In 2025, the average price of rural land in Texas climbed 6.56 percent to $5,214 per acre, according to the Texas Real Estate Research ­Center’s Land Market Report. Several areas of the state hit record highs in pricing and volume in 2025, others were stagnant, and a few experienced slight declines.

“From a macroeconomic standpoint, it’s a pretty confusing time,” says Dr. Charles Gilliland, a research ­economist at the Texas Real Estate Research ­Center at Texas A&M University. “There is just a lot of uncertainty about what path everything is going to take and where all this is going.”

Interest in cropland withered under the heat of rising input costs and lower export volume, but those effects were more than offset by the land rush generated by the rapid expansion of data center construction. And hovering over it all was the specter of rising inflation, ­adding another layer of uncertainty to the market.

But in many ways, Texas land ­markets are still dealing with their own ­versions of long COVID, as the ­dramatic spike in demand that took place in 2020, 2021, and 2022 following the onset of the pandemic skewed ­expectations among landowners.

“Everything went crazy in the land market after COVID,” Gilliland says. “Typically, Texas ranches take a year to 18 months to market and sell. But during 2021 and 2022, people were listing a place on Monday and selling it by Friday. During that period, prices went up dramatically. A lot of money was thrown at the land market.

“It was only a couple of years, but people got used to everything selling quickly. Then, when things went back to normal, it seemed like the market was in the doldrums because the volume of sales dropped dramatically and the percentage increase in prices started to slow down. But really, we’re just back to where we typically were before.”

For a state as expansive as Texas, a return to normal can mean drastically different things in its many different markets. Overall, the statewide nominal price reached a record high of $5,214 per acre, according to the report. This per-acre value represents a 6.56 percent year-over-year increase. Sales volume also increased. Statewide, the number of sales rose 8.16 percent, the ­strongest growth since late 2021. There was, ­however, a notable caveat: The typical tract size contracted markedly, down 31.6 percent to 1,578 acres.

One of the strongest markets was West Texas, where prices jumped by nearly 13.5 percent to a record high of $2,878 per acre. Likewise, prices rose in the Austin-Waco-Hill Country region by 8.15 percent to an all-time high of $7,911 per acre.

Moving forward, Gilliland says the big wild card involves land acquisition for data centers. A number of these sales are taking place in rural West Texas and in the heavily populated ­Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. They have the potential to upend both markets, much like the COVID pandemic.

“I’m hearing some astonishing ­numbers thrown out, with developers paying as much as 10 times the going price for the land,” Gilliland says. “That’s going to have a sizable impact on prices overall, especially in places like Abilene and smaller communities throughout West Texas.

“There is a flash flood of cash that’s headed for data center activity. I’d say fasten your seat belts, because we’re in for some kind of ride,” he says.