I don't know that I can process everything that's been posted here but I can state my angle. I'm a small time home builder/remodeler. We recently moved back to my wife's family farm of now only 40 acres to try and salvage what's left. The farm was started in 1884 when the family moved here from Germany. many siblings over 4 generations, worked this place as a dairy, hog, sheep and row crop operation. As times got harder, land was sold and the farming became less diverse. My father in-law was the last one to hang on and work the place until it broke him. Running the dairy operation by himself. He decided after starting a family and having 4 children of his own, he just couldn't make ends-meet. The farm, that was still owned at that time in the late 80's by his father, then had an equipment auction and everything down to the cows were sold. My father in-law went to work for Chrysler and raised his family and retired with a nice pension.
Fast forward to present day. After he left in the late 80's his sister and husband moved to the farm to keep it in the family name, but sold land and consolidated 40 acres that were then leased out to multiple farmers for row crop and pasture for small beef cattle operations. The barns and land have been unkempt, and used up of all the good they once had. Now here I am actually trying to figure out how to turn a profit or produce sustenance with the family's own sweat equity. We could have probably qualified for some USDA loan but that's not what we were looking for. Just trying to get things back to what they were intended to be in the first place.
Now on to the real estate side of things. As stated before. I'm a second generation carpenter/contractor. Started my own business 9 years ago but been in the trade nearly 20 years. During the pandemic, we had our first two children, I saw material prices quadruple, lead times on certain products go out to 6 months in some cases. Work in my area almost completely dried up. Forced me to go from doing mostly new construction, to weird obscure remodeling projects while people "sheltered in place". Ended up having to travel much farther for work and spend much more in overhead. We didn't get any bail out, tax breaks, in-fact, didn't even get any of that money or tax breaks that people were supposed to be getting for having children during that time period. I think it was actually the exact opposite. Yet, my line of work was what was helping people keep their homes up to date and functioning properly. We even got hit with capitol gains tax for buying my mom out of my childhood home and fixing it to ultimately sell, as the neighborhood quality was declining due to increased immigrant family's buying small acre parcels and starting "El Rancho's". We even sold to one from Chicago, (shame on me).
All that to say, we're living in strange times and I don't think that will change. Those who are on the government nipple may succeed or ultimately see their demise, only time will tell. It doesn't really matter what's "fair" and what is not. At the end of the day, you've got to follow your gut and fight for it even if it means there's a hard life for some generations, it eventually comes back full circle.
We're all blessed to live in the land of opportunity!
