Buying land

[fairchaser]

I gave up on the idea of buying land to hunt on. When you consider the cost and the small amount I could afford, it's just not enough to hunt. Then there is taxes and insurance not to mention running off poachers all the time. But, you guys have me thinking about it again. I would love to hear any success stories about the investment aspect of buying small plots of land.

 

[BigSatt]

Be aware of relators when looking for land. They often will charge around 10% to list and sell it. You can pretty much figure their fee's are part of the lands selling price.

I'm a realtor and my broker charges 6% typically.

 

[Snowwolfe]

Be aware of relators when looking for land. They often will charge around 10% to list and sell it. You can pretty much figure their fee's are part of the lands selling price.

I'm a realtor and my broker charges 6% typically.

Guess there are no standard fee's. We bought our property 2.5 years ago and the agent charged the seller 10%. I thought 6% was standard but the agent told me he charged more for land sales. Go figure.

 

[twohands25]

I saw another thread about deer numbers using a particular piece of property. I understand that is just about impossible to tell. But in general terms, do the south central counties have more deer or just more hunters. I have started looking for land and just want the potential to see a good number of deer when I go to the woods. How are deer numbers in the eastern part of the state? I'm going to live close to Manchester, and would like to find some land fairly close by. Thanks for any help, Scott

 

[rem270]

I gave up on the idea of buying land to hunt on. When you consider the cost and the small amount I could afford, it's just not enough to hunt. Then there is taxes and insurance not to mention running off poachers all the time. But, you guys have me thinking about it again. I would love to hear any success stories about the investment aspect of buying small plots of land.

My plan is to buy that one piece of property to buy and re-sell. I have done it on 2 houses but want to do it with land. The 87 acres i have now i could sell it and easily clear 6 figures in profit but it's one property i will absolutely never sell. Luckily i have enough equity in it that when i do find that property to do a quick turn on that i can use that to get my start.

As far as the investment aspect I didn't buy mine for an investment. I guess it's its own investment as land prices will do nothing but keep rising. But I'll never see the investment aspect unless i sell it. I don't have it farmed out and do not have it in the CRP program. I considered the CRP program but that 10 yr contract scares me some. I like being able to do what i want on it and not have to worry about breaching that contract in any way. No telling what i'll be doing to it in 10 yrs with it.

I know a guy who has made in the high 6 figures if not closer to a million in profit on buying and selling properties. He got his start in 1997 and hasn't stopped yet. I am one of his victims right now as I'm buying some from him .

The worse thing on us average Joe's is the farmers are paying $5-$7k per acre around here and makes it impossible to buy for an investment property to just hunt on. Not sure if that's the case in your area or not. Stick with it fairchaser you'll find the right one at the right price!

 

[landman]

You can still buy good hunting tracts below $2,000/acre and some at $1,000
Just depends on the Time and Location, 2 most important things effecting real estate prices

 

[Hunter 257W]

As for the investment aspect of buying farm land, the 94 acre farm beside mine was bought about 10 years ago for $890,000. It sold last year for $630,000. Don't think you can't lose with land. That unrealistic expectations that a "Bigger Fool" is going to keep coming along to pay an even higher price, is what knocked the whole country for a loop recently. I say buy it because you want it or be realistic about the investment potential.

It's hard to give advice to somebody else about whether or not they should buy land to hunt on. I don't think I could ever justify it myself. I'd want around 100 acres and that means you are going to realistically spend $200,000 or a lot more by the time all the smoke settles just for a hobby. Is this something just for yourself or can the whole family enjoy it? IF they can't can you truly justify spending that much on yourself? If my farm wasn't a farm where I am going to live and if it didn't join the farm where I grew up - also mine now - I'd never have been able to spend what I spent purely to deer hunt. Also mine makes money with row crops and hay unlike pure hunting land. Of course to be fair there, hunting land costs about half what I had to pay.

I suppose if you wanted to later recover your initial investment after buying hunting land, you could sell the property at some point in the future but to me that would be harder to do than to talk about. Think about it. You've hunted this place for 20 - 30 years and now you are going to just walk away and sell it to somebody else. Id have trouble with that. I guess what I'm saying is that to justify buying hunting land, I'd have to live on it too. That way it is a home you are paying for and the deer are merely an extra.

Another negative of hunting land that you don't live on is trespassers. They will pattern you when you don't live there and hunt it more than you do if you're not careful.

 

[AT Hiker]

I gave up on the idea of buying land to hunt on. When you consider the cost and the small amount I could afford, it's just not enough to hunt. Then there is taxes and insurance not to mention running off poachers all the time. But, you guys have me thinking about it again. I would love to hear any success stories about the investment aspect of buying small plots of land.

In my dream world I would purchase an affordable small tract of land/cabin that bordered an excellent piece of highly controlled public hunting ground(think a western state with year round recreation) I would then establish residency post retirement and have a most excellent and affordable place to finish out my days.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[landman]

As for the investment aspect of buying farm land, the 94 acre farm beside mine was bought about 10 years ago for $890,000. It sold last year for $630,000. Don't think you can't lose with land. That unrealistic expectations that a "Bigger Fool" is going to keep coming along to pay an even higher price, is what knocked the whole country for a loop recently. I say buy it because you want it or be realistic about the investment potential.

It's hard to give advice to somebody else about whether or not they should buy land to hunt on. I don't think I could ever justify it myself. I'd want around 100 acres and that means you are going to realistically spend $200,000 or a lot more by the time all the smoke settles just for a hobby. Is this something just for yourself or can the whole family enjoy it? IF they can't can you truly justify spending that much on yourself? If my farm wasn't a farm where I am going to live and if it didn't join the farm where I grew up - also mine now - I'd never have been able to spend what I spent purely to deer hunt. Also mine makes money with row crops and hay unlike pure hunting land. Of course to be fair there, hunting land costs about half what I had to pay.

I suppose if you wanted to later recover your initial investment after buying hunting land, you could sell the property at some point in the future but to me that would be harder to do than to talk about. Think about it. You've hunted this place for 20 - 30 years and now you are going to just walk away and sell it to somebody else. Id have trouble with that. I guess what I'm saying is that to justify buying hunting land, I'd have to live on it too. That way it is a home you are paying for and the deer are merely an extra.

Another negative of hunting land that you don't live on is trespassers. They will pattern you when you don't live there and hunt it more than you do if you're not careful.

Just think theirs more to the story of the 90 acres, 10 yrs ago
farmland wasn't bringing $10,000 per acre for just land.
Sure land values can go down, has timber been cut, development stop,etc
That's why LOCATION and TIME is the most important factors in property values
NOT location,location,location

 

[Snowwolfe]

It all depends on how you look at it if it is worth it. When we bought our 42 acres we wanted a place to build a house on and where we could hunt and shoot. All the land had to be useable, that is no really steep hills or extreme drop off's. We also did not want a parcel that had been recently timbered off. It took over 2 years after we bought it to build the house, workshop, and have all the utilities connected and buried and brought to the house.
The piece of mind knowing we can do what we want when we want is priceless. I wouldn't sell our lot for 3X what we paid for it.

I do not know anything about buying land for investment purposes but common sense will tell you if you get a decent deal on good property in time the value will increase simply because they cant make any more of it.

 

[xatxay]

I've owned two homes on small parcels (26 & 36 acres). The smaller one gave me access to a wonderful neighbor's 130 more. Nothing beats the privacy and enjoyment of walking out your backdoor to hunt. Sadly, I'm now back in a sub-division. You got'ta make sure the spouse is willing to accept the inconvenience and lifestyle that comes with of living in the sticks.

 

[fairchaser]

I gave up on the idea of buying land to hunt on. When you consider the cost and the small amount I could afford, it's just not enough to hunt. Then there is taxes and insurance not to mention running off poachers all the time. But, you guys have me thinking about it again. I would love to hear any success stories about the investment aspect of buying small plots of land.

My plan is to buy that one piece of property to buy and re-sell. I have done it on 2 houses but want to do it with land. The 87 acres i have now i could sell it and easily clear 6 figures in profit but it's one property i will absolutely never sell. Luckily i have enough equity in it that when i do find that property to do a quick turn on that i can use that to get my start.

As far as the investment aspect I didn't buy mine for an investment. I guess it's its own investment as land prices will do nothing but keep rising. But I'll never see the investment aspect unless i sell it. I don't have it farmed out and do not have it in the CRP program. I considered the CRP program but that 10 yr contract scares me some. I like being able to do what i want on it and not have to worry about breaching that contract in any way. No telling what i'll be doing to it in 10 yrs with it.

I know a guy who has made in the high 6 figures if not closer to a million in profit on buying and selling properties. He got his start in 1997 and hasn't stopped yet. I am one of his victims right now as I'm buying some from him .



The worse thing on us average Joe's is the farmers are paying $5-$7k per acre around here and makes it impossible to buy for an investment property to just hunt on. Not sure if that's the case in your area or not. Stick with it fairchaser you'll find the right one at the right price!

Good info rem270. I currently hunt 18,000 acres so small properties don't appeal to me as much but being able to do what you want and even take my grandson out hunting is a definite plus. I would be looking for 50-100 acres max and I wouldn't finance anything so I couldn't pay $5-7$ thousand an acre.

 

[Hunter 257W]

Landman,
There was/is a small 750 sq ft 90 year old house on the farm, and it is 94 acres. Also an old hip roof barn. Other than that it's just a mix of pasture and maybe 30 acres of thin woods. Hardly any road frontage on a road with painted lines. There is maybe 100 yards of road frontage on an old country road with no lanes on it. Beyond that, there is 2 access strips which is part of the property that are about 30 feet wide going down to a state highway. It doesn't have much valuable timber and nothing has changed with the timber in many years. It sold in 2009 for $870,000 and then again late 2014 for $600,000. (My sales figure quoted above was too high.) I know that farm land, especially pasture land that's not really suitable for row crops wasn't worth that price in 2009. But that's the point I was trying to make above. People get all excited that real estate is always going to go up and that you can't lose with investing in it. Of course it will always increase on average and if you hold it long enough. Sometimes it can go up wildly depending on local happenings. Most people know that but they tend to only look at the exceptional sales with huge fast profits and that's where you can get in big trouble. In fact that's what happened with this farm. It had sold to a different owner in 2007 for the same $870,000, that buyer thinking it was going to be a gold mine and that he'd sell it for a huge profit before having to make many payments on the loan. Well, after 2 years he was crying to get out and the 2nd owner paid him what he paid for it and took it. That turned out to be a bad decision obviously as that owner lost $270,000 when he sold it 5 years later. I know there is one realtor around the area that tries to keep prices spiked up by starting rumors about the area being a favorite and the "next big thing" for retirees from Florida to move to. I told the guy to his face that he's crazy to think that Winchester, TN is widely known to people all across Florida. It's just a little hole in the wall backwoods town that nobody knows or cares about more than about 20 miles away. If it weren't like that, I'd move somewhere else. It gets me all stirred up when these nuts start rumors of big companies from "out of state" looking at local farms for projects such at to build a big "world class" golf resort. That was another actual rumor they started in the area to run farm prices up. Supposedly they were considering the land I bought as part of this golf resort. :tu: I don't see how they keep a straight face when telling such tales. But it works. There was a 150 acre farm no more than a mile from mine that my cousin looked at around 2005-2006 time frame when it was up for sale. They wanted $900,000 and would not budge one cent. Most of the reason was because of this silly rumor. Half of that farm floods every winter. Why on earth would you want that for a golf course?? Anyhow, they had to settle for only $375,000 about 5 years ago which is a reasonable price for the place. It seems as if all it takes is one rumor of a higher than market price sale in the area and nobody will sell for anything remotely fair for years after that.

 

[MackPC]

You can usually get clear cut land for half the price. It is hard to hunt for the first few years but the thick cover usually attracts good dear to bed. With a little money spent to clear food plots you can get larger amounts of acres with a lot less money spent. But it will take a lot of work.

 

[Hunter 257W]

You can usually get clear cut land for half the price. It is hard to hunt for the first few years but the thick cover usually attracts good dear to bed. With a little money spent to clear food plots you can get larger amounts of acres with a lot less money spent. But it will take a lot of work.

That's a good point. If you could find somebody who had bought some land for the timber but was willing to move it at a reasonable price after the logging, that gives a deer hunter exactly what they need to draw in deer. I saw a woodlot beside my farm logged several years back and it was unreal how it pulled in deer the next year. You couldn't get in it because it was so thick but you can sure hunt the edges with confidence that they are in there.