Buying Hunting Land

[gotguns?]

I would like to buy some hunting land to 1) obviously, hunt, camp, hang out, etc. and 2) investment purposes. I would like it to be no more than a 2 hour drive from my house.

I would like your advice on a couple of things.

1) What characteristics should I be looking for? I know I want easy/cheap access to electricity and water. Any kind of mineral rights would be a bonus. Any type of water (i.e. river, creek, pond, etc.) would be preferred.

2) How many acres do I need? I would like to get about at least 3-4 good feeders/blinds going.

3) How can tell there is good game? Obviously, I look for tracks, but is it an unrealistic request to setup a game camera for a week or two before signing a contract?

4) Anything else?

 

[Art Eatman]

Within two hours of Dallas? Have you a fat billfold?

Pick up one of these freebie real estate magazines at your local stop'n'rob. Check the prices. Similarly, get a Sunday newspaper and read the ads for acreage tracts.

You're probably looking at prices well north of a grand an acre, for anything under a thousand acres...

Hey, even back country stuff around Terlingua with no electricity or water is now selling--as in money changing hands--at $250 an acre. That's up from $40 or $50, just some three years ago.

Art

 

[Oldnamvet]

Count your blessings. Try buying hunting land in Michigan where it goes for $3-$5K per acre in the lower peninsula.

 

[Karbon]

Hunting land up here in Wisconsin...in Buffalo County where we own land...

CRAZY. In 89' we bought half a farm (175 acres) for $20k with the buildings, now last year we were in a biding war for the other half of the original farm, and the 185 acres sold for $740,000. ~4k and acre. Insane.

I wish the local papers and magazines would have never started writing about the nice white tails in our county. Farmers cannot even touch land anymore. It used to be all farmland, now it is all hunting clubs from Illinois.

I liked the farmers way better...and now it's going to cost an arm and a leg to nab it.

My point (if there is one other than venting) whatever you do, buy asap.

 

[Oldnamvet]

Karbon

Having grown up in Iowa, I remembered how the people from Illinois and Wisconsin "loved" one another. That must really irk people around there now that the Illini have been buying up Wisconsin.

I wanted 80 acres around Ludington -- mostly brush and woods, not even farmland. But I couldn't come up with the $600,000 they wanted for it, and eventually got from some guy from New York City. Insane is right.

 

[gotguns?]

From what I'm seeing in the 3 hour radius of DFW, you are looking at $1k - $5k per acre. I would like to stay around $1k per acre. I think anything you buy in that range is a good investment.

 

[Karbon]

Oldnamvet,

Funny... yup we sure do love the FIB's up there! Long running love hate relationship there.

(j/K) Some have been great, others not so, but that's the same with people everywhere. Many local farmers just hate when the people with "big city money" come up there and buy their parents farms. It happend to a good friend of ours...

But I would love to come down and hunt in south western Ill...big racks down there...

 

[Matt King]

If you are going to hunting deer, you will need at a minimum, 600 acres. To have an adaquate ranch with everything that you want Is going to cost a small fortune.

 

[rlt7272]

Good luck on your search for land. I have tired to do the same thing here in Oklahoma, but the cost have gone up so much that I will have to win the lottery to ever get land of my own.

I would be satisfied with 50-75 acres with a couple of ponds or a stream. That's plenty of land to set up a food plot and draw in the deer. The problem would be keeping it secured from other hunters.

 

[gotguns?]

rlt7272, Good point, so another feature would be that it would be fenced?

Texas, why do you think I would need a minium of 600 acres? I hunt on 200 acres currently. We have about 5 good feeders/blinds. I could probably only afford 100 - 150 acres depending on how comfortable I was with the investment. I think 3-4 hunters at a time would be the maximum for that size land. I was thinking 1 feeder/blind per 50 acres.

 

[gotguns?]

Another question I have is... Have any of you ever bought land with a friend or group of friends. Sounds like it's a quick way to loose some friends to me, but I've heard it works for some people.

 

[Oldnamvet]

I have seen it work but it was always a very structured deal. Contracts were signed, a club was formed with by-laws, everything legally tidy. As long as you didn't have a rotten apple in the bunch, things went well. If you did have someone who refused to follow the rules, you could legally toss them out.
As you say, you could lose some friends. But if they were really friends, they wouldn't behave in a manner to cause trouble.

 

[Rembrandt]

Land that doesn't support itself....isn't worth buying!

Land needs to have an income revenue to pay the taxes, bank payments, and cover improvements. Anything with buildings will add to the maintenance costs unless you can justify the need or use them as rental income.

For hunting, try to find something with a river and timber....needed as a food and water source for the wildlife. Unfortunately, those features don't often make for a good income generator.

I bought a 320 acre farm in Iowa, has the best Deer, Turkey, and Pheasant hunting imaginable....rent the place out for cash to pay the bills. Has worked out very well. Down side is the maintenance & upkeep on a second house and barn....I thought maintaining one home was tough, doing two has taken nearly all my free time. Tax advantages are pretty impressive....one of those nice perks to go along with the great hunting.

Sometimes I get reminded by Mrs Rembrandt about spending a half million dollars for "hunting ground"....when meat at the grocery store is already cut up, wrapped, and ready for the grill.

 

[Matt King]

Texas, why do you think I would need a minium of 600 acres? I hunt on 200 acres currently. We have about 5 good feeders/blinds. I could probably only afford 100 - 150 acres depending on how comfortable I was with the investment. I think 3-4 hunters at a time would be the maximum for that size land. I was thinking 1 feeder/blind per 50 acres.

I read in a magazine that said you need, 500-600 hundred acres to sustain deer. Dont' know if that's true, but it's what I read.

 

[Art Eatman]

Texas, absent 8' fences, deer pretty much go from a bedding area to where the food and water is. Generally, the best hunting is along a travel route from a bedding area to either the food or the water or both. You might have that 600 acres--or 10,000 acres, but do quite well by stationing yourself in just one particular acre.

A rule of thumb is that if there's food and water around, a whitetail deer will rarely travel over a mile from "home".

Art

 

[rlt7272]

You would probably do well to cut back on the size of the land you are wanting and use the savings to build ponds and food plots. There things you can do to make your plot more attrractive to the deer. I have managed to keep a few deer around my house with just a corn feeder. Trouble is my wife will not let me shoot the deer in the back yard.

 

[BigFatKen]

food plots

I own 40 acres but I see all my deer in the three acre food plot. It draws the deer in for miles. I could reconize 14 bucks last year. Think smarter, not bigger.

 

[PCGS65]

by Karbon, Funny... yup we sure do love the FIB's up there! Long running love hate relationship there.

(j/K) Some have been great, others not so, but that's the same with people everywhere. Many local farmers just hate when the people with "big city money" come up there and buy their parents farms. It happend to a good friend of ours...

But I would love to come down and hunt in south western Ill...big racks down there...

Karbon, be nice now. I haven't heard the "FIBS" in a long time Got a chuckle out of that. You're right though. The outfitters are buying land like it's the homestead act all over again.
SW Illinois hahaha try 5-8 grand an acre for anything wooded. 15 yrs ago it was less than $500/acre depending if if had water/creeks/lakes ect. Great hunting yes but only if your loaded.:banghead:
I'm stuck with hunting public land where there's too much pressure.

 

[Oldnamvet]

Wonder if anyone ever tried time share for hunting land? As long as everyone didn't want to hunt the same things at the same time.

Even leasing land in Michigan goes high.

Of course, you can always hunt with an outfitter where they have the land and the blinds. You just "rent" things for a week for about $1K.

Then my wife reminds me of how much per pound that venison ended up costing. *sigh*

 

[1 old 0311]

As a investment you also want a "good looking piece of property." Road frontage, rolling hills, etc. won't matter for what you want it for, but down down the line it will be a strong seller for a homesite.

 

[BigFatKen]

I "time shared" 20 acres with my high school friend, Ron. We were allowed to bring one other friend. He had his brother Larry. I had my Nephew Steve.

It went fine until Ron got married. How to "uninvite" his brother? No problem after that as I got married. Then Larry could not go without his Cousin Bill. I had no one else I wanted to invite. So now, the score is Ron 4, me 3.

Larry brought more crap to the table with the Cousin than I wanted, so we decided to sell the place. We bought swamp with a little pond dug. The pond settled in so it was now only 5 feet deep. Had we spent more, we would have made out better on the sale.

Morale: Pick your partners more carefully that your wife.

 

[redneck2]

I have a friend that has taken 2 record book deer out of a 5 acre parcel. It happens to be a travel route between feeding and bedding areas. Looks real plain and nothing spectacular until you figure it out.

FWIW...I was going to buy some land in northern Wisconsin years ago. It was 33k for 15 acres with 400 feet of beach on a private lake. House, shed. I was talking to a friend...said they used to have a house right in that area and sold it. Said they spent all their time working on it rather than enjoying the place.

Payments were $400 a month with taxes. She said "we finally figured out how nice a vacation you could have for a lot less than $4,800 a year, and have all your time free"

think real hard. If you buy $500,000 worth of land, how many hunting trips can you take for that kind of money???

 

[Old Time Hunter]

I've watched "hunting" land prices grow way out of proportion to the rest of realestate here in Northern Wisconsin over the last 10 years. Bought 60 acres for a couple of hundred an acre 20 years ago and paid a grand an acre for an additional 20 acres 10 years ago, now I am trying to pick up another 30 acres, but they want $3500 an acre! Mind now, this is raw natural timber land with a logging trail in and over a mile to the nearest power(my father's cabin), five miles to the nearest paved road. Ten years ago the FIB's were just asking and now they are buying, it won't be long before they wreck the pristine beauty of the wild woods by bringing in paved roads, power boats, and all the rest. If I can some way get the addition 30, I can block the FIB's from tens of thousands of acres of state forest that they will surely turn into a civilized park instead of natural wild old growth forest. The only other way in is through a different state and across a river.
One rule of thumb I have for hunting by us, one hunter per 10 acres on private virgin timber land and one per 30 acres on public land should be a law.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

think real hard. If you buy $500,000 worth of land, how many hunting trips can you take for that kind of money???

When you invest $500,000 in land, you don't do it for hunting -- you do it to make money when the land appreciates. The hunting is just a bonus.

I have a friend who lives in West Memphis whose husband passed away several months ago. She told me, "Pat was in a hunt club, and they owned some land near Mountain View <where I live> or Mountain Home. I'd like to get the other owners together and sell it. Can you help?"

I located the land -- 980 acres -- and informed her that a fair value for it as a single tract was about $1 million. I also told her, "Don't sell if you don't need the money -- it's a great investment. If you do have to sell, cut it into smaller tracts and double the value."

 

[Rembrandt]

think real hard. If you buy $500,000 worth of land, how many hunting trips can you take for that kind of money???

While the appreciation of the land helps, the real financial benefits are the tax advantages. Should be able to write off truck, fuel, 4 wheeler, and other items as farm expenses.....can't do it you don't own land.