Land Loan Calculator (2026): Payment, Down Payment and Rates

The calculator

Pick a land type to load the page presets, then change anything. Every preset is a published lender claim or a stated range, listed under the calculator and in the table below; the price ($100,000), other closing costs ($0) and the build budget ($0) are examples, not data. The payment formula is the standard level-payment formula; we checked it against the one worked example a lender publishes (Canyon View Credit Union's: a $40,000 loan at 7.75% APR, 30-year amortization, 36-month term, “approximately $286” a month and a balloon of “approximately $38,859.92”). Our calculation gives $286.56 and $38,859.92 (our arithmetic).

Why a land loan is not a mortgage

A mortgage rate is cheap because the loan can be sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. For vacant land that door is shut, in the agencies' own words.

What the two agencies' guides say about land and farms

Three consequences follow, and they explain most of what looks odd about land loans. The lender holds the loan, so it prices the risk itself: more cash down, a shorter term, sometimes a rate that resets or a balloon. The pool of lenders is local: community banks, credit unions and Farm Credit associations, not national mortgage companies. And the rules differ by what you are buying: a recorded lot with utilities is financed almost like a home, raw acreage with no road is not.

Down payment, term and rate by type of land

The sources do not agree on one national number, and most of the pages ranking for “land loan” quote ranges without naming a lender. These are lenders speaking for themselves.

Land loan terms published by lenders (each the lender's claim, read October 9, 2026 unless the row says otherwise)

Read against the question you probably came with, “do I need 20% to 50% down?”:

• The low end is lower than 20%. Two Farm Credit institutions say 15%, and one credit union says 10% for a qualified borrower who will build a home. Those are the cheapest terms we found, and they come with conditions (intent to build, zoning, a strong file).
• The high end is raw land. The 35% to 50% range is stated for raw land by one bank (Herring Bank) and 35% for farmland by Farm Credit Services of America; we found 50% on no lender's product page.
• The premium is real but not huge on the one range published. Truliant's 8.24% to 8.99% APR against the 7.40% Freddie Mac average of October 8, 2026 is +0.84 to +1.59 points (our arithmetic). Banks' own articles claim wider gaps (1 to 3 points; 2 to 4 for raw land); the APR is a single lender's, available in seven states only.

For the benchmark itself: Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey put the 30-year fixed at 7.40% for October 8, 2026, up from 7.28% the week before and 6.30% a year earlier. It is a house-mortgage rate, so it is a floor to compare with, not a land quote.

Worked example: $100,000 of land, four ways

All figures are our arithmetic from the calculator's presets: price $100,000 (an example), 1% origination fee (Truliant's), no other closing costs, and each row's down payment, rate, amortization and balloon as in the preset notes.

The same price, four land types

Three things the table shows. First, the lot with a 30-year amortization has the lowest payment of the three lot-type loans and the highest balloon: after 36 payments you still owe 97.4% of the loan, so a three-year term is a bridge to a construction loan or a refinance, not a plan to pay off (our arithmetic). Second, the unimproved preset pays $694.25 a month because it amortizes over 15 years, and needs $30,700 in cash, the second-highest of the three lot types. Third, the farmland row uses the Freddie Mac 30-year average as its rate only because no Farm Credit association we read publishes one; treat it as a floor.

What each extra point of down payment does on the raw land preset (our arithmetic)

Each 15-point step costs $14,850 of cash and cuts the payment by about $152 a month. Whether a lender will go to 20% on raw land is the question; the calculator tells you the price of being wrong about it.

The balloon: what happens at year three or five

A balloon loan is calculated like a long loan but due like a short one. Canyon View's own example: $286 a month for 35 months, then a final payment of about $38,859.92 on a $40,000 loan. You have three ways out: pay it in cash, refinance, or replace the land loan with a construction loan before it falls due, which is what MIDFLORIDA suggests. That last route needs plans, permits and a builder lined up in time, which is why lenders such as Lake Michigan Credit Union ask for intent to build and zoning up front. If you are only holding land, a longer amortization with a longer term (GreenStone says up to 30 years) or an agricultural lender is the way to avoid it.

Farm, ranch and recreational land: Farm Credit and USDA

Agricultural lenders finance the land by the income it can produce and the borrower's whole balance sheet, which is why Farm Credit Services of America asks for three years of tax returns and quotes a typical 35% down payment, and why two Farm Credit institutions will write recreational loans at 85% of value. The government alternative is the USDA Farm Service Agency, whose October 2026 rates are below the Freddie Mac house-mortgage average.

USDA Farm Service Agency farm ownership loans, rates effective October 1, 2026

The FSA rate on direct loans is 1.15 points below the Freddie Mac 30-year average (6.250% against 7.40%, our arithmetic), but the program is for people who will operate a farm, not for recreational or investment parcels, and applications go to a local FSA office. On the down payment program, the borrower's 5% plus FSA's 45% leaves 50% of the price to be financed or paid elsewhere (our arithmetic).

If you plan to build

A land loan finances the dirt. The house is a second loan unless you structure it as one:

• Buy now, build later, with a separate construction loan. The land loan is paid off or refinanced when construction financing starts. This is the usual case for the balloon loans above. Our ground-up construction loan guide covers the investor version, where a lender funds up to 85% to 90% of cost in draws.
• One closing for land and house. A construction-to-permanent loan rolls the land, the build and the long-term mortgage into one loan, so you avoid the second set of closing costs; see our construction-to-permanent loan guide. GreenStone says it can sometimes include future improvements in the land purchase, and otherwise it may be best to buy the land and then apply for a separate construction loan.
• Budget the cash before the build. The calculator has a field for the cost to improve or build later: utilities, a well and septic, clearing, access roads. It shows the total cash you need before you can build, which the down payment alone hides.

If you are buying land as a business (to subdivide, hold or build to sell), a short-term bridge or hard money loan is the other route; see bridge loans and the hard money loan calculator.

Why we left federal loan data out of this one

Our other borrower pages read lender prices out of HMDA, the federal loan-by-loan mortgage record. For land it is the wrong tool. Regulation C (12 CFR 1003.3(c)(2)) excludes a loan secured by a lien on unimproved land, and the official interpretation says a loan is secured by unimproved land if it is secured by “vacant or unimproved property”, unless the lender knows the proceeds will be used within two years to construct a dwelling or to purchase a dwelling to be placed on the land. What does get reported is the subset tied to a build, and we did not test whether those rows can be told apart from loans that are not land loans. The same limit is explained for investor construction loans in our ground-up construction loan guide.

What you can do with this

1. Decide which of the four land types you are buying before you call a lender. A recorded lot with road, utilities and sewer or septic access, and zoning that allows a house, is the cheapest to finance. Raw land needs a perc test with some lenders (Truliant says so) and fewer lenders will touch it.
2. Ask each lender for five numbers in writing: the maximum loan-to-value on this parcel, the term and whether there is a balloon, the rate and APR, the origination fee and whether it can be financed, and any prepayment charge. Enter them in the calculator and compare payment, balloon and cash to close, not the headline rate.
3. Plan the exit from the balloon on day one. If the loan ends in three or five years, write down whether you will pay it, refinance it or replace it with a construction loan, and what you need for that (plans, permits, a builder, income).
4. Try the agricultural and government lenders if the land can earn money. Farm Credit institutions finance recreational land as well as farms, and FSA's rates are lower if you qualify.
5. Keep the build budget in the plan. Cash to close is a fraction of what you need before a house can go up.

This page has no lender referral box: Kiavi's new-construction product finances investors building houses, not the purchase of land, so it does not fit a land buyer. If you want to know when these numbers move, the alert below tells you.

FAQ

Sources: Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (freddiemac.com/pmms, week of October 8, 2026); Fannie Mae Selling Guide B2-3-01 (09/03/2025); Freddie Mac Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide Section 5601.1 (effective 02/04/2026); USDA Farm Service Agency current loan interest rates (effective October 1, 2026), Farm Ownership Loans and Guaranteed Farm Loans pages and the October 1, 2026 rate announcement; 12 CFR 1003.3 (eCFR text saved October 8, 2026); lender pages of GreenStone Farm Credit Services, First South Farm Credit (May 30, 2024), Farm Credit Services of America, Farm Credit of Western Oklahoma, Canyon View Credit Union, Truliant Federal Credit Union, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Credit Union ONE, MIDFLORIDA Credit Union and Herring Bank, all read October 9, 2026 and saved in the data folder. Lender terms are the lenders' own statements, not quotes for you. Loan, payment, balloon, interest and cash figures are our arithmetic (calc_land.py). This is analysis of public records, not investment, legal, lending or tax advice, and not a loan offer.