My property situation, buying new land, looking for advice

[Savannah]

First a little background: My father-in-law has 160 acres of nice hunting land. It is 1hr door-to-door from where I live and work. When I fist started hunting years ago that was the only place my wife and I hunted. But its another mans property, period. I appreciated hunting on his land, but that's where it ends. He has been hunting for 40+ years and is not interested in changing anything. He doesnt want to add more stands, put in food plots, nothing. He shoots one big buck a year and that's it. I completely respect his property.

A farmer literally one mile down the road from my FIL's property had 25 acres of woods attached to his fields he wasnt using and sold it to me back in 2005. Over the last 12 years I have done everything to this small parcel. We currently have a 40ft trailer with electric, septic, well, 2 ponds(one 1/2 acre bass and one 1/10 acre catfish pond) 2 food plots, shoot houses, stands, everything. I believe I have maxed out every inch I can on this property. The issue now is too many people, not enough space. We have me, my dad, my wife, and my twins that are now 10 getting ready to hunt. We can always hunt at my FIL's, I know he will be excited to have his grand kids there, but again, its his property, his "way of hunting." I have zero issue with all of it. Nobody is coming on my small parcel and telling me what to do about anything, so I get it.

So here's the dilemma, what would you do? I have two neighbors I butt up to. Both are family hunters that have 3-5 people in their camps and neither are interested in selling an inch of their land. There are a few wooded lots within 15 minutes of my place that are for sale that I could afford. They are smaller 25 acre parcels I could buy and do nothing but set stands and have for additional hunting places. Is it too much of a PITA driving 15min to get to a stand for evening hunts? Is it worth the money, taxes, etc?

It is very nice having my in-laws a mile away as we spend a lot of time using our land throughout the year. All summer long we have the pond to swim in, fish, bonfires, all the things that come with property. Its just during hunting time things get tough. We really enjoy hunting but we wear out my little track pretty quickly. Last year my father didnt see any deer during hunting hours in firearms season. Too many people in the woods, the deer went nocturnal. The trailcams had all the deer moving between 9pm and 5am. My property is too small for any kind of drives.

Sorry for the long read, thanks for any advice.

 

[W33kender]

15 minutes is not a long drive for me personally for a morning or evening hunt.

 

[Blizzard Ridge]

I have farms scattered from north to south 35 miles and east and west 30 miles. I do not have a problem with leaving a few minutes early to get to the stand on time. Of course it is always optimal to have property as close as possible but if that is not in the cards I would take what I can get.

 

[Rickey]

To me 15 minutes is almost my back yard. It's close enough that I can get to it anytime. I wish the lease I hunt was closer. It's over an hour.

 

[j-bird]

The only constant is change. What seems like not enough today will change. In just 10, or fewer, short years those kids will be off to school and Dad may or may not be hunting. I think getting an additional place down the road can help with your short term issue of hunting pressure. However is sounds like you have neighbors that are doing the same in hunting several folks on a smaller parcel - so it may not turn the situation around all that much. You could also rotate you goes to the FIL's place as well. It would be good for those girls to spend some time with him as well. Sometimes we forget that we have our places to enjoy them and it seems like outside of hunting season you have that. Picking up a place down the road - even if it's just access and not owning it may help your immediate need.

 

[dogghr]

I think you only can answer the question of buying more land. Personally I'd try to but a larger tract even if it meant selling the one I had, and one with maybe less neighbor pressure. But each person has their priorities. I certainly drive 45 min to my land to hunt, and often will come home to take care of business midday , then drive back for after noon hunts if schedule dictates. So yes, 15 min drive would be nothing.

 

[MattJK]

I like the flexibility offered by multiple smaller parcels. Can burn one out and let it recover. Can sell one if cash is needed without going back to zero.

 

[cutman]

I would hunt your father in laws place and save save save your money waiting for a bigger parcel to become available in the area.

 

[Chainsaw]

In addition to REALLY saving for a larger parcel, I would limit hunting on the parcel you have for only the highest odds days and hunt large parcels of public land if you have it in your area. Private lands around here with the exception of the very few well managed lands seem to have as many trucks parked at them during the season as the many thousands of acres of public lands do. I wouldn't care to hunt small public lands but larger ones where one can get far away from the crowd would be a lot of fun. Late March and April are of course the best times to walk and learn a large public land at least in this area.
Driving up to an hour to hunt the right public land would be completely acceptable to me. Daylight has a short window in November so driving an hour each way in darkness would not take away any huntable daylight time.

 

[The Famous Grouse]

Just something to throw into the mix here.

Has your wife or you talked to your FIL about what happens to his 160 acres after he passes? Obviously, this depends a lot on family situation, how old your FIL is, etc, but I'm just asking the question. Any thoughts about eventually buying his piece? Judging by your age and the age of your family, my guess is your FIL is somewhere over 60.

I've seen it happen before where nice pieces of land had to be sold off after the owner died because there was no other plan in place. The surviving spouse can't/doesn't want the burden of keeping up that much land and family members would have loved to buy the property, but they weren't in a position to do so because nobody had made any plans and was prepared. So it all got sold off and lost.

Is there a plan?

Grouse

 

[Savannah]

Grouse,

Great question. It hasn't been brought up yet because my fil is still a young older guy..I'm 42, he's 63. My wife has two siblings. One brother that hunts, and one sister that doesn't even live in the area. Our plan is to keep the property in the family. If my brother in law wants a piece of it, great, we'll split whatever. If either sibling wants nothing but the value of it we will buy them out. So in however many years were blessed to have them around when that day comes we will be having a much larger piece of property. The problem is that could be 15-20 yrs from now. My kids will be gone and those young hunting times behind us. That's where the dilemma comes in as to what I do in the meantime.
Jess

 

[Bullwinkle]

I've learned the hard way it's best to have your own land. Splitting land with family or friends is just asking for problems no matter how close you are. Kids, divorce, different financial situations, different priorities, etc. Land is too big an investment to share.

I had a similar situation and broke off on my own and did my own thing. Best move I ever made. I got a lager piece first then as I got older and could afford it I bought a second smaller piece close buy that allowed me to hunt different deer. Works out well

 

[The Famous Grouse]

Great question. It hasn't been brought up yet because my fil is still a young older guy..I'm 42, he's 63. My wife has two siblings. One brother that hunts, and one sister that doesn't even live in the area. Our plan is to keep the property in the family. If my brother in law wants a piece of it, great, we'll split whatever. If either sibling wants nothing but the value of it we will buy them out.

The key, of course, is to have a plan in place so that everyone's in the position they want to be in when the time comes. I've seen a situation almost exactly like you have play out the wrong way. Owner suddenly passes. Non-hunting daughter gets in big hurry to sell off property. Other sibling is also a daughter, her husband and kids were avid hunters on the propety and would love to buy the property but can't come up with cash fast enough to satisfy other daughter/son-in-law who push for a quick sale. Plus, there is a dispute about the value and "what dad would have wanted". Whole property sold off within a year. Very sad situation.

Since you seem to really like the parcel you currently have, I'd start looking for nearby land, but it really sounds to me like you could benefit from more than 25 acres additional. I know in some places land parcels of any size are super tough to find and go for $$$$, so that's not telling you what to do, just an observation about what you seem to need.

I looked at a lot of land before I bought our farm. The 2 things that I wanted was enough land so that when my sons were ready to hunt, there would be space. I was convinced that I needed at least 80 acres so I held off on an "all or nothing" until I found the reight property. Now I'm trying to add an adjacent 40 so that I'll be set with as much land as I want.

Best of luck.

Grouse

 

[JDunham]

The key, of course, is to have a plan in place so that everyone's in the position they want to be in when the time comes. I've seen a situation almost exactly like you have play out the wrong way. Owner suddenly passes. Non-hunting daughter gets in big hurry to sell off property. Other sibling is also a daughter, her husband and kids were avid hunters on the propety and would love to buy the property but can't come up with cash fast enough to satisfy other daughter/son-in-law who push for a quick sale. Plus, there is a dispute about the value and "what dad would have wanted". Whole property sold off within a year. Very sad situation.

I have seen this scenario play out at least 3-4 times in the last several years with friends of mine. Come up with a plan now, life has a way of changing instantly in very unexpected ways.

 

[savanna]

Well almost a yr later we are wrapping up this hunting season and nothing has gotten any better. We saw a bunch of deer in archery, but none since opening day of gun season. Countless hrs on stand and me, my wife, my father have seen 2 button bucks, that's it. So the issue has surfaced again, but now gotten worse. My father in law and I had an argument at the end of our last hunt. Long story but the short of it is many of the stands on his property and not useable, old, unstable. I would love to update them all but I am not going to put all time and money into it and not have complete access to them without permission. Which I don't. I was basically told, then don't use them. Without arguing at all and out of respect for my wife I just said ok. Then came home and said I need more space. My wife is a hunter too and agrees and its her father. She is asking if he will sell us some of his 160 acres but both she and I know he will not be interested. Unfortunately, that means the sale of our little 25 acre piece we've owned for 10yrs and out so much blood sweat and tears into . I'm not going to have two homesteads , pay two taxes and try and maintain two properties all while living and working an hr away. Moving everything and starting over just sounds awful. All the food plots, Apple orchards planted, well, septic, electric, ponds...god we've done so much work . It's really to bad none of the neighbors will sell any property next to mine.

 

[Osceola]

I wouldn't be too quick to sell your 25. Without knowing any details, I wonder if one of your neighbors would sell if you made a really generous offer. The adjacent properties are obviously worth a lot more to you than to others, so don't be afraid to "over pay" if you can afford it. I don't think you'd regret it even if you had to pay 10% or 20% higher than "market" value. Just a thought to ponder before you let go of a property in which you've invested so much. You'll probably not get all your "sweat equity" back out of it anyway if you sell.

 

[savanna]

I would gladly pay 20% over fair market value if that were an option. Unfortunately both surrounding neighbors have about 50 acres each and are avid hunters. Neither is interested in selling.

 

[Chainsaw]

It sounds like it is time to make a list of criteria for considering a new land purchase. Based on your experience in that area I would say criteria number 1 is that a property has to be in an area where most parcels are larger than 200 acres. If every property is 50 acres and has five hunters and they each want to shoot one deer each per year it won't work. Figuring it takes on average twenty acres to grow a deer 200 acres could grow enough so only 50% of the areas deer would be shot annually at a one per person rate with five hunters on each property. Shooting 50% of possible deer produced I'm considering to be maximum.

I'm not saying that people with 50 acres can't shoot even ten deer a year but it is not possible if everyone has fifty acres and wants to shoot ten deer per year when the average fifty acres is only producing 2 1/2 deer per year.

 

[SwampCat]

I would look at a lease

 

[savanna]

So I made a few phone calls today to a company that leases hunting properties all over NY. It looks like they have one of them 20min from my camp so I left the agent a message to talk with him about it. It is 80 acres for 1600 per yr and allows 3 hunters to be listed on the property. The company states once you lease a property you have the first right to lease it again the following years. Even if I found property near me for sale(I am looking) 80 acres would probably go for over 150k. So from a financial point while looking for a great deal to open if 1600 got me exclusive access to 80 acres a yr that sounds pretty good. I pay 1300 a yr in taxes on my little 25 acres alone so buying and paying taxes on 80 acres would not be possible for years to come. I have never leased before so I have no idea what to expect. Because its not mine and im not there all the time are people just walking all over it constantly trying to use it for free? Obviously it would be difficult to get good stands set up and all those other issues. Can someone who has leased or is now give me some of their thoughts?