Perpetual hunting rights how much value?

[Bszweda]

Hi all,

Right now I'm looking at a 120 acre property, and have the opportunity to buy 70 acres of it, but also buy a perpetual easement for the hunting rights for the 50 acre crop field in the center of the property. Just curious how much value you would pay per acre for hunting rights. I'm valuing it at 1k an acre for the rights. Just wanted to get other people's feedback back.

 

[MadMadHoosier]

“Exclusive” hunting rights? Your number seems fair. If not exclusive, it would not be worth much to me.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I guess it would depend on how much land sells for in that area. What's the going rate for the 70 acres of woods and the 50 crop acres?

I'd rather own an 80 outright than own 70 with a 50 acre hunting lease attached if all things were equal. I just think there are a lot of ways that situation could go wrong, but I'm sure it could also work out.

 

[Bszweda]

Id say timber goes for 5k to 5.5k and the ag land is very bad river bottom that would go for 7k an acre. I wanted the exclusive hunting rights to avoid any potential chances of anyone trying to hunt the ag.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I'd probably pay $1000/acre for exclusive hunting rights on that 50 acres, but I might not start that high as my first offer. I'd probably start with $25,000 and see what they say. I'm assuming the owner of the 50 acre field the same person who is trying to sell the other adjacent 70 acres?

 

[Brian662]

Also, what protections would you have if the owner sells the ag land?

 

[Bszweda]

They can sell the land, but whoever buys it will see on the title search they don't own the hunting rights. Similar to mineral rights. It's floods occasionally so I don't see it ever getting developed.

 

[Hoytvectrix]

I genuinely didn't know that hunting rights could be transferred with the title.

I wonder why that doesn't happen more?

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

I’d be shocked if that could actually be written into a deed. If it could the owner would be an idiot to do that. Rural land without hunting rights is like a truck without 4 wheel drive

 

[Bszweda]

In this case it's a win / win farmer has a tract that's 100 % tillable, selling his timber acreage and is getting a large lump sum for the hunting rights. How many farmers put non productive crop land into crep or wrp?

 

[Brian662]

Do you know the neighborhood? Would your deal transfer to new owners if you sold?

Hunting property sells on average every ~3 years I think, this would be a huge investment for you in the case you eventually sell.

I personally would not do it, with that being said, my value to it would be less than $1,000/acre unless you could carve out some tillable for a plot or two, or get him to leave some row crop standing, etc.

 

[Bszweda]

Yeah the rights would transfer to the buyer if I ever sold the 70. ( I'll let you know how this goes) I should have some spots on the 70 for food plots, but I also was going to try to purchase an acre or two of crops from the farmer. The property is a rut funnel. I'll own a mile of creek and then a north to south running ridge with an ag field in the middle of it.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

Yeah the rights would transfer to the buyer if I ever sold the 70. ( I'll let you know how this goes) I should have some spots on the 70 for food plots, but I also was going to try to purchase an acre or two of crops from the farmer. The property is a rut funnel. I'll own a mile of creek and then a north to south running ridge with an ag field in the middle of it.

Good luck! Buying new land is always exciting.

As far as the buying of rights.I just hate for you to dump a bunch of money on hunting rights that aren’t transferable if the 50 sells one day.

 

[Mortenson]

Has a lawyer cleared the hunting rights deal? I'd be a little skeptical myself. If they don't transfer then the field owner could get sneaky and sell to a relative and regain the rights.

 

[Turkish]

Hi all,

Right now I'm looking at a 120 acre property, and have the opportunity to buy 70 acres of it, but also buy a perpetual easement for the hunting rights for the 50 acre crop field in the center of the property. Just curious how much value you would pay per acre for hunting rights. I'm valuing it at 1k an acre for the rights. Just wanted to get other people's feedback back.

How much less would you pay for the 70 if you didn’t have hunting rights? I suspect the hunting rights are worth more than $1k/ac.

On the other hand, you need more than just hunting rights. You need exclusive access during hunting season and some recompense of its developed or your hunting privileges are infringed.

 

[Mortenson]

Can he just owner finance a sale to you and you can give him a solid lease-back?

 

[KY wild]

Interesting but a little scary, I own 2 different properties without owning half of the mineral rights and they will never be attainable because no one really owns them. So my point is I hate to see hunting rights kept out per deed, just not good for land in the future. What about this angle, I assume he wants to keep farm land for the annual crop income. So what if you buy the farm land for the same price as the forest land but you give him the crop check for the rest of his life or maybe for an agreeable length of time. Seems like everyone gets what they want.

 

[Native Hunter]

I would worry about the landowner doing things on purpose to ruin the hunting if he didn’t like people hunting. There are lots of thing people can do to ruin hunting without the hunter ever knowing anything happened.

 

[Electrodigical]

I look at it like.... would you pay $2k to hunt that field? Would you pay it every year, whether you hunt it or not?
What's a hunting lease go for in those parts? (that's what you're really doing)

 

[Bill]

If a lawyer says it will fly, why not. The field is surrounded by your new land.
If the lawyer says it's sketchy I'd try and work on buying it cheap with guaranteed crops rights to the farmer for his lifetime.