What is Unrestricted Land?

Are you looking to invest in land and keep hearing about this elusive beast of unrestricted land?

My name is Felicia I’m a land investor and a partner at Compass Land USA. 

We’ve bought and sold hundreds of properties across the US. If you give me just a few minutes of your time here I’m going to explain exactly what unrestricted land is, and what it means for you.

What is unrestricted land?

Ok, so a lot of new land buyers hear about this mythical beast, unrestricted land. I say mythical because it’s pretty rare, almost anywhere you buy land, there are going to be some kind of restrictions or boundaries in place for what you can use it for.

Unrestricted means that there are zero impositions or restrictions against any and all types of property use. It means you can do absolutely whatever the heck you want.

So there are no restrictions from the zoning, deed, city or town, easements, home owner or property owner associations, or municipality. That’s a lot of opportunity for potential restrictions. 

That’s why I’m always wary when someone is selling unrestricted land. It’s more likely that they think the land is unrestricted, but don’t fully understand all of the property details. That’s a big reason why doing your due diligence when investing in land is so, so important.

Restrictions aren’t necessarily a bad thing, nor are they a dealbreaker. You just need to understand if there are any restrictions against what you are hoping to use the property for.

For example, if you’re looking to camp on your land, or bring in livestock, do you really care if a manufactured home is allowed? Or, if you’re looking to build a new home, do you care about having livestock on your property? Maybe not.

So the restrictions might not be a dealbreaker for you. Let’s take a minute to understand each of these restriction categories.

Zoning Restrictions

• limit how a property is used and developed in the future
• for example, a residentially zoned property cannot be developed into an industrial park or commercial space
• be careful here because even if residential land is being marketed as unrestricted, that doesn’t mean you would be able to put a condo building up there
• You can learn how to find out the zoning of a property here

Deed Restrictions

• limit the type of structure that’s allowed on the property
• limit where you can place a structure on your property
• limit whether or not you can have livestock and pets (Zoning Restrictions can also impact livestock)
• limit whether or not you’re allowed to run a business from your home
• can get pretty detailed, limiting things like how many bedrooms your house floor plan has, and how many cars you can park on your driveway

City or Municipality Restrictions

• not as common as the others
• can cover random things that aren’t detailed out in zoning, or are added by a certain area of town
• Example: in Colorado City Colorado, Municipality requires at least 1 acre to have septic installed on your property

Easement Restrictions

• can be tricky, because they’re not always visible
• normally covers any property features
• things like setbacks, utility lines, access or sidewalks, driveway placement
• gives others (like city workers or neighboring property owners) a right to access a part of your property for a specific use – like if their neighbor’s property is landlocked and they have to cross your lot via an easement to get to theirs, in this situation you can’t actually block access to the property

HOA or POA Restrictions

• these are sometimes the same thing as Deed Restrictions
• can cover similar areas, like what color your mailbox or fence is
• can also dictate things like how many days in a row you’re allowed to camp on your property without a permit, how many trees you can remove, whether or not you can park an RV on the property, etc.

Again, not all of these restrictions are bad. They are something that you need to be aware of and make sure they don’t impact your desired property use.

One word of caution with totally unrestricted land. If your property is unrestricted, then your neighbor’s probably is too.

This means that there are no rules against them turning their property into a junkyard, or having a bunch of livestock. Or having any degree of pride or care at all about the look and maintenance of their property. This could severely impact the value of your property, and it would be totally out of your control. 

I hope you found this video helpful! If you made it this far, thank you so much for watching, and for taking the time to educate yourself on how to become a smarter land buyer.

Please don’t forget to leave a comment, let me know if this was useful for you, leave a question – I’ll reply with your answer. And make sure you subscribe to our channel. We do lots of informative land buying videos like this as well as pretty cool custom property tour videos. 

Thank you so much for watching, and I’ll talk to you soon. 🙂