{"id":392121,"date":"2026-07-30T15:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T15:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/392121\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T15:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T15:46:08","slug":"texas-counties-have-more-ranches-for-sale-than-any-other-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/392121\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas counties have more ranches for sale than any other state"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"The Freeman Family Ranches sold after being listed for nearly $128 million. The property includes feedyards for cattle and is set to stay a ranch property.\u00a0\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:3 \/ 2\" class=\"x100 y100 opc bgpc ofcv bgscv block bg-gray200 mnh0px fill\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Freeman Family Ranches sold after being listed for nearly $128 million. The property includes feedyards for cattle and is set to stay a ranch property.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Hall and Hall<\/p>\n<p>Texas counties and metro areas have more ranch listings than other areas of the country by a wide margin.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-channels-pixel.ex.co\/events\/0012000001fxZm9AAE?integrationType=DEFAULT&amp;template=design%2Farticle%2Fplatypus_two_column.tpl\" alt=\"\" class=\"x1px y1px vh abs\" aria-hidden=\"true\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n<p>When looking at the sheer number of ranches, Texas definitely jumps out, said Anthony Smith, a senior economist at Realtor.com.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is definitely going to be tied to just the amount of space that&#8217;s available in such a vast area,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThat&#8217;s really what we see in Texas. It just has a lot of open space to offer to really support the number of ranches that we see.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realtor.com\/research\/ranch-luxury-2026\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Realtor.com report<\/a> measured active inventory for-sale ranch and farm properties from Realtor.com listing data as of June 2026. In the report, Texas led many listings in terms of volume, but not price.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Smith said part of looking through Texas data also meant differentiating between land used for ranches and land for sale that hadn\u2019t been developed into a ranch.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Metro markets<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"The Freeman Family Ranches are three ranches in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles that include nearly 88,000 acres.\" loading=\"lazy\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:3 \/ 2\" class=\"x100 y100 opc bgpc ofcv bgscv block bg-gray200 mnh0px fill\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Freeman Family Ranches are three ranches in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles that include nearly 88,000 acres.<\/p>\n<p>Hall and Hall<\/p>\n<p>Texas counties led the country when it comes to ranch listing volume.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>Nine of the top 10 counties with the most ranch listings are in Texas. Additionally, most of the counties on the list are near Austin and San Antonio.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At 237 ranch listings, Burnet County had the most in the nation. Other high ranking Texas counties on the list included\u00a0Fayette County at 232 listings, Williamson County at 189 listings and Kerr County with 188 listings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When looking at metro areas, the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos area led U.S. metros with 727 ranch listings. Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands ranked second with 640 ranch listings. San Antonio-New Braunfels was third with 564 listings.<\/p>\n<p>Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington ranked fifth \u2014 behind the\u00a0Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin metro area in Tennessee \u2014 with 274 ranch listings. D-FW had a median ranch listing price of $1.4 million, according to the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s hard to beat properties within a two-hour radius of the metro, said Tyler Thomas, owner of TT Ranch Group, a real estate firm within Briggs Freeman Sotheby&#8217;s International Realty. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there&#8217;s a lot of discerning, educated and savvy buyers out there and they&#8217;re looking at \u2018If I buy this today, what&#8217;s it going to be worth when my kids or grandkids sell it?\u2019\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n<p>Premium prices<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"A 667-acre property listed for sale has more than 10,000 feet along U.S. Highway 67.\" loading=\"lazy\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:4 \/ 3\" class=\"x100 y100 opc bgpc ofcv bgscv block bg-gray200 mnh0px fill\"\/><\/p>\n<p>A 667-acre property listed for sale has more than 10,000 feet along U.S. Highway 67.<\/p>\n<p>TT Ranch Group<\/p>\n<p>Everything&#8217;s bigger in Texas doesn\u2019t ring true when it comes to ranch prices. Although Texas leads the nation in terms of the number of listings, higher prices are farther west.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Jackson, Wyoming, had the highest median listing price of any metro area at $7.9 million. Bozeman, Montana, ranked second with a median listing price of $4.9 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>None of the volume leading counties and metros in Texas came close to the top of the premium price list, according to the Realtor.com report.<\/p>\n<p>That doesn\u2019t mean that Texas is without high priced ranches. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/business\/real-estate\/article\/freeman-ranches-sell-128-million-texas-border-22364323.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Freeman Family Ranches<\/a>, near the Texas-Oklahoma border, had a nearly $128 million listing price and\u00a0sold in late July. Additionally, The Dallas Morning News reported on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/business\/real-estate\/article\/667-acre-tract-us-highway-67-d-fw-s-next-expand-22287769.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a property near\u00a0D-FW listed for $20 million<\/a> in June.<\/p>\n<p>Areas of Texas like Big Bend, Fort Davis and the panhandle have larger legacy ranches that seldom trade because they are often passed down through generations, Thomas said. When they do sell there\u2019s a demand for them, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to big ranches, like sites over 30,000 acres, there are few for sale right now, said Chad Dugger of Hall and Hall, who was a\u00a0listing agent for the Freeman Family Ranches. Options are more limited for properties with 75,000 acres and up.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Who\u2019s buying?<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"The Pearl Ranch is about 40 minutes away from downtown Dallas, in the western portion of Ellis County.\" loading=\"lazy\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:4 \/ 3\" class=\"x100 y100 opc bgpc ofcv bgscv block bg-gray200 mnh0px fill\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Pearl Ranch is about 40 minutes away from downtown Dallas, in the western portion of Ellis County.<\/p>\n<p>TT Ranch Group<\/p>\n<p>The people looking to buy ranches tend to fall into three categories: operators, investors and people leaving the city, Dugger said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>Operators are people looking to expand their ranching business. They might own livestock or produce another agricultural product as their primary business and want more property.<\/p>\n<p>Investors are buyers who might have sold other properties and are interested in the agricultural aspect of a ranch, but are also looking for a safe investment.<\/p>\n<p>Then there are people moving out of the city, buying a ranch as a primary or secondary residence, using the space mostly for recreational purposes. All three markets have an investment component, Dugger said.<\/p>\n<p>Market forces<\/p>\n<p>During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people were looking for a secondary home, Thomas said. People were buying recreational ranches at a time when interest rates were low.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe truth of the matter is we kind of sold through most of the good inventory on the market during those couple years, and we kind of hit historical lows in inventory,\u201d Thomas said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, Thomas said inventory has come back to the market, but there weren\u2019t as many buyers. He said that could be because of economic uncertainty.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Inventory contracted between 2020 and 2021, falling from nearly 28,900 listings nationally to about 16,540 listings, according to the report. There were about 19,500 listings in June.<\/p>\n<p>Ranch and land sales are different from other real estate markets because they are working with a finite supply, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can build more manufacturing buildings,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cYou can build more office space. The one thing you can&#8217;t build more of is land. And that&#8217;s the space that we operate in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Historically, the industry has had peaks and valleys, but Thomas said he thinks the industry in Texas is moving towards peaks and plateaus, performing well as population goes up and avoiding sharp downturns.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut unless you can convince me that people are going to quit moving to Texas, I don&#8217;t think we&#8217;re going to have these extreme valleys that we experienced in the 80s and early 2000s,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Freeman Family Ranches sold after being listed for nearly $128 million. The property includes feedyards for cattle&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28,88032,89512,119034,90037],"class_list":["post-392121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tp-dallas-fortworth","tag-tp-texas","tag-tp-austin","tag-tp-residential-real-estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}