By Evan Zener, Metro Land Pro with RE/MAX Equity Group — Oregon Land Specialist
After years of working with builders and seeing what they buy, I’m convinced a huge amount of future housing growth is going to keep happening on the edge of our existing cities. If you own land in one of those areas, there’s a good chance demand for your property has already increased and will keep increasing as growth continues.
This article walks through where builders are buying land, what’s driving that demand, and what it could mean for you if you own land in the path of that growth.
What I’m Seeing From Builders
Most builders I speak with aren’t looking for a single lot. They’re looking for opportunities to create housing at scale.
For a lot of them, that search points outward, toward surrounding communities and growth areas where larger development opportunities are easier to find.
That’s not every builder. There’s still plenty of activity inside cities: redevelopments, apartments, and higher-density projects. But when the goal is to build many homes rather than a few, builders are often looking toward surrounding communities and growth areas.
The big national homebuilders are buying a tremendous amount of land in suburban locations. It will take years from the time they purchase that land until the homes are built and sold. These builders are making long-term bets on where they believe housing demand will be in the future.
Why Growth Is Moving Outward
A lot of it comes down to three things: land, cost, and demand.
The first is land. America underbuilt housing for years, and builders still need large amounts of future lot inventory to keep producing homes at scale. That’s hard to do in dense urban areas because most cities are already heavily built out, and large, developable sites are increasingly difficult to find or simply don’t exist.
The second is cost. Where urban land does exist, it tends to be expensive, and so are many of the permits and fees that come with development. When you’re working on a smaller site and producing fewer units, those costs can be harder to spread out.
The third is demand. Builders aren’t just buying land because it’s available. They’re buying it because they believe people will keep wanting the type of housing these communities can provide.
Demographics are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Millennials, one of the largest generations in American history, are now in their thirties and early forties. This is the life stage where a lot of people start having kids, need more space, want a yard, and begin thinking more seriously about school districts. That lifecycle shift has always pointed toward the suburbs.
Remote work accelerated the trend even further by making distance from the office less important for many households.
From a housing product standpoint, suburban development is still where builders can most efficiently deliver the type of housing a large percentage of families are looking for: detached homes, townhomes, larger lots, and master planned communities.
Put those together and it’s pretty clear why so much builder activity keeps moving toward suburban communities and growth areas.
What This Means If You Own Land in the Path of Growth
If you own land in the path of growth, the most direct implication is this. Your land is likely worth more today than it was a few years ago, and it could be worth significantly more as growth keeps pushing outward.
It’s worth understanding why that happens, because it isn’t just attention. There are real mechanics behind it.
The first is timing. As growth moves closer, the timeline for development often becomes shorter and more certain. A property that might be developed someday is worth far less than a property that could realistically be developed in the foreseeable future. The closer that timeline gets, the more valuable that potential usually becomes.
The second is infrastructure. Sewer, water, roads, and utilities often extend outward as development occurs. If neighboring projects bring those services into the area, your property can become easier and less expensive to develop. Lower development costs mean a builder is able to pay more for the land.
The third is risk. Early on, there are a lot of unknowns. Will the city support growth here? Will zoning change? Will utilities arrive? As nearby projects get approved and built, those questions start getting answered. Less risk generally translates into higher land values.
Finally, the market gets proven. Once homes are built and sold nearby, builders have evidence that buyers want to live there. They’re no longer making a speculative bet. They’re following demonstrated demand. That tends to draw in more builders, and more buyers competing for land can create higher values.
That doesn’t mean every piece of suburban land works for builders. Site constraints, entitlement risk, utility access, and local market conditions still determine whether a property actually works for development.
But if you’re sitting in the path of that expansion, these are the forces working in your favor, and they directly affect how builders evaluate your property compared to just a few years ago.
Need Help?
If you own land on the edge of a growing area and you want to understand what it could be worth as development keeps pushing outward, I can evaluate your property and where you stand. That means looking at whether your property sits in the path of where builders are headed, how they’re likely to evaluate it, and what kind of demand could be coming as the area continues to grow.
Evan Zener — Metro Land Pro with RE/MAX Equity Group
Licensed Real Estate Broker in Oregon
503-208-5298