The Live Land Market in Luzerne County
Land is where a local brokerage with direct MLS access has the clearest edge, because raw-land activity is poorly tracked by the national portals most buyers start with. As of mid-2026, the MLS carried roughly 360 active or pending land listings in Luzerne County across all listing offices, at a median asking price of about ($49K). The market is genuinely broad; it runs from ($25K) building lots to multi-million-dollar development tracts, which is why the median, not the average, is the honest number to lead with.
The distribution matters more than any single figure. Most of the inventory is affordable, entry-level land; about 94 parcels are priced under ($25K) and another 141 fall between ($25K) and ($75K), so roughly two-thirds of active land trades below ($75K). Larger and development-scale parcels, the 39 listings above ($200K), are a smaller but important slice where the real development upside sits.
Land Inventory by Price Band
| Price band | Active parcels | Share of inventory |
|---|---|---|
| Under $25,000 | 94 | 26% |
| $25,000 to $75,000 | 141 | 39% |
| $75,000 to $200,000 | 86 | 24% |
| Over $200,000 | 39 | 11% |
For a buyer, this tells you where the competition is. The under-($75K) bands are the deepest and move on the fundamentals of access, utilities, and buildability. Above ($200K), the buyer pool narrows to developers and builders, and the value is driven by entitlement and highest-and-best-use rather than by comparable lot sales.
Where the Activity Concentrates
Active land inventory clusters in the southern and western parts of the county, and the median price swings sharply by location. The table below shows the deepest land markets in Luzerne County, and the spread is dramatic; White Haven parcels carry a median under ($9K), while Mountain Top and Bear Creek run well into six figures.
| Town / Area | Active parcels | Median list price |
|---|---|---|
| Hazle Township | 83 | $25,000 |
| Mountain Top | 41 | $150,000 |
| Hazleton | 29 | $42,900 |
| Drums | 24 | $39,900 |
| Wilkes-Barre | 23 | $42,000 |
| White Haven | 17 | $8,900 |
| Bear Creek | 16 | $145,000 |
| Nanticoke | 15 | $45,000 |
That spread tells a real story about what the land is for. Hazle Township leads by volume, with a median near ($25K) that reflects a deep supply of smaller building lots around the Hazleton logistics corridor. Mountain Top and Bear Creek, by contrast, carry medians in the ($145K) to ($150K) range, reflecting larger, wooded, residential-development acreage in the Back Mountain. White Haven's sub-($9K) median points to small recreational and infill lots. A buyer who only looks at the countywide median would miss all of this.
The Surrounding Counties
A word of honesty about the neighboring counties. Public land-listing counts in Lackawanna, Wyoming, Monroe, and Carbon are currently too thin to support a credible median price, and we would rather tell you that than dress up a handful of listings as a market statistic. What can be said qualitatively holds up; these are lower-density, lower-cost land markets where value is driven far more by the specific parcel, it's access, zoning, and utilities, than by any countywide average. If you are evaluating land in any of these counties, the right move is a parcel-level analysis, not a market number.
What Drives Land Value Here
Land is the property type where a headline price tells you the least. Two parcels of the same size and asking price can be worth very different amounts depending on what can legally be built on them. The variables that actually set value are zoning and permitted use, road access and frontage, availability of public water, sewer, and power, soils and percolation for on-lot septic, and any wetlands, floodplain, or steep-slope constraints. A low price per acre often reflects one of these constraints rather than a bargain.
For sellers, that means the parcels that move are the ones where the buildability questions are answered up front. For buyers, it means the diligence is the deal. The parcel that pencils out is the one where access, utilities, and use are confirmed before closing, not assumed.
Methodology and Sources
This snapshot compiles data from live multiple listing service inventory rather than a national land portal or an automated estimate. Active and pending land listing counts, median list price, price-band distribution, and geographic concentration for Luzerne County come from the multiple listing service we access directly as a member brokerage, measured across all listing offices as of mid-2026. Median list price and lot size are reported rather than averages because the land market spans an extremely wide range and averages would be distorted by a small number of large-tract outliers. Figures for surrounding counties are intentionally omitted where the active listing sample was too small to be reliable.
- Multiple listing service active and pending land inventory, Luzerne County, retrieved mid-2026 (counts, median list price, price bands, and city-level concentration computed across all listing brokerages in the market)
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, regional workforce context
- Publicly reported regional development and infrastructure activity along the I-81 and I-80 corridors
Talk to a Local Broker Who Knows This Market
Jonathan J. Nelson Real Estate works the Greater Pittston and NEPA market every day, residential, commercial, industrial, and land. If you are buying, selling, or investing, let's talk.
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