Profit from your land

WeedyJ

5 year old buck +
So my neighbor is selling his 175 acres. It has well water, a small but usable house, has a lot of unusable wetland, and has about 75 acres of pastureland. The rest is thicket and old hardwoods. IF i do this, I will want to try and make it generate some sort of income. As I won't live there, I can't do anything that is going to require my constant presence. I've considered ornamental tree/shrub growing, or growing something on at least half of the pasture land. Meeting with a hardwood guy this week to see if there is any value there.
 
Would growing the ornamental be easy? I'm just thinking of the fencing required to keep deer out. I drive by a couple of place like that on my way to my property and I think the fence is stands all the way up to 10 feet. It always looks like ti's been tilled in the rows to keep weeds down.

I'm sur you thought of this but can you lease the field to a farmer?
 
In indiana you can put some forested wetland into classified forest. Takes taxes virtually to 0 and you can still do timber harvests, hunt, etc. You can never build or graze animals.
 
Sounds like other than government programs you may be limited to renting the pasture which isn't going to generate much for income.
 
Is the pasture fenced? You could lease out the pasture to a cattle guy. You could also maybe find someone who cuts hay to work the pasture over. Neither will make a lot of money but it will be a steady income.
 
Fix up the house and AirBnB or VRBO it. Look in your area on those sites to get an idea of how much you could charge.
 
A likely profitable but not popular (on hunting forums) is leasing out to hunt. Fix the house up good enough and lease out a couple of hunts a year. Easy money that would help fund the purchase of the land more-so than most other options.
 
Pasture can often be crop ground. Check the soils and find out if you can bust up the sod?
 
My son bought a small 11 acre tract that joins my main farm. About 6.5 acres of that can be farmed, and a local farmer is willing to farm it. This year that small field brought my son nearly $1,000 for his part, and he didn't have to do anything. Land that used to be overlooked because it was so small is now being farmed in my area. I've lived here all my life and now see little fields like that farmed that never were before. Generally they rotate between soybeans and corn.
 
Would growing the ornamental be easy? I'm just thinking of the fencing required to keep deer out. I drive by a couple of place like that on my way to my property and I think the fence is stands all the way up to 10 feet. It always looks like ti's been tilled in the rows to keep weeds down.

I'm sur you thought of this but can you lease the field to a farmer?
I'd have to e fence or get deer resistant stuff
 
Is the pasture fenced? You could lease out the pasture to a cattle guy. You could also maybe find someone who cuts hay to work the pasture over. Neither will make a lot of money but it will be a steady income.
It's fenced and set for cattle. It is currently leased by a cattle guy
 
It's fenced and set for cattle. It is currently leased by a cattle guy
Talk with the cattle guy yet? Find out what the current agreement is and go from there. Might be the easiest and most guaranteed thing at the moment. He might really want to keep the lease and would work with you some on rotating the herd out during season and stuff like that.

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Not sure where you are located but cattle are a good lease. Not sure of rates in your area but probably in the neighborhood of $200 per cow/calf. One other consideration might be if the cattle guy has any equipment. I've cut rates in exchange for bush hogging; or maybe your guy owns a dozer or is willing to spray invasive's, etc. They will usually cut a pretty darn good deal to make sure they keep the lease.
 
If the fence is already there, then pasture rent would one thing I would do asap. Like everything, a good agreement with the renter and finding a decent person to rent to will go a long ways. Does it have any good edges of the property that would make a good building site? A few acres can bring good money for a site.
 
Cattle you are talking maybe 2000-3000 but if it was crop could be twice that.You might find a gov program that will pay you to keep cattle off some of it.I would go talk to NRCS and see what your options are.But I would be willing to bet that farming it or CRP will make the most.You may have to farm for 4 years to get farming history.Don't know where you are but in the NRCS office should be the FSA office and they can tell you what your county average cash rent is
 
Well looks like all of this is a moot point for now. Found out yesterday the land is 10 years into a 30 year Conservation easement. Awaiting the document to review now. I am floored by the price of open pastureland in my area. Most timber land around me is in the 2000-3000 per acre range, with timber. A 130 acre farm land with no structures is going for 750K. This property next to me will most likely got for it's pastureland value.
 
$5500 an acre for ag land disappears in a blink of an eye by us. Big open fields are more like 10-12K per acre.
 
Well looks like all of this is a moot point for now. Found out yesterday the land is 10 years into a 30 year Conservation easement. Awaiting the document to review now. I am floored by the price of open pastureland in my area. Most timber land around me is in the 2000-3000 per acre range, with timber. A 130 acre farm land with no structures is going for 750K. This property next to me will most likely got for it's pastureland value.

Did you not know this when you made the OTP? This should've been disclosed by the seller and been included in the Title work.

Most property with a conservation easement is devalued by 30-40% because of the restricted us.
 
Well looks like all of this is a moot point for now. Found out yesterday the land is 10 years into a 30 year Conservation easement. Awaiting the document to review now. I am floored by the price of open pastureland in my area. Most timber land around me is in the 2000-3000 per acre range, with timber. A 130 acre farm land with no structures is going for 750K. This property next to me will most likely got for it's pastureland value.
Sounds like an easement that ensured it would remain as pastureland for the 30 year duration. No reason you couldn't keep running cows on it in a wildlife friendly way for the next 20 years. Or, it could be that the wetland portion was ensured it would remain as wetlands.

Depending on the restrictions, it could be a good move if the value to you is worth it. Also, could be a good 20 year savings account.
 
Did you not know this when you made the OTP? This should've been disclosed by the seller and been included in the Title work.

Most property with a conservation easement is devalued by 30-40% because of the restricted us.
They haven't officially listed it yet or come up with a definite price. I contacted the agent the day after he put up the sign to get permission to go drive the property. I just got back to him yesterday and started asking the questions. I have no idea how the deductions are taken by the owner, are they transferrable, what the restrictions are, etc. Still a lot of due diligence to do. On the other hand, this gave me reason to talk to my other neighbor about his property. More timber and wetland area, smaller acreage. Might be the better route. His woods and mine are contiguous, giving me about 75 acres of 20-25 year old pine.
 
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