Sell My Land in Story County, IA — Cash Offer, No Fees
We buy vacant land directly in Story County, Iowa — Nevada, Ames, Huxley, Slater, Roland, Maxwell, Colo, Cambridge and Zearing. No agents, no commissions, no clean-up, and we pay the closing costs. You get a written cash offer within 24 hours and you are free to walk away from it.
- Direct cash buyer — no listings, no showings
- We pay all closing costs
- Back taxes, heirs and probate are fine
- We know Story County land
- Written offer within 24 hours
- Close in as little as 14 to 30 days
Get a cash offer on your Story County, IA land
Written offer within 24 hours. No fee, no obligation, and we pay the closing costs.
Prefer to talk? Call (855) 800-0177
Story County, Iowa
Why Story County land sits on the market
Story County land runs from small lots near Ames and Huxley to working acreage out toward Slater, and the right price for any of it depends far more on access, soils and frontage than on a county average. We research each parcel on its own, at our cost, before we put a number in writing.
There is no middle step here. We are the party actually buying the land, so the number we give you is not an estimate of what somebody else might pay — it is what we will pay, and it does not hinge on a bank saying yes.
Owners who want to sell land for cash usually start by searching for land buyers near me and end up wading through agent listings. We are the buyer: one written number, no commission, no waiting on a financed buyer.
The local detail that actually changes the number
Iowa property tax is paid in two installments, and each becomes delinquent if unpaid by October 1 and April 1 respectively (Iowa Code §§445.36, 445.37). Delinquent parcels are offered at the county’s annual tax sale in June, and one year and nine months after that sale the certificate holder can serve notice that the right to redeem is about to expire (Iowa Code §447.9). On land nobody visits, that clock can run out unnoticed. Deeds and plats for Story County are recorded with the County Recorder in Nevada. Story County covers about 573 square miles, so “the Story market” is really several markets — what a tract is worth near Ames and what it is worth in the far corner of the county are different numbers. On rural parcels the county board of health issues the private septic permit under Iowa’s onsite rules (Iowa Admin. Code 567—ch. 69), and if a building on the property is served by a septic system it has to pass a time-of-transfer inspection before the sale (Iowa Code §455B.172(11)); on bare land, the soil evaluation often decides whether a parcel is a homesite or just acreage. Iowa values agricultural property on its productivity and net earning capacity rather than its market value (Iowa Code §441.21), and the resulting figure is often a fraction of what farmland actually sells for at auction. The assessed value is a tax figure, not a price, and we never price a parcel off it. For a sense of the wider market: Land Insights county data from October 2026 shows about 349 vacant-land listings active in Story County and 126 land sales closed over the past 12 months — roughly 3% of the active inventory selling in a typical month. In the 5-to-100-acre range, 12 tracts sold in that year at a median price of about $482,000, or roughly $79,700 an acre. The county is home to about 98,600 people. Those are county-wide figures, not a value for any one parcel — access, soils, road frontage and buildability move an individual tract a long way from the median.
On a Story County parcel we look at
- Merchantable timber, or evidence the tract was recently cut over
- Whether the ground is currently leased to a farmer, and on what terms
- How the parcel is classed and assessed for property tax
- Topography and how much of the acreage is genuinely usable
- Existing structures, wells, or old mobile homes that need dealing with
Where we buy in Story County
Nevada and the surrounding communities — Ames, Huxley, Slater, Roland, Maxwell, Colo, Cambridge and Zearing — plus the rural addresses in between that do not sit in any town at all. We buy anything from a single-acre lot to tracts of several hundred acres here, and we price every parcel on its own access, soils and comparable sales. We buy in the counties around it as well — Polk — so if your land straddles a county line, that is not a complication for us.
How selling works
Three steps. You can stop at any one of them and owe nothing.
One call or one form
Tell us the address or APN and the rough size. You do not need a survey, a plat or the tax bill in front of you — we look all of that up.
We value it properly
We do our homework on Story County parcels ourselves, at our cost. We price it off recent sales of similar acreage and adjust for access, soil, flood mapping, timber and shape. No cost to you, no commitment.
Written offer, your decision
You have our number in writing within 24 hours. If you take it, a licensed title company closes it and we cover the standard closing costs — typically 14 to 30 days.
Selling to us vs. listing it
A listing is not the wrong answer for everybody. If your parcel is easy to finance and you can afford to wait out a slow market, a retail sale may net you more. This is the trade-off, stated plainly.
| Selling to Dreamify | Listing with an agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Commission | None | Typically 6–10% on land |
| Closing costs | We cover them | Usually split or seller-paid |
| Repairs, survey, clean-up | Not your problem | Often requested by retail buyers |
| Financing risk | None — cash | Land loans fall through often |
| Timeline | As little as 14 to 30 days once title work is back | Land can sit on the market for months |
| Who you are dealing with | A direct cash buyer — we are the ones purchasing | An agent marketing it to someone else |
We are not the right buyer for every parcel, and when we are not, we say so instead of making a low offer and hoping.
Why owners in Story County call us
Back taxes are not a problem
Delinquent taxes are settled out of the proceeds at closing. You do not need to clear them first.
Heirs and estates are routine
Unprobated estates, multiple heirs and deeds still in a parent’s name are the most common situations we handle.
Out-of-state owners welcome
Everything is done remotely — documents by email, a notary where you live. You never need to travel to the county.
No showings, no clean-up
You do not need to mow it, clear it, survey it or show it to anybody.
We close through a title company
A licensed title company or closing attorney handles the money and the deed, so you are not trusting us with either.
No commission, no fees
Nothing comes off your side for a listing fee, and we do not charge for the research we do on the parcel.
The kind of Story County land we buy
Land we buy in Story County
- Small residential lots and infill parcels
- Landlocked tracts and parcels with access questions
- Land that failed a perc test
- Tracts tied up in an estate or probate
- Property you inherited and have never seen
- Vacant, raw and bare land
- Inherited and heir property, including multiple owners
- Land with back taxes or a delinquent tax bill
- Mobile home parks and RV parks
- Self-storage facilities — considered case by case
What we don’t buy
- Land you do not have the authority to sell
- Parcels where a co-owner has not agreed to sell
- Property already under contract with someone else
- Houses and other residential buildings
If we are not the right buyer for your parcel we will say so on the first call rather than waste your time.
We buy with our own money — here is what we have closed
We are not a lead broker collecting your details to sell on. When we make an offer on a Story County parcel it is our own capital behind it, and these are real closings.
| Tract | Where we closed it |
|---|---|
| 32.3 acres | Perquimans County, North Carolina |
| 72 acres | Pike County, Mississippi |
| 10.7 acres | Morgan County, Georgia |
| 6.24 acres | Jasper County, Georgia |
| 8.5 acres | Pike County, Mississippi |
| 5.05 acres | Dawson County, Georgia |
A sample of tracts we have bought and closed ourselves. We are a principal buyer, not a broker — every one of these was purchased with our own funds through a licensed closing agent.
What sellers say
Every quote below is a real, verified Google review of Dreamify Properties — 4.9 stars across 13 reviews.
“Dreamify made a fair offer on our property in Alabama… Over the past couple years I’ve had a hundred texts and phone calls from land companies wanting to buy — from low-balling to wanting to put you under contract for 6 months and walk away on the last day. Dreamify followed through on every part of the deal.”
“I had a great experience working with John and Dreamify on the marketing and sale of land in Georgia. John was reasonable, fair, and thorough throughout the transaction, and was very pleasant to work with.”
Story County land selling questions
Is my parcel too small to interest you?
Probably not. We buy small lots as well as large tracts. What matters more than size is legal access and whether the title is clean enough to close.
Part of it is in a flood zone or wetland. Will you buy it?
Yes, and we look up the mapping ourselves before quoting. Wet or flood-mapped ground is worth less than dry buildable acreage, but it is not worthless and it does not stop a sale.
Am I obligated to accept the offer?
No. The offer is in writing with no obligation attached, and we do not chase. If the number does not work for you, that is the end of it.
What is the fastest you could have this done?
Offer in writing inside 24 hours, and closing in as little as 14 to 30 days once title comes back clean. The title work is the part nobody can rush safely, so that is where the time goes.
Do I pay any fees or commissions?
No. There is no commission, no listing fee and no charge for our research. We cover the standard closing costs. Iowa’s real estate transfer tax is 80 cents for every $500 of the sale price above the first $500 (Iowa Code §428A.1), and the person conveying the land — the seller — is the one liable for it (§428A.3). It is paid to the County Recorder with a declaration of value when the deed is recorded. We build it into our numbers so the figure we quote you is the figure you work from.
The taxes have not been paid in years. Will you still buy it?
Yes. Unpaid taxes come out of the proceeds at closing rather than out of your pocket beforehand. It is worth telling us early so the number we quote already accounts for them.
Is there a cash buyer for land near me in Story County?
Yes. We buy across Story County and the counties around it, and because everything can be handled remotely it does not matter whether you live down the road from the parcel or three states away.
How much is my land worth in Story County?
The honest answer is that it depends on legal access, whether the ground will perc, flood mapping, zoning and usable shape — two neighboring Story County parcels of the same acreage can be worth very different amounts. We will look up recent comparable sales around your parcel and tell you the range we see, free, whether or not you sell to us.
Can I sell land without a realtor?
Yes, and with vacant land it is often the more sensible route. There is no mortgage market for raw land the way there is for houses, so a listing can sit for a year while the tax bill keeps arriving. Selling direct to a cash buyer means no commission, no showings and a date you can actually plan around.
Are there companies that buy land in Iowa?
Yes — we are one of them, and we buy in Story County specifically. Be careful who you deal with, though: a lot of what looks like a land buyer online is a lead broker who collects your details and sells them on. Ask whoever contacts you whether they are the buyer of record and whether they close through a title company. We are, and we do.
Nearby counties we buy in
Sell land in Polk CountySell land anywhere in Iowa
If any of these describe your situation
Sell land with back taxesSell inherited land (heirs & probate)
Sell landlocked land with no access
Sell land that failed a perc test
Sell land you own out of state
Sell unbuildable land
Sell land fast for cash
Working out whether to sell
Sell land without a realtorHow to vet a cash land buyer
Vacant and raw land buyers
Find out what your Story County land is worth to a cash buyer
Send us the APN or the road it sits on. We research it at our cost and come back with a number in writing.
Nearby counties we also buy in
We buy vacant land across Iowa. If your parcel sits in one of these counties, there is a page for it.