Building a Farm

[Tree Spud]

Intriguing thread. Being a realtor has to help a lot with the fees that come with buying/selling.

Bought my house on heavily wooded 6 acres july 2020 so I could shoot my bow and do a little bow hunting in the backyard. Bought a 40 an hour away last August. Now all of the 2 hour round trips are taking their toll and I've got a running search on land with houses nearby in case the perfect property comes up so we could live on more land and skip the travel. Unfortunately, none of this is based on a financial strategy but with timing the past two years i sure wouldn't lose if I sold. Need to research what is required for a 1031 in case the perfect place pops up!

I drive 2 hours to our place almost every Friday. It's worth it cause that is where I regain my sanity.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I drive 2 hours to our place almost Friday. It's worth it cause that is where I regain my sanity.

Totally understand and I would be the same if I weren't already out of state for work every other week. Makes it harder to skip out on wife/baby for a full saturday or sunday when that's the only real time we get together.

 

[bwoods11]

I drive 2 hours to our place almost Friday. It's worth it cause that is where I regain my sanity.

Agree. I’m jacked every time I drive to Iowa, it’s like a vacation. Really fun, work, hunt, shed hunt, doesn’t matter . We enjoy it!!

 

[roymunson]

I have bought land six times. Five of those purchases were adjacent land. The other was five miles away that had very high wildlife value. I am one of those who will overpay to get what I want. Only one of the six purchases was the land for sale at the time I bought it. The other five were land purchases where I almost begged the land owner to sell.

best time to buy land is when it's not for sale.

 

[Bszweda]

Agree. I’m jacked every time I drive to Iowa, it’s like a vacation. Really fun, work, hunt, shed hunt, doesn’t matter . We enjoy it!!

Can you get tags every year being a non resident? I always just eliminated looking at Iowa due to tags.

 

[bwoods11]

Can you get tags every year being a non resident? I always just eliminated looking at Iowa due to tags.

One year wait or possibly 2 for archery . Gun every year.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

Apropos to nothing…I think piecing together a larger tract from smaller parcels is one of the most worthwhile endeavors a man can do. It’s the anti-broken up tract movement that is fragmenting land across this country.

 

[Bill]

Apropos to nothing…I think piecing together a larger tract from smaller parcels is one of the most worthwhile endeavors a man can do. It’s the anti-broken up tract movement that is fragmenting land across this country.

I started with 160 and I'm up to 412. I hope nothing else touching me comes up soon....my wife gave me the stink eye the last two times.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

I started with 160 and I'm up to 412. I hope nothing else touching me comes up soon....my wife gave me the stink eye the last two times.

Had a buddy say I’m not interested in any more land except the land the land that borders me!

 

[Bill]

But I do have a closing tomorrow where I'm the seller. Maybe now would be a good time

 

[Mortenson]

I hope I get a crack at a ~ 20 acre piece and if not I think my chances are done for my lifetime. *for adjoining land. Thought I was working a good in on a nice chunk for a few years but got slick willied by IL's broke yet somehow fully charged land acquisition branch.

 

[Tree Spud]

Totally understand and I would be the same if I weren't already out of state for work every other week. Makes it harder to skip out on wife/baby for a full saturday or sunday when that's the only real time we get together.

Learned early on that if you only build the place for you, gonna be hard on the relationship. Build the place so the wife & kids can enjoy and you will find you will have ability to spend a lot more time there.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

Totally understand and I would be the same if I weren't already out of state for work every other week. Makes it harder to skip out on wife/baby for a full saturday or sunday when that's the only real time we get together.

My hunting land went from a place my son and I went to work and hunt, to a place the entire family came to to have fun and get away. You just need to make it fun for them. Shortly after that my wife asked me if I ever considered moving to the hunting land, and retiring here.

Rather then spending your time away working on food plots, and TSI, make it fun for the family. I built a nice fire pit, a small play ground for young kids, brought the boat so we can “go boating” find a few “fun” shops to take them to, find restaurants that they like. Make plans to make the “cabin” more comfy, and live able for wife and kids. My wife likes to read, so we set up a swing outside for her to relax outdoors and read. Involve them in decisions that aren’t food plot, and hunting related.

The trick is to show them that going there is fun, you may have to take a year off from your projects, but once you get them to want to go there, you will get to go there a lot more.

 

[bwoods11]

Owning land out of state is much easier at my age 53. We had 4 boys and they were in 3 sports. We were running everywhere, I’m sure you guys can relate. There was a game or a tournament literally every weekend.

Now that they have graduated I can justify the trips to Iowa or Missouri to hunt, habitat work, etc…

The first 4 or 5 years of owning land in Iowa I never even applied for a tag. This was a total vision of building the farm for the future. Prices were $1100-1500 acre for farms. …..Actually the first one I looked at was $850/acre

 

[westonwhitetail]

I thought he bought a farm closer to his wife's family. Kentucky or Missouri. Is that what he's talking about falling through?

I think he is looking in NE Iowa in the bluffs, where he is originally from.

 

[westonwhitetail]

Good points about making it about family. Its a huge investment so that's important to justify the cause. If I'm lucky enough to add to what we have it will be because everyone enjoys it. If they don't, I'm sure that money will be put into fixing up the house or upgrading to a decent car instead!

 

[PatinPA]

My hunting land went from a place my son and I went to work and hunt, to a place the entire family came to to have fun and get away. You just need to make it fun for them. Shortly after that my wife asked me if I ever considered moving to the hunting land, and retiring here.

Rather then spending your time away working on food plots, and TSI, make it fun for the family. I built a nice fire pit, a small play ground for young kids, brought the boat so we can “go boating” find a few “fun” shops to take them to, find restaurants that they like. Make plans to make the “cabin” more comfy, and live able for wife and kids. My wife likes to read, so we set up a swing outside for her to relax outdoors and read. Involve them in decisions that aren’t food plot, and hunting related.

The trick is to show them that going there is fun, you may have to take a year off from your projects, but once you get them to want to go there, you will get to go there a lot more.

We originally were buying land to build a house on or buy a house already on land. I of course wanted the land and my wife wanted the house. Unfortunately the my wife's dream home was wayyy out of our price range. But at least the land wasn't. haha. We actually had a deal in place to buy 30 acres but it fell through because the access was about a mile long privately owned woods road and we couldn't swing a house and all that just to get to the property. If I had known we were never going to afford the house I would've just bought that property. It would've been fantastic deer and turkey hunting and bordered some well known great hunting.

 

[SwampCat]

It is nice to be within a short drive of your land. However, with cell cams, the activity can be monitored (deer, turkey, crop progress/harvest, trespassers) …

The biggest positive is you are not on the farm every day bumping deer to the neighbors. It’s like a sanctuary for 11.5 months a year.

The two biggest bucks I’ve shot were on the very first hunt of the year. Those bucks were not disturbed at all and came out an hour before dark in tough to access areas.

I believe deer get used to activity. My next door neighbor, a cattle rancher, has more deer than anyone in the area - and bigger deer. He is out every day of the year, along with his ranch hand. Feeding, fixing fence, chainsaw work, running hog traps, haying, spraying.

I am about the same way. Saturday, the HVAC unit broke down at deer camp and after the repairman fixed it, he wanted to shoot his rifle on our 400 yard range. Between shots, the biggest deer on our place walked across the range 100 yards out. This is a 150” deer, and the reason I know that, is I picked up one of his sheds the day before.

I have property that extends a mile from the nearest road down is some very inaccessible bottom land. Our biggest deer are almost always up on the ridge where they can hear the kids talking while waiting on the school bus and dogs barking 24/7. But I do agree that deer on property where human activity is subdued react to human intrusion quicker. My business partner had a 300 acre farm, 3 hours away, that he visited every other weekend. His game cameras showed a definate pattern where the deer would reduce daytime activity on the weekends he was there and pick up daytime activity a few days after he is gone.


I put out protien feed from my ranger, and it is common for deer - sometimes even the biggest deer in the woods - to show up twenty minutes after I restock the feed supply. We fish, frog hunt, trap crawdads, trap yotes, coons, cats, foxes, squirrel and coon hunt with a dog, hunt for deer, turkeys, ducks, alligators, and doves. Pick mushrooms and let the five grand daughters ride all over the place.

If I had to stay off my land to have decent deer hunting, I wouldnt own land.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

I love to hunt, but if I had to stay off my land for 11 1/2 months a year to do so, I would probably give up hunting. My land to me is my passtime. Some people like video games, some like to go to the bar and drink, I like to go play in dirt, cut trees, plant trees, ride ATV, shoot guns, play outside with the dogs, and have a good campfire in the evenings. If I could only hunt it, I would probably just do tall fence pay per hunt thing, it would be cheaper, and I am sure I would shoot bigger deer.

 

[PatinPA]

I believe deer get used to activity. My next door neighbor, a cattle rancher, has more deer than anyone in the area - and bigger deer. He is out every day of the year, along with his ranch hand. Feeding, fixing fence, chainsaw work, running hog traps, haying, spraying.

I am about the same way. Saturday, the HVAC unit broke down at deer camp and after the repairman fixed it, he wanted to shoot his rifle on our 400 yard range. Between shots, the biggest deer on our place walked across the range 100 yards out. This is a 150” deer, and the reason I know that, is I picked up one of his sheds the day before.

I have property that extends a mile from the nearest road down is some very inaccessible bottom land. Our biggest deer are almost always up on the ridge where they can hear the kids talking while waiting on the school bus and dogs barking 24/7. But I do agree that deer on property where human activity is subdued react to human intrusion quicker. My business partner had a 300 acre farm, 3 hours away, that he visited every other weekend. His game cameras showed a definate pattern where the deer would reduce daytime activity on the weekends he was there and pick up daytime activity a few days after he is gone.


I put out protien feed from my ranger, and it is common for deer - sometimes even the biggest deer in the woods - to show up twenty minutes after I restock the feed supply. We fish, frog hunt, trap crawdads, trap yotes, coons, cats, foxes, squirrel and coon hunt with a dog, hunt for deer, turkeys, ducks, alligators, and doves. Pick mushrooms and let the five grand daughters ride all over the place.

If I had to stay off my land to have decent deer hunting, I wouldnt own land.

The farm that borders me is like that. They're constantly outside walking around, working, they have dogs that run around. The deer don't care if they're there. I've seen nice buck bed down within 50 yards of their house. They know they're safe in there. One of my best stands is 30 yards from the horse pen, 50 yards from their barn, and 50 yards from the hard road.