Guys, I'd like to get your opinion on this hypothetical situation that I hope to be faced with down the road! For the sake of this discussion, lets say the land in question is 100 acres and will cost you $300K and is located in prime whitetail country in the Mid West. Do you drop the $300K and buy the land or do you invest the $300K and use the earnings to lease an even bigger track? I'm curious to hear what some of you would do... Several factors come into play.... Can you expect much on 100 acres on a consistent basis.... Would you be happy with only 100 acres to hunt on..... etc
As someone who has leased ground for the past 5 years now, I would purchase a good piece of 100 acre ground over a lease any day of the week - provided I could afford it. The biggest problems with leasing are that prices seem to go up every year (much like property taxes) and you're not guaranteed anything for the long run. We all know it takes a few years to really learn a piece of ground and figure out the best ways to hunt it, and with no guarantees on a lease it seems like as soon as you figure it out you get outbid by the next guy and you're off looking for a new place to call home. And as much as I enjoy scouting a new spot and figuring out where and how to hunt, it sucks at the same time. Having a place to call your own, that you can manage and improve the way you see fit, is by far the better option (if you can afford it). Speaking of which, that brings up another issue - land improvements. Spending money on habitat improvements, controlled burns, selective logging, tree plantings, food plots, etc. makes no sense when you're leasing. Unless you have a long term lease locked up tight (10+ years) all you're doing is making the place better for the next guy who's going to hunt it, without ever getting to reap your own rewards. And even with a long term lease all you're doing is spending your own money to improve someone else's land. Doesn't make much sense to me. The only good thing about leasing is that compared to owning your financial obligations are a lot less. If times get tight (like they are right now) you're not worrying about how to make your property and/or tax payments. It's a massive financial undertaking to own a piece of ground if you're only using it for hunting. Most of our wives would already kill us if they found out how much we spend on gear, let alone if we wanted to drop 300K on a piece of dirt and some trees to go hunting on. :D In conclusion, if I could afford it and it didn't impact my day-to-day lifestyle or put myself or my family in any sort of financial strain, I would rather own over lease.
I agree with most of what you said Justin. The last two paragraphs are what I sometimes have trouble with. I would never do something to effect my family's day to day life, but then again, if you took the $300k and used it on something for the family, vs hunting land..... You see where this is going...
Buy it. They don't make good land anymore. No better investment. THere are all kinds of programs to improve your property and make a lil bling....you own it you can improve it, form a huntclub, build a pond, timber it, plant it...improve it.... Lease it..you're the one paying for the improvements for the owner. And when a buyer comes along and likes what you've done...you're well, your done. SB SB
The older I get, the more and more I like public land.... It's free and some good whitetail can be had there.
I lease ground and will be buying my first piece of ground this spring. Buying ground is an investment, leasing land is a short-term means of getting onto good ground that you can control. It's all about control - short versus long. I will likely continue to lease "some" ground each season, but will plan on buying more ground as I can afford it. Right now land prices are at a peak, that's the only negative!
I'd rather buy than lease. In fact, I aspire to own some hunting propery. I just need to win lotto or sell several kidneys first. In the meantime I hunt public land and will probably go back to the same outfitter I went to earlier this year. (cheaper than leasing and they do most of the deer dragging for you.)
There are 100's of thousands of acres here in Ohio.... Even more in PA. Ohio and PA are 2 of the top 3 states in the country for archery hunting licenses. Michigan is the other in the top 3. Pressure is heavy, I suggest a good pair of boots and an early start each morning, the bucks are there though :d
deff own, if you can! they arent making any more land, a buddy once told me! i too am having this fight. currently saving for a down payment on a loan for hunting land, but i only am looking for 40-80acres. i know it doesnt seem like much but just right for me!
Owning for sure. I grew up on (and still hunt) 90 acres, and had access to 1200 acres of more land at our hunting club (although the hunting is sub-par there). Now with the onslaught of this natural gas "boom" we're having in PA, land prices are skyrocketing just at the wrong time for me. I'm at a point where my fiance and I are ready to buy our first home. The plan had been all along to purchase a nice piece of ground, and then build a small starter home on it. Problem is, land is now between $5,000 and $10,000/acre around here. It's ridiculous. I'm a bit biased, however, seeing as I grew up with it, so it's hard for me to imagine living on a 1-2 acre lot.
Since when are you OLD???? Definately buy. I bought my 85 acres almost exacly 1 year ago. I can't stay away from that place. Now all I have to do is figure out the deer.
I've been intending to reply to this thread for a couple days, but my time's been pretty occupied. I'm en route to a CFP certification (certified financial planner) and this is exactly the type of stuff I'm doing it for. I'll tell you this, financially, much more information would be needed to answer the question. Property values, rate at which you could consistently invest your money, property location, market trends, inflation (change in purchasing power), not to mention all the other things about YOU you would have to consider (AGE, whether you could actually afford to invest this 300,000, needs down the road, other financial obligations, other available alternatives for the investment.) I suppose what I'm getting at is I don't think it would do much good to try to even pretend to make a decision unless its close to the time you would be considering a purchase because so many things could be entirely different. From a property perspective, I hunt a 100 acre plot that my granddad owns. There are gobs of deer there and it is AWESOME to be able to have sole hunting privileges to it. Several deer are killed there and if that's all I had that I could hunt, I could probably deal with it. That being said, I also have a 280 acre property that I feel has more potential in terms of management effectiveness. As I said depending on your position in the life cycle (if you were young enough when you got the money that you could invest it for a while and still have time to pull it back out, purchase a property, and have several years to enjoy it) you could potentially be better off by keeping the money invested. Just sooooooo many variables that unless you had the money in hand, it would be nearly worthless to evaluate. Just to throw a number at you though, if you kept the $300,000 invested for just another 9 years at a very moderate 8%/year (you could get with collateralized bonds, little risk) you could double that to $600,000. In 16 years, it would be worth a million...you can think about what that could buy you.
No doubt, none whatsoever! I'd buy in a heartbeat. I would then always have a place to hunt. I lost a lease last year because the owner decided to sell. I was tough to findmore land to lease that I could afford. I want to own even 50 acres thats MINE. I'd never have to worry about the whims or finances of anyone but me.
A lease will not apprecitae nor is as permanent as you own land DC. If you can swing it and want it, buy it.
I don't think you'll ever regret owning a piece of land. I'm trying to save my tail off right now to put myself in a position to be able to buy a small piece of land. I wouldn't be scared by 100 acres at all, assuming it had good potential to do all the things I wanted to do...
