You can sell Arizona land from any state without setting foot in Arizona: the title company mails the signing package to a notary near you, or you sign in front of a remote online notary by webcam, and the proceeds are wired to your bank. You are not an unusual case. Of the 502,163 vacant parcels on Arizona's county rolls as of March 2026, 179,789, or 35.8 percent, have their tax bill mailed to an address outside the state.
This page covers two things: how many of you there are and where, because that number explains a lot about Arizona's land market, and then the actual steps of a mail-away closing.
Who owns Arizona's vacant land
The out-of-state share by county, from the assessor rolls:
| County |
Vacant parcels |
Owned out of state |
Share |
Top mailing states |
| Mohave |
72,607 |
42,991 |
59.2% |
California 14,419, Nevada 13,914, Utah 1,320 |
| Apache |
43,328 |
22,696 |
52.4% |
California 4,434, Illinois 2,794, Texas 1,578 |
| Cochise |
65,169 |
31,732 |
48.7% |
California 5,365, Florida 2,053, Texas 1,816 |
| La Paz |
3,223 |
1,365 |
42.4% |
California 443, Washington 154 |
| Navajo |
39,437 |
15,723 |
39.9% |
California 3,442, Pennsylvania 1,896, Texas 930 |
| Coconino |
23,894 |
9,022 |
37.8% |
California 2,826, Texas 707, Florida 575 |
| Santa Cruz |
24,799 |
8,847 |
35.7% |
California 2,405, Indiana 1,338 |
| Pinal |
52,606 |
15,186 |
28.9% |
California 3,478, Nevada 1,844, Texas 1,308 |
| Yuma |
10,214 |
2,659 |
26.0% |
California 1,116 |
| Yavapai |
42,154 |
9,796 |
23.2% |
California 3,215, Nevada 691 |
| Greenlee |
1,548 |
301 |
19.4% |
California 139, New Mexico 77 |
| Maricopa |
69,596 |
12,549 |
18.0% |
California 2,982, Texas 1,087, Illinois 658 |
| Pima |
41,958 |
5,576 |
13.3% |
California 1,081, Illinois 948 |
| Gila |
6,052 |
748 |
12.4% |
California 157 |
| Graham |
5,578 |
598 |
10.7% |
California 112 |
Statewide, California addresses hold 45,614 Arizona parcels, Nevada 20,276, Texas 9,938, Illinois 9,169, Florida 8,572, Washington 6,808 and Colorado 5,678.
The file shows where the tax bill goes, not how the owner came to hold the parcel, so it cannot say how many of these owners inherited. If you did, selling inherited land in Arizona covers that path. The Mohave County and Apache County seller pages cover the two counties with the highest out-of-state shares.
The sale is the same sale
Nothing about an out-of-state seller changes the legal transaction. The deed still has to be in writing, signed and acknowledged before a notary under A.R.S. 33-401. The affidavit of property value under A.R.S. 11-1133 still goes to the recorder with the deed. If the parcel is unsubdivided land in an unincorporated area, you still sign the affidavit of disclosure under A.R.S. 33-422. The full document list is in paperwork to sell land in Arizona. What changes is where the pen is.
Option 1: Mail-away signing
This is the default and has been for decades. Once the title company has the buyer's funds in escrow and the documents prepared, it sends the signing package to you by overnight courier, or emails it for you to print. You take it to a notary where you live: a bank, a UPS Store, a mobile notary who comes to the house. You sign where flagged, the notary acknowledges your signature under your own state's notary law, and you overnight the originals back. Under A.R.S. 41-259 an acknowledgment taken by a notary in another state has the same effect in Arizona as one taken by an Arizona notary, so the recorder accepts the deed. The title company records and wires the proceeds, usually the same day or the next.
Allow four to six days for the round trip. The main way it goes wrong is a missed initial or a notary stamp that is not legible, so sign at a desk, not a kitchen counter, and read the instruction sheet.
Option 2: Remote online notarization
Arizona law lets a notary located in Arizona perform the acknowledgment over a live audio-video link for a signer who is somewhere else, and nothing in A.R.S. 41-263 requires that signer to be in Arizona. The notary has to confirm your identity with at least two kinds of identity proofing (or personal knowledge), has to be able to confirm the record in front of them is the one you are signing, and has to record the session. You sign electronically, the notary applies an electronic seal, and the certificate says the act used communication technology.
One detail worth knowing: when an Arizona notary acknowledges a deed in person, the notary must take your right thumbprint in the journal (A.R.S. 41-254). For a remote session the statute swaps that for recording your ID number in the journal and keeping the video for at least seven years. That is the notary's job, not yours, but it explains why the session asks to see your ID twice.
Pioneer Title announced remote notarization at no extra charge for its Arizona closings in April 2020, available 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, and it requires the buyer, seller, lender, underwriter and escrow to all agree to use it. That announcement is more than six years old and does not mention signers outside Arizona, so ask the escrow officer on your file whether remote notarization is offered today and whether it is open to you where you live. You need a computer or phone with a camera, a government ID and about half an hour.
Option 3: Power of attorney
If you cannot do either, a limited power of attorney naming someone in Arizona to sign the deed for you is accepted, but the title company has to approve the form in advance and the power of attorney itself has to be notarized and recorded. It is the slowest of the three and we recommend it only when a seller is unable to sign for themselves.
Getting paid
Proceeds go by wire to the account you give the title company on a written, verified wire instruction form. Verify any change to wire instructions by phone with the title company at a number you looked up yourself, not one from an email. Wire fraud targeting real estate closings is real and the out-of-state seller who never meets the escrow officer is the target of choice. A check by mail is also available if you prefer it.
Inherited land with more than one owner in more than one state
Common and workable. Each owner on title signs their own deed or a joint deed in their own state, by any of the three options above, and the title company collects them all before recording. If the person on the deed has died, the title company needs the death certificate and, depending on how title was held, either an affidavit of succession for small estates or letters from the probate court. We walk through the branches on the inherited land page, and the title company will tell you which one applies before anything is signed.
The timeline from another state
With a cash buyer like us, 7 to 21 days from signed purchase agreement to recorded deed, including the mail-away. The courier adds a few days; the title search does not care where you live. If you are listing with an agent instead, nothing above changes; only the wait for a buyer does, and the tax bill keeps arriving in the meantime. The property tax guide explains what happens to an out-of-state owner's parcel when those bills go unpaid, which is how a lot of the land in the table above changes hands. Everything else we get asked by out-of-state owners is on the FAQ, and the full step list for any route is in how to sell vacant land in Arizona.