Building a farm from scratch?

greybeard

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I find it amazing how much land has increased in market value here..and what people from the Houston metro area are willing to pay for 'a little piece of country'. I've related before here...
I bought 17.4 ac of mostly raw land in 2010 adjacent to me, for $30K and change. In a FEMA flood zone, fenced, had been on ag (cattle grazing) for years, had a 40 x 65 unfinished pole barn (good R panel steel roof, no sides, 1/2 finished out top part hay loft) a 20' X 22' tractor fully enclosed tractor shed, an unlivable 25' x 35' one bedroom frame house, electricity run to it, and a small pond that has never dried up even in 2011 drought--full highway frontage on one side, National forest on another property boundary. When I decided to sell it in spring of 2015 I was just hoping to get my $$ back. My realtor walked it and suggested an asking price of $55k. I thought "I'll never see that". Within a week, the bids were at $70K, and a week later I had 1 bid of $120K with his realtor saying he was prepared to go $125K and another higher $135K if I owner financed some or all of it. Had other bids in between 100-120k and it came down to just who I wanted as a neighbor. I took the $120k offer. I was shocked over the whole thing, but I do chuckle a bit when I hear my new neighbor refer to the place as his "ranch". He's a nice guy , but now wishes he had taken my advice and let me make up a grazing lease agreement with him (on paper only) so he could keep it on ag. He keeps 5-7 horses on it as a weekend place and has put up a large & very nice steel building, completely finished out with a 2 bedroom living quarters with all modern conveniences. After closing, I asked my realtor what she thought my place would sell for in the current market, and she said "conservatively, somewhere north of 1/2 mil, maybe up to $750k". Again, shocked.
Lots of 5 acre tracts for sale around here, and lots of 100+ acre tracts for sale but not much in the 20-50 acres, and that 15-50 acres is what folks seem to be wanting.

(I turned down the $135K owner finance offer for 2 reasons.
1. Partly because I just didn't want to mess with financing and, me being "old" I didn't want my wife to be stuck with it either upon my eventual demise.
2. Mostly tho, because they were a young professional couple in their late 20s very early 30s and I knew they would have buyer's remorse even tho I divulged every single thing about the property. I didn't want neighbors that would be mad at me. Good jobs and credit history, but they didn't know squat about rural life, fencing, or anything else. As we walked the property, she immediately pointed out where they would build, and it was in an obvious low spot, that would have 3' of water on it in a heavy rain. I sold the place because it was more work for me than I was getting out of it, and knew I'd have to be up there every week showing them how to do things or doing it for them, and that would have negated my reason for selling in the first place. Neither had ever built a fence in their life, had never owned and didn't own a pickup truck or tractor. The wife was really angry that I didn't sell it to them, as they were the first to meet asking price. She just didn't understand the process of buying property. They don't realize it, but I really did do them a favor)
 
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