Show HN: Unfenced – Land for sale that borders public land
A new site called Unfenced aggregates U.S. property listings that border or sit near large, publicly accessible land, automatically verifying parcel boundaries against federal and local geospatial datasets. Commenters probe its data sources, legal status of using MLS-fed APIs, and accuracy issues such as condos misreported as large acreage, while also suggesting enhancements like price filters, wetlands and climate overlays, and trail or bike-path proximity. The concept resonates especially with hunters and rural land seekers who value privacy and guaranteed open space, although several note the practical downsides of abutting government land, from fence maintenance and trespass to complex regulations.
Project overview & data pipeline
- Weekly process ingests ~700k active US listings via a licensed RentCast API, enriches them with parcel boundaries (state/county GIS + Realie), public land (USGS PAD‑US), elevation (USGS 3DEP), roads (Census TIGER), FEMA flood zones, and wildfire hazard.
- Parcels are classified as “within,” “bordering,” or “adjacent” (≤75m) based on geometric comparisons in a local metric projection.
- Output is ~16k static pages with Leaflet maps, rebuilt weekly and hosted on Cloudflare Pages; ZIP search is local-only for privacy.
- National Park Service lands are included, though the marketing copy initially under-emphasized them.
Legal, licensing, and ethics questions
- Some commenters worry about MLS/NAR/state compliance and copyright.
- The creator states they’re not an MLS member, license listings via RentCast under terms that allow display, and omit agent contact info; they invite MLS feedback on specific complaints.
- Parcel dataset licensing is called out as tricky; third‑party Kaggle data was avoided for that reason.
Data quality and limitations
- Known issues: lot sizes mis-entered as square feet in acres fields, condos inheriting entire HOA/common-area acreage, PAD‑US multipart polygons inflating “connected public land,” road vs parcel misalignment.
- The creator describes heuristics to detect implausible acreage (cross‑checking price, property type, parcel size) and to flag shared parcels, but users still find obvious condo/acreage mismatches and missing listings.
- Coverage gaps exist where listings aren’t in the RentCast feed or arrive after the Monday rebuild.
- Wetlands and trails are not yet modeled; flood zones are, but don’t fully capture mosquito‑prone or swampy conditions.
User experience, feature requests, and AI use
- Strong enthusiasm for the concept, especially from people who want land next to BLM/state game lands or who have done similar GIS mashups manually.
- Requested features: price and acreage filters across all views; sort by price/acre; filters for house vs land‑only; proximity to cities/airports/healthcare/groceries; slope/flat spots; climate summaries; bike trail proximity; mineral/fracking data (noted as hard).
- Some criticize the site copy as obviously LLM‑generated “slop”; the creator acknowledges leaning on an LLM and plans to revise in their own voice.
Living next to public land: pros and cons
- Pros: guaranteed no development on at least one side; direct access to large wild areas; high privacy; strong appeal for hunters, off‑grid buyers, and recreation.
- Cons: trespassers, hunters, cattle, and ranchers breaking fences; bureaucratic difficulty getting state agencies to maintain boundary fences or address falling trees; legal and practical constraints on managing adjacent public land (e.g., chemicals, wetland rules).
- Several note that “bordering” doesn’t guarantee ease of travel due to brush, terrain, or lack of trails.