Land values

[Bullwinkle]

I like watching land for sale in the counties around Buffalo and Waupaca in WI. Boy the inventory is low. Especially on Whitetail Properties.

With all that's going on in the trump economy, it will be interesting what happens with land values. Sure feels to me great hunting property value is pointing upward

 

[MattJK]

Really? I'm thinking TPP and possibly not pushing for ethanol will trim the ag side of things.

 

[Elkaddict]

Bull, what does good whitetail property go for in your neck of the woods? In upstate NY where I'm located, sales hover just above the 1k an acre. Of course, we don't have the great soils and genetics of the Midwest.

 

[Bullwinkle]

Really? I'm thinking TPP and possibly not pushing for ethanol will trim the ag side of things.

Long term with weather patterns changing I think ag land is bullish. Read enough articles to believe with population growth this is a real issue. Not smart enough to see the impact of President Trump on food supply/demand out of US

By us ag land prices have a minimal impact on deer hunting land. Ag is $2500-3500 and acre unless it's real special. Hunting land $3500-5000/acre without water. Add a good trout stream and $6000+

With wolves and poor deer herds up in northern WI there is a heavy demand for land in Buffalo and Waupaca counties.

 

[Seabee]

I have no idea where it will go, but it seems if you list with "whitetail properties", the little registered trademark on the listing site ads about 20% to the asking price.

 

[JDunham]

Hunting property values are going nowhere but up.

 

[MarkDarvin]

I take the long term view on land. I also hate the long term view on anything because there are so many variables in between now and then. I imagine any place the population is growing, land will be a stable and growing asset. Some subscribe to the idea that land values are driven by quality of game. To an extent I think that's true, but not the whole story. Take lake property in MN. Most lakes in MN have mediocre at best fishing, and even more aren't worth fishing at all.

That didn't stop people from buying up and developing every inch of lakeshore they could. And those homes go for 3-5 times what they'd cost in town. So in my area, while the deer hunting has never been great, the land is affordable, and it's a disappearing asset class. There are so many different government agencies gobbling up land and land rights in MN that no single person can name them all. Forested land in MN is already over 60% government owned and they're hitting the gas on buying harder than ever.

There, I say buy what you can afford and hang on. It'll take another 10-20 years for people to realize it, but it'll get there.

 

[smsmith]

Hunting property values are going nowhere but up.

If only that was true was around here

 

[Buckly]

Hunting property values are going nowhere but up.

Man I hope so. Trying to unload a piece now.

 

[Triple C]

In NE / East GA, recreation/timber tracts are about the same today as when I bought my farm in 2011. Upside is that my pine timber has grown 5% in volume each year. Just did my 1st thinning on one stand and recouped some cash flow. Downside is the stock market has doubled since Jan 2011 when I purchased. But...can't make memories on a piece of paper. On the other hand...can't eat timber. Just depends on your priorities. I don't see rec / timber / remote land prices going up much at all down here in the near future. Great hunting tracts with good/great timber still in the $1500 to $2000 per acre range.

 

[buckdeer1]

According to most ag studies farmland sells by depth of topsoil,compare Iowa to kansas.I will say around my location a guy started buying and didn't care what it cost and raised the cost but that has slowed down now.It had nothing to do with hunting ground just trying to show who had the most money

 

[The Famous Grouse]

Really? I'm thinking TPP and possibly not pushing for ethanol will trim the ag side of things.

How much more can the ag side of things get trimmed? Have you seen the price of corn and beans for the last 3 years? Now beef and pork are both down or declining as well.

The main driver of hunting land prices is a combination of a good economy and low interest rates. This happend several times before in past 20 years and land prices for recrational / hunting properties soared.

But what goes up must come down. I bought when everyone else was either not buying or trying to sell.

Bullwinkel, I'd also repeat what others have said. You have to think long term. Do you really belive that the northern WI deer herd is hosed in the LONG term? Bad winters impact the herd in the short term for sure, but does that mean the hunting is done for? Or would you just be buying in at the bottom of the market so to speak?

Also, southern WI may be out of the wolf zone, but I'm more concerned about the fact that disease could impact the long term down there. No place is perfect as far as deer, there are lots of areas that were once considered "prime" that got wrecked by disease.

I bought my property not to try to move on top of today's big buck numbers, etc. I think in investing in a property, you have to look at a lot of factors.

Grouse

 

[Triple C]

Bull...Do you ever plan on going back to WI when you retire? I've met very few folks that came down south for any length of time who ever went back up north to live permanently. Might wanna look at land down south.

 

[Scatterlandsfarms]

AG land in Arkansas delta where I live is 5000.00 a acre Hunting land in the delta isn't for sale and cant be bought .
Where I hunt in the Ozarks land was 200.00 a acre when I started hunting it in 1993 now its 1500.00 if you can find it .
Our farm is 520 acres including the leased part , we only hunt with family now and took 12 bucks this year and no doe we feel neighbors kill enough does so we protect them .

 

[Chainsaw]

Be careful what you wish for. When we purchased our 605 acres for about $84,300, with an assessment of half of that the property taxes were pocket change. We never intend to sell this property. The only result in higher property values is higher taxes--not a very welcome result when one retires.

 

[dogghr]

Land prices take their dips, but end result if you are patient, only go up. My spare 1 ac lot where I live, went 4X what I payed for it in 5 years, 16000$ to 80000$. Farm land in the county of my hunting has been holding steady 2-4000/ac. I stole mine from a realtor in a bind when economy collapsed here in 09.
My business friend and I stole our office land in prime times as it was held in inheritance by 14 out of state owners. Gave half what it was on market for but we had cash in hand. Probably now worth 3 X its purchase 15 yrs ago. In mountain land, any flat spot is a premium, and I doubt except for some isolated areas, that any of it goes for less than 1500 for a mountain side. Don't intend to be mean, but best to buy from those with lost job, divorce, death, etc. I maybe have been in one of those positions before so I know.

 

[Blizzard Ridge]

I have seen land prices in my neck of the woods all over the place. I have seen ground go for as high as 12,000 an acre down to 2,000 an acre. With some big farmers in the area if a good piece of ground ties into something they own the price can jump way up. On the norm though 50/50 woods/ag ground usually will be in that 3500 an acre area here in Eastern IL.

 

[j-bird]

I'm with Blizzard. It's a roller coaster around here as well. I see smaller parcels sell for a couple grand an acre up to stupid prices and I have seen farmers go to war at auction for a piece of ground pushing prices near 15K an acre for the right 100 to 200 acre property. No way they are making money at that level, but with deep pockets and ego's logic goes right out the window.

 

[MarkDarvin]

I always wondered about that. I had a guy tell me once, when times were good, a guy with 100% equity in 1500 acres made good money on his corn, he'd just go out and buy another 40 or 80 for a stupid price because he had the cash and wanted to farm more. I don't think rates of return are a well grasped concept in agriculture.

 

[The Famous Grouse]

I don't think rates of return are a well grasped concept in agriculture.

Maybe not with some, but IME there are very few farmers left that don't grasp concepts like this.

One thing that may make it appear like farmers don't look at rate of return is that in many cases they have to balance this against opportunity cost. A given piece of land may only come up for sale once in 2-3 generations! So when it does, the farmer has to carefully consider what both the near and long term implications are of both buying it AND not buying it.

Several times my last farming relatives have had people rolling their eyes when they "overpaid" for land, but these were not decisions that were taken lightly. In one case, they paid $1000 per acre more than was considered "the going rate" for an 80 acre parcel that represented the last land in that section that they didn't already own. In addition to buying the convenience and efficiency of adjacent land, the main consideration was that this was the first time since the 1930s that that piece had come for sale. So the opportunity cost of NOT buying the land was also large. The second piece was yes, they farmed that 80 at essentially "no profit" for a number of years, but then guess what? Another couple of crop price runup years made land prices jump way past what they paid pre acre for that 80 and then everyone who thought they were crazy was wondering how they saw the price runup coming and bought when it was cheap.

What I've learned over time is that there are 2 phases OTHER PEOPLE go through when a guy buys hunting land:

1. Phase 1: Everybody thinks you're an idiot for paying so much for scrubby old hunting land. You could have had a nice [insert nice thing here, lake cabin, house expansion, classic car, etc] for that. Phase 1 lasts about 5-10 years.

2. Phase 2: Everybody thinks you're a genius for buying when land was cheap and wonders how you saw it coming and bought when you did. This phase lasts forever.

Grouse