RJ Williams & Company is watching a shift in the Texas land market that buyers and sellers should not ignore: rural land sales are trending smaller in most parts of the state, and that changes how price-per-acre numbers should be read.
Texas land has always been a different kind of real estate conversation. A five-acre homesite, a 50-acre recreational tract, a working farm, and a large West Texas ranch can all sit inside the same broad category, but they do not behave the same way in the market.
New research from the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University reinforces that point. In a June 11, 2026 article, researcher Tian Su updated a long-running look at Texas rural land sales by extending the data through first quarter 2026. The takeaway is clear: in most Texas land market regions, the typical transaction has shifted toward smaller tracts.
That matters because tract size affects how land prices should be read. Smaller rural properties often sell for more per acre than larger comparable properties. If more of the market is made up of smaller sales, the reported median price per acre can rise partly because the sales mix changed, not just because every acre became more valuable.
"Texas land is not one big market. When smaller tracts become a bigger share of sales, buyers and sellers have to slow down and ask what is really being compared. A five-acre homesite and a 500-acre ranch can both be land, but they are not priced by the same buyer pool or the same use case."
Ty Williams, Broker and Founder of RJ Williams & Company
Smaller tracts are becoming a bigger part of the market
The Texas Real Estate Research Center compared acreage cutoffs from earlier land sales data with an updated 1966-2026 dataset. Across most of the seven Texas land market regions, the cutoffs moved lower. In plain English, more sales are happening at smaller acreage levels than before.
Regions 4 and 5 were already smaller-tract markets, and the updated data show that pattern getting stronger. Region 7 also moved sharply smaller in the lower and middle parts of the market, with the 20th percentile falling from 48 acres to about 21 acres and the 40th percentile falling from 90 acres to 49 acres.
The biggest shift showed up in Region 2, where the 40th percentile dropped from nearly 2,000 acres in the older benchmark to 130 acres in the updated dataset. The Center also cautioned that Region 2 is a thinner market, so changes in the mix of reported sales can move the numbers more noticeably.
Not every region is moving the same way
The Panhandle and South Plains region was the main exception. Lower-end tract sizes declined slightly, but the upper end held up better. The 60th percentile stayed at 320 acres, and the 80th percentile rose from 528 acres to 582 acres.
That makes sense because the region has a strong agricultural character, including major cropland and irrigated cropland activity. Larger, production-oriented tracts still matter there in a way they may not in smaller recreational or rural-residential markets.
"Land buyers have to look past the average price per acre. The size, use, water, access, location, and income potential of the tract can change the whole story."
Ty Williams, Broker and Founder of RJ Williams & Company
What this means for buyers
For buyers, the smaller-tract trend means competition can look different than it did years ago. More buyers may be looking for land that works as a homesite, weekend property, small ranch, recreational tract, or long-term hold. Those buyers are not always comparing land the same way a production agricultural buyer would.
A buyer shopping for 10 to 50 acres should not assume the price per acre will look like a large ranch sale. Smaller tracts often carry a premium because they are easier for more people to buy, finance, maintain, and use. Road frontage, utilities, water access, floodplain, restrictions, ag exemption history, and proximity to growing cities can all move value.
What this means for sellers
For sellers, the trend can create opportunity, but it also makes pricing more sensitive. A large landowner considering a sale may need to think carefully about whether the property should be marketed as one tract, divided into smaller parcels, or positioned for a specific buyer profile.
That does not mean every property should be split. Subdividing can create costs, access questions, utility issues, survey work, entitlement needs, and legal restrictions. The right answer depends on the land, the market, and the seller's goals.
The North Texas angle
In North Texas, land demand is shaped by growth pressure from Dallas-Fort Worth, smaller acreage lifestyle buyers, builders, investors, and long-time landowners weighing timing. As the region grows, smaller rural and edge-of-growth parcels can draw interest from people who want space without buying a full-scale ranch.
That is why local context matters. A statewide land trend is useful, but a buyer or seller still needs a property-specific read: where the tract sits, what surrounds it, what infrastructure exists, what future development pressure may look like, and who the likely buyer really is.
The bottom line
Texas land sales are not just changing in price. They are changing in size. The Texas Real Estate Research Center's updated data shows that most regions have moved toward smaller land transactions, and that shift affects how buyers, sellers, and agents should interpret price-per-acre numbers.
For anyone buying or selling land, the lesson is simple: do not rely on broad averages alone. The tract size, region, use case, and buyer pool can matter just as much as the headline price.
Source: Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University, “How Texas Land Sales Have Changed Over The Years,” published June 11, 2026.