactions under the screen described below, sale prices ranged from approximately $5,000 to $7,000 per acre. No algorithm. No portal estimate. Just closed transactions drawn from the MLS record.

If you’d rather have an estimate than real data, Zillow is thataway. If you want to know what your ground would actually bring, and where this market has been heading, keep reading.

Prefer a copy for your files or your coffee table? Download the full report as a PDF.

Why AI often gets your land’s value wrong

I hear it almost weekly now. A seller calls me and says, “Well, ChatGPT says my farm is worth $9,200 an acre.” Or Zillow says. Or Perplexity says. And they’re often wrong, sometimes by a lot. Here’s why, and it’s not because the machines are dumb. It’s because the data they’re fed is contaminated in three specific ways:

1. They often can’t reliably separate the dirt from the improvements. When a 60-acre farm with a $250,000 house and a $60,000 shop sells for $700,000, a simple price-per-acre calculation records that sale as $11,667 per acre. It wasn’t. The dirt in that sale was worth maybe $390,000, about $6,500 an acre. The rest was lumber, concrete, and copper wire. Closed-sale records do not reliably allocate the purchase price between the land and the improvements, and public portals generally do not provide a dependable land-only allocation. An automated answer built from those records can therefore overstate bare-land value.

2. Missouri has no statewide requirement that real estate sale prices be publicly disclosed. That leaves public valuation tools with incomplete price data, especially for rural land. Asking prices are not closed values, and an automated tool may remember the wish instead of the result.

3. An algorithm has never walked your farm. It doesn’t know your east 40 was select-cut five years ago. It doesn’t know the “road frontage” is a shared gravel easement with no maintenance agreement. It doesn’t know whether electric is at the corner or $40,000 away. On bare land, those things can materially change value. I’ve written about most of them, including utilities, road agreements, and creeks and water rights, because they’re where land value actually lives.

This report applies the same objective screen to every transaction: Farm or Land & Lots, at least 30 acres, and zero reported bedrooms and bathrooms. A blank bedroom or bathroom field is treated as zero. For purposes of this analysis, those transactions are referred to as “bare-land” or “bare-dirt” sales. The screen substantially reduces residential influence, but it cannot guarantee that every tract was completely free of buildings or other improvements. Same filter, same method as my quarterly Ozarks land market reports. I pull these by hand because I want the real answers for my clients.

What three years of dirt say: the 2024 repricing

Line up all 42 closings by year and the story jumps off the page:

Year	Sales	Median $/acre	Weighted $/acre	Range
2023 (Aug-Dec, partial)	6	$4,349	$4,322	$3,698 – $4,688
2024	17	$5,500	$5,422	$3,390 – $9,342
2025	11	$5,639	$5,561	$3,573 – $13,000
2026 (through August, partial)	8	$5,458	$5,800	$4,990 – $6,995

Median price per acre for bare 30+ acre tracts in Gasconade County: $4,349 (2023, partial year), $5,500 (2024), $5,639 (2025), $5,458 (2026 through August). The 2024 repricing has held within 3% since.

The median increased roughly 26% from the partial 2023 period to 2024 and has remained within 3% of the 2024 median in both years since. In the eight qualifying sales through August 2026, the acreage-weighted average reached $5,800 per acre, the highest annual figure in this dataset, and every close fell inside a roughly $2,000-per-acre band, tighter than in either full year in the set. Because 2026 is a partial year containing eight qualifying sales, these figures describe the observed sample; they do not establish a guaranteed market floor.

Owners who purchased comparable bare ground before 2024 may already have benefited from the market’s repricing. If you’ve been sitting on a 2022 opinion of your land’s value, it’s stale in the other direction.

The four price zones of Gasconade County

“What’s an acre worth in Gasconade County?” is really four questions, because this county trades in four distinct zones. The following zones summarize the complete August 2023-August 2026 dataset.

Zone	What it is	Sales	Median $/acre	Range
Owensville / Rosebud open-ground market	Open, workable agricultural ground; the highest zone median in the dataset	10	$6,647	$4,290 – $8,160
Hermann / New Haven corridor (river country, Highway 100)	Wine-country and river-corridor ground; the highest upper-end result in the dataset	9	$6,455	$3,717 – $13,000
Central timber / recreational market (Bland, Cuba, and Rosebud)	Huntable timber and mixed recreational tracts; the tightest price range in the dataset	11	$4,928	$3,944 – $5,756
Western edge market	Timber and pasture along the county’s western edge; the lowest zone median in the dataset	12	$4,500	$3,390 – $5,648

The pattern is simple once you see it: open ag ground and river-corridor ground carry a roughly 30-35% premium over timber country. Hermann’s wine-country market can push the right small tract into five figures per acre. Meanwhile good huntable timber from Owensville south through Bland trades honestly in the high-$4,000s to mid-$5,000s, and the western edge trades lowest of all while producing more closings than any other zone. Neither number is wrong. They’re different markets that happen to share a courthouse.

Two footnotes, because transparency is the product here: (1) Zones are assigned by MLS market area, then community and ground type within it. That is why Rosebud-area ground appears in two zones: open tracts trade with the Owensville/Rosebud open-ground market, while timbered tracts trade with the central timber market. (2) Some central-zone ground carries a Cuba mailing address but is situated in Gasconade County (Owensville township, Gasconade MLS market area). The post office is in Crawford County; the dirt is not.

What tract size does to price per acre

The following tiers summarize the complete August 2023-August 2026 dataset:

Tract size	Sales	Median $/acre	Range
30-50 acres	17	$5,252	$3,944 – $13,000
50-80 acres	11	$5,639	$3,573 – $9,342
80-120 acres	11	$5,426	$3,390 – $6,995
120+ acres	3	$4,928	$3,952 – $5,500

Smaller tracts do not always bring more per acre. In this dataset, the 50-80 acre tier produced the highest median, while the 120+ acre tier produced the lowest. These are simple groupings rather than controlled comparisons, and the 120+ acre tier contains only three sales. The results show that acreage alone did not determine price per acre; location, access, usability, and ground quality also matter.

The 2026 market at a glance

Eight qualifying bare-land transactions closed through August 2026, representing approximately 442 acres and $2.56 million in total sales volume.

The median sale price was $5,458 per acre, while the acreage-weighted average was $5,800 per acre. All eight transactions fell between approximately $5,000 and $7,000 per acre, and four of the eight went under contract within 60 days.

How fast does bare land sell in Gasconade County?

Time to contract (final listing)	Sales
7 days or less	9
8-14 days	4
15-30 days	2
31-60 days	8
61-179 days	11
180 days or more	6

Across the 40 closings with a recorded marketing period, the median time to contract was 43 days, and 23 of the 40 went under contract within 60 days. Many qualifying tracts moved quickly, including 13 that went under contract within two weeks.

At the other extreme, six sales required 180 days or longer, with the longest approaching two years. Marketing time can reflect price, access, property condition, seasonality, relisting strategy, and other tract-specific factors. The data show a wide range of exposure times, but they do not establish why any particular property took longer to sell.

One opinion from the field, clearly labeled as such: in my experience walking this ground, price is the single biggest lever on marketing time.

How this report was built

This analysis covers 42 closed MLS transactions from August 1, 2023 through August 31, 2026. Qualifying transactions were limited to properties classified in the MLS as Farm or Land & Lots, containing at least 30 acres, and reporting zero bedrooms and zero bathrooms, with a blank bedroom or bathroom field treated as zero. Duplicate records were removed, and the statistics were calculated using the acreage and closed-sale information reported in the source records.

For purposes of this report, a “qualifying bare-land transaction” is a closed MLS sale classified as Farm or Land & Lots, containing at least 30 acres, and reporting zero bedrooms and zero bathrooms in the MLS record.

This screening method is intended to reduce the influence of residential improvements, but it does not establish that every included tract was completely free of improvements. Some properties may contain fencing, utilities, wells, driveways, ponds, outbuildings, cabins, or other improvements that were not reflected in the MLS bedroom and bathroom fields. MLS information may be incomplete or entered inconsistently. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

A few more details, in the interest of full transparency. All 42 transactions are located in Gasconade County; twelve of them, comprising the entire western-edge zone, are assigned to adjacent MLS market areas and are labeled as the western-edge zone throughout this report. Zones are assigned by MLS market area, then community and ground type within it. Time to contract reflects each property’s final listing period. Two of the 42 closings show no marketing period in the MLS record. They are included in every price statistic, but a property that was never marketed cannot be said to have gone under contract in zero days, so the time-to-contract figures cover the other 40. Using cumulative days across relistings instead, the median increases from 43 to 50 days, and seven sales rather than six required 180 days or more. The pattern holds either way you count it.

The annual, zone, tract-size, and time-to-contract tables report only aggregated market statistics. No property addresses, MLS numbers, photographs, listing remarks, agents or brokerages are identified.

Based on information from Mid America Regional Information Systems, Inc. for the period August 1, 2023 through August 31, 2026. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

So what’s your land worth?

Somewhere in those tables. Where you land inside your zone comes down to the things no algorithm can see: open versus timbered, how it was cut and when, legal access versus handshake access, utilities at the road or a quarter mile away, water, neighbors, and how the property hunts or grazes. Those final property-specific adjustments are walked, not calculated.

I’ll give you the real number, and I’ll show you the comparable sales and methodology behind it, the same way this report shows you the market’s actual ranges and trends. No charge, no pressure, and if the honest answer is “hold it and let it grow,” that’s the answer you’ll get. Start here: What’s my land worth? If you’re weighing a sale, the selling land in Missouri guide walks the whole process, and the land for sale in Gasconade County page shows the current market.

Frequently asked questions

What is an acre of land worth in Gasconade County, Missouri in 2026? Based on the eight qualifying MLS closings through August 31, 2026, involving tracts classified as Farm or Land & Lots, containing at least 30 acres, and reporting zero bedrooms and zero bathrooms in the MLS record, bare land in Gasconade County is selling between approximately $5,000 and $7,000 per acre in 2026, with a median of $5,458. Open agricultural and Hermann-corridor ground bring the top of the range, while timbered recreational ground generally falls in the lower half. These figures describe qualifying transactions reported in MARIS under the report’s stated screening method. They are not a census of every transfer of land in the county.

Have Gasconade County land prices peaked? The data show a market that repriced and has held, rather than one that is presently peaking: the median jumped about 26% in 2024 and has stayed within 3% of that level through 2026. In the 2026 sample of eight sales, every closing fell between approximately $5,000 and $7,000 per acre, a tighter clustering than in either full year in the dataset. Those figures describe the observed sample rather than a guaranteed floor.

Why can Zillow be wrong about my land’s value? Zillow itself states that vacant land is not eligible for a Zestimate. A portal page may still display asking-price, tax, prior-sale, or user-submitted information, and for rural land those records may not reliably separate land value from houses and other improvements. Missouri also has no statewide requirement that real estate sale prices be publicly disclosed. A closed-sale analysis built on a stated, consistent screen, shown along with its methodology and its limits, is therefore more useful than a portal estimate.

Why did ChatGPT or Perplexity give me a different number? AI tools may summarize public listing and portal data that do not reliably separate improvements from land or asking prices from actual closings. They’ve also never seen your timber, your access, or your utilities. Use them to learn concepts, not to price a specific farm in a state without comprehensive public sale-price reporting.

What makes one Gasconade County farm worth $4,500 an acre and another $6,600? Mostly zone and ground type: Hermann-corridor and open Owensville-area ground carry a roughly 30-35% premium over timber country, and the western edge trades lowest. Within a zone, access, utilities, timber condition, and overall usability decide the rest. The dataset’s median time to contract was 43 days, but individual marketing periods ranged from under a week to nearly two years.

How do I find out what my specific land is worth? Get a valuation from someone who has both the closed-sale data and boots that have walked ground in this county. I provide that as a free, no-obligation breakdown, with the comparable sales shown, not hidden.

Buying or selling land here? Visit our Gasconade County farms and land page.

Explore the Complete Bare Dirt Report Series

See closed-sale land-price data for all five counties served by Ozarks Land Report: