My husband and I are interested in purchasing land in the future (near or not so near) somewhere around Houston that would allow us the possibility of hunting/raising animals/retiring to it/moving out there if jobs would work out before retirement/investment, etc. Something within an hour's distance of Houston (we are in Cypress right now).

We were casually looking but unable to find anything relatively inexpensive. Zillow popped up with a 23 acre property in Navasota that is unrestricted, deer hunting property (currently) - for about $200,000. We would be purchasing with the intent to eventually build a home on it but it would probably be in the next 10-15 years (our current home will be paid off in 12 years). The land has electricity but no water/sewer (and I know that isn't cheap to add).

My dad regularly buys lands and builds homes on them, then lives in them some and sells them. He told us that financing land that has nothing on it is more difficult if you don't have cash up front, and that a 30 year mortgage is unlikely to happen. Honestly we would really need it to be payments of around $1000 or less/month, and we have about $45000 we could put as a down payment right now. I own 30 acres in Oklahoma that could get anywhere from $60-90,000 depending on if/when it sold (it is not currently listed). My grandfather gave me that land and I sorta feel bad about selling it but it is too far away to be useful and it would definitely be a retirement kind of thing because it is near nothing job-wise.

My question is what is common/typical for land purchases as far as financing so we know if we are still in over our heads and need to just keep saving to buy in cash or what.
Thanks so much. I'll cross-post to the RE board.

We just bought land and financed through Capital Farm Credit. They required 20% down plus closing costs out of pocket. The note is for 20 years.

We will eventually build on it. I was worried about cash flow for the house note, because typically you have to put 20% down on a custom build on your own land, but there's some TX homestead lending rules that allow you to use equity in land as collateral to reduce your down payment. I own another property in TX that qualifies as our homestead that we can use to our advantage in that regard. That might be an option for you with your land in OK, using it for purchasing power to reduce the down payment but make the terms more attractive to a lender.

In addition to the RE board, I'd contact an Ag lender.

ETA: The appraised price of the property will be important. The lender will only loan 80% Loan To Value (LTV) based on the lower of either the appraisal or purchase price. Make sure the property is truly worth what you're paying for it or you'll owe more out of pocket.

What Todd said.
Find a local office https://www.capitalfarmcredit.com/locations-main and we can give you some answers. Any office near you or near the land would be glad to help out.
Thanks and Gig'em.

Todd nailed it. I would add when your ready to build see if land lender will let you survey out 1-3 acres for the home. Better financing on a smaller lot but still need 20% for that project as well.