Why West Texas land is so cheap?

I was fooling around in eBay, so I went to the real state category and I was amazed of how cheap they were selling land in West Texas, so I figured it must be a scam or something, but the sellers had 100% positive feedback and were listed since 1999 or 2000, anyone knows why?

Little water, hardly anything grows there, mineral rights are all sewed up. Basically just miles and miles of sand, scrub brush, mesquite, scorpions and rattlers.

OK Life is Good, if your question was a serious one, I'll try and answer it. I work and live in West Texas so I know - and no "smart-aleck" answers from me.

If you look at a map there is a lot of land distance between towns out here. I live roughly 70 miles away from any town of 75,000 people or more. There are four such towns about equal distance away. (My town is around 3,000 in population.) We are surrounded by lots of ranch land and on those ranches are oil rigs everywhere. We are "physically" isolated by distance. There are other small towns within short distance but of course we all have to drive an hour to get some of the basics. We enjoy our trips to the "city" :-) since we tend to get "cabin fever" if we never leave home. We all usually have some reason like dentists, veterinarians for the doggies, clothes shopping or such just to make the drive.

Because there's oil here, there's also money for the school districts... It is a much slower life than some are accustomed to. We educate our children in the school system where every kid can "be some-body" and any kid can participate in "any" activity.

There is lots of land and it is mostly used for cattle or sheep ranching. Hunting is also a main activity out here. Deer hunting especially. Most of those ranches are large, and have been owned by the family for so many generations that they will not sell except for certain peices of land.

Any more questions, how about checking this website at www.biglaketx.com.

An answer to the person about "no jobs"... that is dead wrong. We have the lowest unemployment rate in the nation - right here in my town. We hold the single title distinction at 1.9% currently and if there were more people, the rate would be lower. There is no one to hire.... there are jobs to be filled but no one to fill them. They are mostly oil-related jobs but starting pay can be as much as 75,000 with no experience. And by the way, many times that salary will also bring a 15,000 bonus as well.

Land is abundant, but land for sale is not. It's what you can or can't do with it that makes it cheap. If you own land and will allow hunting, the leases make big money. Upwards of $500 per gun on a weekend. It's more if you want to bunk and eat in a cabin... I could go on and a on but maybe you get the picture now. West Texas is a nice place to call home, and those who own a peice of it are a little on the "stingy" side and picky about selling it. Not meaning to be ugly, just truthful.

Most of the land is unusable, it has no water source, and no available source for hundreds of miles.

Real Estate prizes are determent by demand.
Demand for a property depends on its location to what people desire - like jobs, schools, waterfront, crime rate, economy, infrastructure and health care.
The same 3 bedroom house 2 hours from Chicago in Indiana for $89,000, would cost you north of the golden mile in the center of Chicago $890,000 and bordering West Central Park in Manhattan $8,900,000.
In West Texas it would be worth the same, like the rest of Bush's term, not a thing.

Because you can not find a good job in that area.

Have you ever been to West Texas? Thousands of square miles of nothing but scrub land and mesquite trees. Between Abilene and El Paso there are only 2 cities of any size at all -- Midland & Odessa -- and those aren't exactly heaven with all of the oil refineries and stench from them. Other than that, it's 500 miles of nothing.

It might have something to do with being perpetually overrun with 'undocumented workers.'

Obviously you have not been to West Texas......you might want to do some real research into the area. Water availability, access to roads, electricity, towns, human life, that kind of stuff.....

You can buy all the land you want but you'll still be in Texas.

because not that many people want to live in Texas.

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