Tip: Don’t trust the “Well Permit” check the “Construction Log” (Saved a client $10k)
I see "well permit" or "water available" in raw land listings pretty often.
That always makes me want to dig a little deeper.
I was looking at a parcel in Colorado and checked the state's well records for properties nearby. The permit itself looked fine, but the neighboring well logs told a different story.
The wells around it were being drilled 360+ feet before hitting the aquifer, with sandstone showing up along the way.
That's a pretty important detail if you're looking at a cheap piece of land and thinking, "I'll just put a well in."
The permit tells you that a well can be constructed under the applicable rules. It doesn't tell you how deep you'll have to drill, what the local geology looks like, or what kind of well the neighbors actually ended up with.
The state's DWR map is pretty useful for this. I like looking at the constructed wells and their records, not just the applications.
For raw land, I'd much rather know what the wells around the property actually encountered than rely on "well permit available" in a listing.
A lot of the information you need is already sitting in public records. You just have to go one layer deeper.