Why do some land listings sit for years?
A land listing can sit when a buyer's due diligence meets a question it cannot close, such as legal access, title, or a bare perc result with no soil evaluation behind it, or when its advertising no longer matches the ground or the listing's status. Price is one more test. No public count says how many listings sit or why, so the listing's own record is where to look.
Active, Expired, Withdrawn, Active again: what a status trail records
Pull up the listing's history the way the MLS keeps it, ahead of any walk on the ground: a string of statuses with dates. A tract that shows Active, then Expired, then Withdrawn, then Active again has already told part of its story.
The Southwest Virginia Association of REALTORS defines those words in its MLS quick reference, whose service area names Carroll, Grayson and Wythe counties and the City of Galax among others. The New River Valley Association of REALTORS says it serves an overlapping area, and a listing held in a different MLS follows that MLS's own rules.
- Active
- The property is actively being shown to buyers and is available for showings.
- Temporarily Withdrawn
- Off the market for a set period and not available for showings, with the listing agreement between the brokerage and the seller still in effect.
- Withdrawn
- Taken off the market and no longer for sale.
- Expired
- The listing contract expired and was not renewed.
An Expired entry is the law working as written. Under Va. Code 54.1-2137 C 1, every brokerage agreement needs a definite termination date, and one without a stated date terminates 90 days after its date. Subsection A says the brokerage relationship runs until performance is complete or, if earlier, until an agreed expiration date, a mutually agreed termination, or a default under the agreement, among other endings.
So a trail of expirations and returns records agreements that ran their term without a sale, and owners who put the same land back. It does not say why. That comes from the parcel and the listing itself, and the next sections say where to look.
The conditions a tract must meet before it returns to the MLS as a new listing
The same quick reference has two rules for a listing that leaves the market and returns. The first sits under its heading on managing a listing's days-on-market count.
A property must be off the market for thirty (30) consecutive calendar days before it can be in the MLS as a NEW LISTING by the same agent.
Southwest Virginia Association of REALTORS, MLS quick reference
A new listing agreement must be signed for that, not just an extension. The second rule sits under a separate heading, on withdrawing a listing before it expires: a property withdrawn for years should not just be brought back, because the count would then be wrong. Neither rule says how the count treats the new listing.
The quick reference prints no formula for the count itself, and the copy read for this page carries a 2024 date in its file name, so its rules are best confirmed with SWVAR before anyone leans on them. What the count measures, and why each MLS sets its own counting rules, is covered in what days-on-market means.
Access, title and soil: questions a buyer's due diligence can leave open
When a tract draws showings and no contract, one place to look is a question a buyer would try to close during due diligence and could not. Three such questions are legal access, title and soil, and each has its own page and its own professional.
Legal access. A gravel lane to the property is not, by itself, a legal right to use it, and a buyer's attorney will want to see what the right rests on. How that is confirmed is set out in how to know if land has legal access; whether a given parcel has it is an attorney's call.
Title. A buyer's title search can surface a problem in the chain of ownership that the buyer will want cleared before closing. What those problems are and how they get resolved is covered in what a cloud on title is, and clearing one is attorney's work.
Soil. A listing that answers the septic question with a perc test alone has answered less than it seems. Under 12VAC5-610-450, the soil evaluation is intended to document enough information to conclude whether the site can accommodate an onsite sewage treatment and dispersal system.
Percolation tests shall be analyzed as only one of many criteria in determining soil suitability for absorption of treated sewage.
12VAC5-610-450, Soil evaluations
Whether a site that did poorly on a test still has a path to a system is taken up in whether you can build on land that failed a perc test. For a particular tract, the answer comes from the local health department and a licensed onsite soil evaluator.
Advertising that describes a different field, or a status that has changed
A listing that runs long can drift away from the land it describes. The mowed meadow in the photographs grows up in brush, a timber cut changes the view, a status changes and the old ad keeps running.
The Real Estate Board's advertising rule, 18VAC135-20-190, speaks to exactly that. Subsection B 3 ties the property information a licensee controls in advertising to the property's condition and its current contract status, and B 4 calls for timely updates when the listing status or the property description materially changes. What that rule names, and the one word it leaves out, is set out in whether a price drop hurts a listing.
For a buyer, a listing whose photographs show a different season, a different tree line or a road that has since washed out gives that buyer a reason to doubt the rest of it.
Reading a stalled listing's file, one line at a time
There is no public statistic on how many land listings sit or why, in Carroll County or in any of its neighboring counties. What an owner does have is the file on one listing, and it can be read in order.
The status trail
Line up each status change with the dates in each listing agreement, and note every expiration and return.
The open questions
List every question a buyer raised and did not get closed: access, title, soil, anything else, with the office or professional who answers each.
The advertising
Set the current photographs, remarks and status beside the ground as it looks today.
The price
Test it last, against the records, once the other three are known.
The price test has its own page, how to know if your land is overpriced, and it belongs at the end of the list because a price cut does not answer an access or soil question. For the ground itself, a stalled listing is worth checking against each of legal access, utilities, topography, soil and zoning, the five-factor read of a parcel.
None of those steps needs a new listing agreement, and the first one needs the dates in every agreement already signed.
A land listing that has not drawn an offer?
Send the tract and its listing history, and go through the status trail, the open buyer questions and the advertising with Lowell before deciding what to change. No cost, no obligation.
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We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions this raises
Does an Expired status mean something was wrong with the land?
No. In the SWVAR MLS quick reference, Expired means the listing contract expired and was not renewed, and nothing in that definition records a reason. Va. Code 54.1-2137 C 1 gives every brokerage agreement an end, either its own definite termination date or, when none is stated, 90 days after its date, so an agreement can reach that end without a sale for any number of reasons. Whatever the reason was, it sits in the parcel and the listing file, not in the status.
Can a seller have a listing pulled from the MLS without the listing broker?
Not on the seller's say alone. The SWVAR quick reference says sellers do not have the unilateral right to require an MLS to withdraw a listing without the listing broker's concurrence. The same passage adds that when a seller can document that the exclusive relationship with the listing broker has been terminated, the MLS may remove the listing at the seller's request. When the brokerage relationship itself ends is set by Va. Code 54.1-2137 and the agreement's own terms, and a dispute over ending one is a question for an attorney.
Who can say whether a stalled tract's soil will support a septic system?
The local health department and a licensed onsite soil evaluator, not the listing. Under 12VAC5-610-450 the soil evaluation documents whether the site can accommodate an onsite sewage treatment and dispersal system, and percolation tests are analyzed as only one of many criteria in determining soil suitability.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- MLS quick reference handout: status definitions, relisting and withdrawal rules Southwest Virginia Association of REALTORS
- Va. Code 54.1-2137, brokerage relationships and agreements (subsections A and C 1) Virginia General Assembly
- 18VAC135-20-190, advertising by licensees (subsection B 3 and B 4) Virginia Real Estate Board
- 12VAC5-610-450, soil evaluations Virginia Department of Health