Land For Sale in Running Springs

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Higher, Snowier, and On the Way to Everywhere

Running Springs sits at the junction between the Arrowhead side and the road to Big Bear.

This page narrows the live MLS feed to vacant land and lots inside Running Springs only.

Elevation changes what you are building

Running Springs is higher than Crestline or Lake Arrowhead, and it gets more snow. That bears directly on a vacant lot in ways it does not bear on a finished house: snow load requirements affect the structure you can put up and what it costs, and winter access affects whether you can reach the site to build at all for part of the year.

Ask who maintains the road to the parcel in winter — county, association, or nobody. On a steep unmaintained road that answer can decide whether the lot is practical.

The position has a genuine advantage: you are on the highway between the Arrowhead corridor and Big Bear, so both resorts and both commercial centres are reachable without the drive being the whole day.

The questions that decide a mountain lot

Price is the last thing to settle on a parcel up here. What decides whether a lot is worth anything is whether you can legally reach it, get water to it, put waste somewhere, and build on the part that is not falling away. Two lots on the same street, same size, same price, can differ by a hundred thousand dollars in what it takes to make them habitable.

• Water. Some parcels sit on a water district main; some need a well. Ask which, and if it is a district, ask what a new connection actually costs today rather than what it cost someone five years ago.
• Waste. Sewer in some pockets, septic in most. Septic means a percolation test, and a failed perc can end the project outright.
• Access. A road on a map is not legal access. You want a recorded easement, and you want to know who plows it in February — the county, an association, or nobody.
• Slope. Buildable square footage is what matters, not the parcel size on the listing. A steep lot can be beautiful and still cost more in foundation and retaining than the land.
• Fire. Defensible space requirements and insurance availability both bear on what you can build and what it costs to keep. Get a real quote on the parcel, not an estimate.

None of this is a reason not to buy land here. It is the reason to get answers in writing before you remove contingencies, and it is most of what I do on a land deal.