Understanding land buyer perceptions of engaging in rural land transactions is crucial towards institutional land reform, policymaking, and academia. Buyer perception is mostly determined by a goal in which maximising profits is central, either by increasing revenues or by decreasing costs. Since revenues are often overestimated, costs appear more relevant. Buyers were often argued positive about purchasing rural land because low historical costs were assumed important. However, contradictory conclusions from the future cost perspective emerged, leading to a new assumption that buyer perceptions cannot be sufficiently understood if the distinctive variants of costs are not taken into account. This study contributes nuanced insights of buyer perceptions from a cost perspective, based on China’s empirical evidence considering buyer characteristics, geography, and institutional settings. Data were collected employing 102 semi-structured interviews out of 430 rural land transactions in five Chinese counties and from factual materials. Within a mixed approach, the qualitative analysis was used as a predominant method. In sharp contrast to the literature, the general findings indicate that buyers are not that eager to engage in rural land transactions. The detailed nuances indicate that: 1) a higher percentage of buyers from inland region and peri-urban areas have neutral perceptions; 2) most new companies hold neutral perceptions; and companies operating within business & service and integrated service sectors are neutral; 3) there is not much difference of buyers’ perceptions between the group-led and village-led modes. The main reason for buyers’ neutral perceptions is that rather than historical costs, future costs explicitly dominate buyer perceptions. These shed new light on ongoing debates about buyers’ dilemmas in land investments.