Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods, presented by first Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
Speaker 1: Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the.
Speaker 2: Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show, I'm
Speaker 2: joined by Jake Howford to discuss the very most important
Speaker 2: things you need to consider. Went on the hunt for
Speaker 2: a new deer hunting proper All right, welcome back to
Speaker 2: the wired ton podcast, brought to you by First Light
Speaker 2: and their Camel for Conservation initiative. And today we are
Speaker 2: wrapping up a series that we loosely started a month
Speaker 2: ish ago on access different ways to get access to
Speaker 2: hunting ground. We've talked about leasing, We've talked about getting
Speaker 2: free permi, and today we are going to discuss how
Speaker 2: to buy a hunting property of your own, especially how
Speaker 2: to buy your first You know that very first property
Speaker 2: you take the leap on, takes some takes some nerve,
Speaker 2: it takes some guts, It takes a lot of planning,
Speaker 2: and for a lot of folks it is intimidating. So
Speaker 2: today I'm joined by someone who has a lot to
Speaker 2: share on this front. He is a real estate broker himself.
Speaker 2: He's helped many people purchase their own first farms. He
Speaker 2: has gone through this process himself and bought a farm
Speaker 2: of his own too. And he is the host of
Speaker 2: the Land Podcast, which is all about helping people get
Speaker 2: the information they need to make a land purchase themselves,
Speaker 2: a hunting, deer related, recreation property, whatever it is you want.
Speaker 2: Jacoffer's got the information to help you do that. He's
Speaker 2: also the host of the Exodus Trailcam radio podcast. He's
Speaker 2: part of the Exodus Trailcam company crew. He does a
Speaker 2: lot of great stuff. I am a big fan, highly
Speaker 2: respect his opinions, his perspectives. He's a great communicator about
Speaker 2: this stuff, and he really brings a lot to the
Speaker 2: table because, like I said, he's been on all sides
Speaker 2: of this equation. He's helped sell properties to people, he's
Speaker 2: bought property himself, and he's talked to all sorts of
Speaker 2: different experts on this very topic. So we're going to
Speaker 2: get into everything from understanding, you know, what kinds of
Speaker 2: folks should be looking at buying property, and maybe who
Speaker 2: is buying property not right for We're going to talk
Speaker 2: about how to know when you are ready. We're going
Speaker 2: to talk about when's.
Speaker 3: The market ready.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about financial issues, market related issues, understanding,
Speaker 2: how to determine the fair price for property, red flags
Speaker 2: when looking at hunting properties, to buy, green lights, things
Speaker 2: that should make you want to jump right on it.
Speaker 2: We discussed different ways to you know, obtain new income,
Speaker 2: different ways to make properties more affordable, all sorts of
Speaker 2: stuff along those lines. We talk about buying and flipping
Speaker 2: proper versus properties that you want to buy and keep
Speaker 2: for the long term with your family, if you are
Speaker 2: interested in purchasing a deer hunting property, if your own someday.
Speaker 2: You really should give this one a listen that all said,
Speaker 2: great episode. I'm excited for you us to hear this one.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna leave you with one quick update, which is
Speaker 2: that this coming Saturday. If you're listening to this when
Speaker 2: it just came out, This Saturday, May eighteenth, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: We've got our first Working for Wildlife tour event is
Speaker 2: in Kentucky. It's kind of near London, Kentucky at the
Speaker 2: Daniel Boone National Forest. If you want to sign up,
Speaker 2: go to Dear Association dot com. Slash wf W that's
Speaker 2: Dear Association dot com slash wfw that's the National Dear
Speaker 2: Association's registration page for this event. This particular event is
Speaker 2: in collaboration with them. We're gonna be working on some
Speaker 2: white oak restoration, some hunter access improvements, different things to
Speaker 2: help out public land and help out wildlife. If you
Speaker 2: are in the area, I'd love to see you.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be there.
Speaker 2: Were and be giving out some of these T shirts
Speaker 2: that I'm wearing right now I work for Wildlife. There's
Speaker 2: gonna be some NDA hats. I think NDA is doing
Speaker 2: a drawing for Yetti cooler. There's gonna be food, and uh,
Speaker 2: just a big old shindig afterwards as well. So it's
Speaker 2: gonna be a great time. Can't wait. Gonna be seeing
Speaker 2: all you guys shaking hands, taking pictures, having a grand
Speaker 2: old time. A May eighteenth, please register, come on out Sunday,
Speaker 2: and uh we'll have a good time. So for that
Speaker 2: all said, let's get to my chat today with Jake
Speaker 2: discussing how to buy a great deer hunting property. All
Speaker 2: right with me on the line now is Jake Offer. Jake,
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Hey, thanks for having me Mark, I really appreciate it,
Speaker 3: and UH I always excited to talk about land and
Speaker 3: deer and been a long time listener to UH Wired
Speaker 3: to Hunt. So pretty fun to be on here this morning,
Speaker 3: longtime listener, first on caller exactly, Yeah, I can use
Speaker 3: that phrase. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I I realized when we were setting this up that
Speaker 2: you know, I've been on your guys' show over at Exodus,
Speaker 2: but had not had you on here. And that is
Speaker 2: a big oversight on my part because I got to
Speaker 2: say this publicly on my podcast. I think I said
Speaker 2: this at one point when I was on your show,
Speaker 2: but I want to say this to my listeners too.
Speaker 2: I don't listen to many deer hunting podcasts, but one
Speaker 2: that I do like, probably my favorite deer hunting podcast
Speaker 2: is yours.
Speaker 3: Man. I appreciate truly.
Speaker 2: I really truly think that you do an excellent job.
Speaker 2: You are the I think you're if. Yeah, I would
Speaker 2: say you're the best deer hunting podcast host that I
Speaker 2: listened to.
Speaker 3: Man, that means a lot. I really appreciate it. Don't
Speaker 3: go back and listen to any old episodes. I want
Speaker 3: to check this out. It's like one of those things
Speaker 3: you hopefully get a little better. And I mean, I
Speaker 3: think we've had the ability to interview so many excellent
Speaker 3: people and look at things from different angles. And there's
Speaker 3: so many podcasts out there now, with so many different
Speaker 3: subniches and cultures, and you know, it's easy to get
Speaker 3: lost in the mix of all the different podcasts out there.
Speaker 3: So you find one that you like and tune in
Speaker 3: and pick up what you can. So I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well you're welcome. I think I think our
Speaker 2: brains work the same way like I. When I have
Speaker 2: listened to other shows, I sometimes get frustrated with other
Speaker 2: people asking questions and just be like, you should ask this,
Speaker 2: you should say this, why are you not doing this?
Speaker 2: And with you you're always you're always doing exactly what
Speaker 2: I would have wanted to do. So so maybe we're
Speaker 2: just too alike. But maybe I don't know. But it
Speaker 2: turns out well. I enjoy your guys. The stuff you
Speaker 2: guys do a great job across across the board, everything
Speaker 2: you're doing, Land Podcasts, Exodus, Trail, Came Radio, all the
Speaker 2: gear you guys are making. I just want to start
Speaker 2: it out by giving you guys all big kudos.
Speaker 3: Yeah, really, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2: So that all said, though, rather than just fluffing you up,
Speaker 2: the main point of our conversation here today is is land.
Speaker 2: We did this kind of mini series about access that
Speaker 2: I kicked off a month month and a half ago,
Speaker 2: and we talked about leasing, and we talked about, you know,
Speaker 2: still trying to find that free knock on door permission.
Speaker 2: But you know, as I got thinking about it, it
Speaker 2: seemed like an oversight to not at least spend one
Speaker 2: good conversation here talking about that, you know, most in depth,
Speaker 2: the biggest investment of an access type of project, which
Speaker 2: is actually buying a piece of ground. And you know,
Speaker 2: when I was thinking about I've talked to different real
Speaker 2: estate agents over the years, and I know a lot
Speaker 2: of folks from a lot of different good agencies out
Speaker 2: there in groups, there's a lot of good options. But
Speaker 2: you bring something unique to the table, and not that
Speaker 2: you know, not only are you a license broker yourself
Speaker 2: and you're helping folks do this, but you're also talking
Speaker 2: to a million different people through your own podcast about
Speaker 2: buying land. So you've got you know, firsthand experience, and
Speaker 2: then you've also become a student of the game and
Speaker 2: studying everybody else's so I think you can really give
Speaker 2: us a unique viewpoint. And so where I kind of
Speaker 2: want to start it off is, you know, with an
Speaker 2: anecdote of sorts and that I've got a good friend
Speaker 2: who is always talking about, you know, how he wants
Speaker 2: to buy land. He's going to buy land someday. Every
Speaker 2: year he's like, I'm buying land, I'm buying land. This
Speaker 2: is the year, go to buy land. And then he
Speaker 2: never does it. And it's always because ah, things aren't right,
Speaker 2: or ah the Marcus crab, or everything's overpriced, or that
Speaker 2: there's always something. And so the thing I'm curious about
Speaker 2: first is when is the right time? How do you
Speaker 2: know when you should actually jump off this cliff versus
Speaker 2: you know, holding your cars back? Because I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people for years and years and years have
Speaker 2: had the same question, maybe especially so right now. So
Speaker 2: what's your takeout the gate on that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think that's probably the most common
Speaker 3: inner dialogue and actual dialogue when it comes to talking
Speaker 3: with about land with someone that hasn't bought one. It's over,
Speaker 3: it's crazy, market's going to crash. You know, this piece
Speaker 3: isn't a ten out of ten, and it cost, however
Speaker 3: much money, I'm not going to waste my money on that.
Speaker 3: And I'll tell you this. So I bought my first
Speaker 3: farm when I was twenty six. I saved literally every
Speaker 3: single dollar I could live, well blow my means, and
Speaker 3: even as soon as I got my down payment, I
Speaker 3: bought a farm. And all those emotions were the same
Speaker 3: exact things that were going through my mind when I
Speaker 3: was buying it. And I had helped other people purchase farms,
Speaker 3: and I kind of coach myself, like, because this is
Speaker 3: in the back of mind, Well, what if a better
Speaker 3: deal comes up? What if this other farm that is
Speaker 3: probably never going to sell, but what if it does
Speaker 3: sell after I just deployed all my capital. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: so all those things went through my head and I
Speaker 3: bought it, and I've been super happy, and it's been
Speaker 3: it's been super rewarding. The market is appreciated since I
Speaker 3: purchased that. And even then, you know, land is very localized, right,
Speaker 3: and so you can go to the coffee shop, someone
Speaker 3: buys a piece of ground, there's chatter, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: that guy crazy. Did you hear what he paid for
Speaker 3: this farm? And then you just jump forward about five
Speaker 3: years in the future, which I can do now, and
Speaker 3: they're like, did you know he bought that for this
Speaker 3: right man? What a steal man? Why not buy that?
Speaker 3: And so that is this a common theme over time.
Speaker 3: So I think I think that those emotions in that
Speaker 3: thought processes for everyone. But I can tell you this
Speaker 3: the people I talked to and personal experience and talking
Speaker 3: to people that have been owning that's owned farms for decades,
Speaker 3: and it's the same. I bought a farm. It wasn't perfect,
Speaker 3: but I got into it. I made it a little
Speaker 3: bit better, and then I decided I want to get
Speaker 3: closer to home, or I wanted something a little bit bigger.
Speaker 3: And it's the same exact person that would maybe not exact,
Speaker 3: but there's a lot of parallels to someone that says
Speaker 3: I'm not going to buy a house. I'm just gonna rent.
Speaker 3: Everything's overpriced, I don't want to live there. And then
Speaker 3: versus the guy that saves up buys a two bedroom,
Speaker 3: one bath house, puts a new roof on it, puts
Speaker 3: new siding, updates the kitchen, and they're like, you know,
Speaker 3: our family's expanding, let's get a little bigger house, they
Speaker 3: sell that house and they go buy a little bigger house,
Speaker 3: and it's you know, fits their goal is better. And
Speaker 3: I think that same parallel can follow along when it
Speaker 3: comes to land ownership. It's not a direct parallel, but
Speaker 3: a lot of the same thought process and everything else.
Speaker 3: Because even when you're house shopping right like, well, what
Speaker 3: if that house on the corner of so and so
Speaker 3: Street I heard they might sell and then they never do.
Speaker 3: Like so it's you know, not to ramble too long there,
Speaker 3: but it's it's a natural consumer and consumer behavior and
Speaker 3: also this human behavior that something better is going to
Speaker 3: come along when reality work with what's in front of you.
Speaker 3: And you know, if someone has the down payment state up,
Speaker 3: they've done all the due diligence, they've looked at farms,
Speaker 3: and they find one that checks off enough boxes that
Speaker 3: makes you happy, buy the farm. Buy it. Because I'll
Speaker 3: tell you this too. It's like when you buy your
Speaker 3: first farm, you learn, oh, I would never buy a
Speaker 3: farm that has this type of access or this type
Speaker 3: of neighbors. And if you wait forever and you you know, hypothetically,
Speaker 3: if you are just spune enough to be able to
Speaker 3: save up to buy that really big piece that you've
Speaker 3: always dreamed of. You might make a giant mistake because
Speaker 3: you didn't go through the proper channel of try on
Speaker 3: air throughout that process. So those are just some initial
Speaker 3: thoughts regarding that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to dive a little bit more into
Speaker 2: some of the things you kind of alluded to there
Speaker 2: a little bit kind of around like personal finance and
Speaker 2: in that kind of situation. But before that, maybe even
Speaker 2: a little bit further up the funnel, is a question
Speaker 2: of just like who is the right kind of person?
Speaker 2: Like who is buying a farm right for?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: I mean, there might be some people who, like everyone
Speaker 2: dreams of buying a farm like that, that's a dream
Speaker 2: for everyone, I think, But maybe there's some folks that, hey,
Speaker 2: it's it's not the right thing. Maybe there's some folks that, yeah,
Speaker 2: like this is who is I know this is incredibly
Speaker 2: vague and incredibly general, but who is buying a farm
Speaker 2: right for?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's a that's a personal, inward looking question
Speaker 3: I think. I mean, in my mind, I would fall
Speaker 3: under the I grew up hunting permission farms with fifteen
Speaker 3: different people on it, and it was a big track
Speaker 3: and as a kid, you always think, gosh, if I
Speaker 3: could have own if I could own this, or if
Speaker 3: I could do that, or if I could just have
Speaker 3: my own piece. And so I think for a lot
Speaker 3: of people, and this is maybe in a parallel as
Speaker 3: well as like for someone like Michigan, right like you,
Speaker 3: you probably jones to go hunt the Midwest, right mm hm.
Speaker 3: But for someone that grew up in the Midwest, like myself,
Speaker 3: you are already in a great location. You dream of
Speaker 3: owning land. So it's like there's so like for you,
Speaker 3: it would be leave Michigan, go to Iowa, and then
Speaker 3: once you're in Iowa, I want to buy a piece
Speaker 3: of ground because I want to have control over it.
Speaker 3: I want to grow giant deer and have the best
Speaker 3: parcel on the face of the earth, which isn't always
Speaker 3: the reality of it. So I think, really what it
Speaker 3: is is someone that when I think is someone that
Speaker 3: wants to buy land, I think usually it is more
Speaker 3: than just killing a deer too, because you can go
Speaker 3: kill a deer in a lot of different locations. It's
Speaker 3: for someone that wants to spend their weekends working on
Speaker 3: their farm. It's someone that wants to continue to self
Speaker 3: educate and learn how to make the habitat the best
Speaker 3: that it is for beyond white tail, and it just
Speaker 3: opens up Pandora's box of so many different things that
Speaker 3: you can never imagine if you just leased or if
Speaker 3: you just hunted public land. And that's just that's my opinion,
Speaker 3: because that's that's what's happened to me, because you're just like, well,
Speaker 3: how do how do you do this? How do you
Speaker 3: do that? And then you just get to learn so
Speaker 3: much more, which makes it so much more fun, and
Speaker 3: then you can try different things. And so I think
Speaker 3: it's for someone that wants a little piece of their
Speaker 3: own American dream, because I think if we look back
Speaker 3: at in the age of America, the eighteen sixty law
Speaker 3: where you go get your forty acres and establish and
Speaker 3: have your own little piece of heaven and on your ground,
Speaker 3: yeah yeah and literally yeah, so things about that show
Speaker 3: up and they give it to you. Yeah, And so
Speaker 3: that's not the case anymore unfortunately. Yeah, but it's it's
Speaker 3: I feel like it's rooted in our DNA as like
Speaker 3: American heritage of you want to on a piece of
Speaker 3: ground because you want something to call your own, to
Speaker 3: spend time with family, get enjoyment and hopefully, you know,
Speaker 3: spend some time in a tree sand in November. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So then next, I think the natural question is, Okay,
Speaker 2: if I'm a person who checks all those boxes, I
Speaker 2: want these things. The next thing, and this is a
Speaker 2: I had this same thought process myself was Okay, I
Speaker 2: want this thing, but when am I ready to do it?
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of questions around personal finance
Speaker 2: and when do you know that you can actually afford
Speaker 2: this kind of thing. I'm the type who came from
Speaker 2: a very financially conservative family, so the idea of cashing
Speaker 2: out my life savings to buy a farm or something
Speaker 2: terrifies me. Kind of feels like I need to be
Speaker 2: a millionaire before I can afford to buy a twenty
Speaker 2: acre farm to feel comfortable. Yeah, how do you advise
Speaker 2: someone think about this? How do you advise somebody look
Speaker 2: at their own personal finances to determine Okay, yes, I
Speaker 2: can carve out this to buy a starter farm or something.
Speaker 2: How would you think through that?
Speaker 3: I think one good exercise and this is actually from
Speaker 3: a guest who has an accounting background, worked at the
Speaker 3: Big four, also a very financially conservative guy. Have become
Speaker 3: good friends with him, and what his exercise was could
Speaker 3: definitely afford it. But he basically practiced what his monthly
Speaker 3: payment would be. So he was saving up his down
Speaker 3: payment and okay, I think I'm fifteen hundred dollars, let's
Speaker 3: say is my budget per month for a farm. And
Speaker 3: so he would continue to save fifteen hundred dollars and
Speaker 3: make sure that you know everything the wife and kids
Speaker 3: and house and everything's still taken care of, and kind
Speaker 3: of go through a practice run. And when you realize
Speaker 3: that there's no pain in that and you can easily
Speaker 3: do it, you have the margin in your life. I
Speaker 3: think that's a great way to do a dry run.
Speaker 3: It really is, if you're just practicing that payment and
Speaker 3: the beautiful thing. Hopefully in your careers, your income is
Speaker 3: going to accelerate, the land is going to appreciate. Obviously,
Speaker 3: you don't want to count on appreciation, but historically, over
Speaker 3: a long period of time, you can count on appreciation.
Speaker 3: You can count on forced appreciation. And then I remember
Speaker 3: sold the farm and it was the guy that started
Speaker 3: with nothing owns a lot of ground in the area,
Speaker 3: and I was like, how'd you do it? And he's like, well,
Speaker 3: I just invest in land because I can control it.
Speaker 3: I can prove the soil, I can control my crops,
Speaker 3: you know, to the best of his ability. And he's like,
Speaker 3: I was like, do you have any other form of retirement?
Speaker 3: He's like no, And so like there's all ends of
Speaker 3: the extremes that I've dealt with of like one hundred
Speaker 3: percent all in in land, right. And then you have
Speaker 3: some people who are really successful and it's like they
Speaker 3: kind of feel like they're cheating on the retirement to
Speaker 3: buy a farm because they're like, well, it's not going
Speaker 3: into my four one k and it's going to that.
Speaker 3: And so I think it comes down to the personal
Speaker 3: appetite and personal risk tolerance is what it really comes
Speaker 3: down to. But I think the most practical advice is
Speaker 3: save up your down payment, maybe figure out whatever your
Speaker 3: future payment will be in this practice, and then say like, oh, man,
Speaker 3: fifteen hundred might be a little bit too much because
Speaker 3: the kids are in travel, baseball and blah blah blah,
Speaker 3: I can only do a thousand. Well, now you know,
Speaker 3: and it's not like you make this huge commitment and
Speaker 3: now you have to figure out a different way to
Speaker 3: come up with that deficit. So I think that's probably
Speaker 3: one of the most practical ways, or just this is
Speaker 3: the most simple thing. Do a monthly budget and see
Speaker 3: how much money you have and that's not accounted for
Speaker 3: is another really easy way. But you know, I just
Speaker 3: think there's so much emotion to it, and it's so
Speaker 3: different to what a lot of people think is a
Speaker 3: good investment. Because you talk to ten different people that
Speaker 3: have no clue about land and they think you're crazy.
Speaker 3: All you can do is deer hunt on it. Why
Speaker 3: would you buy that, what's the income? All these different things,
Speaker 3: and then whether it's good or bad. I've talked to
Speaker 3: so many people that have found so much success in
Speaker 3: this space that you'd become like, you see, there's another
Speaker 3: way to do this, and it can be a viable investment.
Speaker 3: It can be a great way to even build some wealth.
Speaker 3: In reality, like, there's just so many different ways to
Speaker 3: do it. It's and that's the beauty of it. It's
Speaker 3: like there's so many different ways to do it. You
Speaker 3: can buy your forty and be happy with it and
Speaker 3: own it for fifty years and give it to your kids,
Speaker 3: or you can continue to snowball and build up to
Speaker 3: something like Bill Winki, for example, like a really good
Speaker 3: example of that that a lot of people would be
Speaker 3: aware of. Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: Is there any kind of data out there as far
Speaker 2: as averages either by state or region or anything as
Speaker 2: far as like how the market has appreciated over time?
Speaker 2: Like what an what kind of expectations could I have
Speaker 2: if I were to invest in the land. You know,
Speaker 2: I know it fluctuates, I know it can change, but
Speaker 2: like a ten year average is is it like an average? Okay,
Speaker 2: it's usually appreciating five percent, ten percent, twelve. I'm thinking
Speaker 2: like if someone's thinking about, okay, how would I compare
Speaker 2: and contrast an investment in land versus an investment in
Speaker 2: the market where you can expect four or five six
Speaker 2: percent whatever it is annually? How might land be the
Speaker 2: same or different?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so farmland traditional farmland, you can see anywhere between
Speaker 3: an appreciation historically of ten to thirteen percent. And so
Speaker 3: that's a headline. So does that include the commodity of
Speaker 3: cash rent or growing those crops? But regardless, as an average,
Speaker 3: as a rule of thumb, five to seven percent of
Speaker 3: annual appreciation is what we can what we can expect.
Speaker 3: Now we are leaving in my opinion, we are leaving
Speaker 3: a historical, historical run of land values. During you know,
Speaker 3: the pandemic era, land appreciated so insane quick across the
Speaker 3: entire country, all forms of real estate, right. And I
Speaker 3: remember talking to some really sharp people and they're like, well,
Speaker 3: inflation's out of control, and the best hedge against inflation
Speaker 3: is land. So there was a lot of people with
Speaker 3: a lot of money that were really smart, and a
Speaker 3: lot of investment firms that went and bought a lot
Speaker 3: of farm ground. And when there's limited supply and a
Speaker 3: lot of demand, you can imagine what happens. And when
Speaker 3: commodity prices were really high. So like in my opinion,
Speaker 3: we saw a really strong, extremely strong run of land
Speaker 3: prices across the board. And I think we're getting back
Speaker 3: to reality to where maybe we can expect a flat
Speaker 3: here or two. But if you had a ten year
Speaker 3: period anywhere between five and seven percent, I think is
Speaker 3: a fair rule of thumb. Now, another thing that I
Speaker 3: personally love about land is the stock market is an
Speaker 3: extremely extremely efficient market. You have algorithms, you have the
Speaker 3: smartest people on the face of the earth on Wall Street.
Speaker 3: You have so many things that are out of you
Speaker 3: and i's control were lying on other people. Then you
Speaker 3: have rural land, which has become way more efficient than
Speaker 3: someone like a Dan Perez in the nineties, like you know,
Speaker 3: like it has become more efficient, but it is not
Speaker 3: nearly as efficient as the stock market. When there's inefficiencies
Speaker 3: in a market, you can hedge to get more equity
Speaker 3: out of something. So I think that's something to really
Speaker 3: look at, is it's still historically an inefficient market to
Speaker 3: get the whatever the max price is for a lot
Speaker 3: of different parcels across the country. So hypothetically, if you
Speaker 3: do your homework, you do your due diligence, you find
Speaker 3: someone that is really familiar with an area and say, hey,
Speaker 3: this one is five percent below market, ten percent below market,
Speaker 3: but you can catch that up really fast. And then
Speaker 3: unlike the video, and you don't know if there's going
Speaker 3: to be a war in Taiwan, like that's out of
Speaker 3: all of our control. But you can put up a gate,
Speaker 3: you can improve a property, you can improve the access,
Speaker 3: you can do all these different things. And to me,
Speaker 3: that's what I find a lot of freedom in is
Speaker 3: like you have control over your own destiny, and if
Speaker 3: you're confident with your own decision making. Then for those
Speaker 3: bad do you have no one else to play but yourself,
Speaker 3: unlike a stock market.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's a really good point.
Speaker 2: So you bring up some things related to this historic run.
Speaker 3: We've been on.
Speaker 2: What's your read on the market today and looking forward
Speaker 2: the next I don't know, three months, six months, twelve months.
Speaker 2: If someone's listening to this and thinking about buying, you know,
Speaker 2: I'll go back to to like my friend. My friend
Speaker 2: has been talking about how the market's crazy, the interest
Speaker 2: rates are crazy, how could anyone buy land right now?
Speaker 2: But then I always worry. My other friends were like, man,
Speaker 2: the best time to buy land is always yesterday, right.
Speaker 2: Everyone always says you should have bought it last year,
Speaker 2: You should have bought it yesterday. Like, if you keep
Speaker 2: on pushing it out into the future, you'll never do it.
Speaker 2: So what's your take on the situation right now in
Speaker 2: the foreseeable future.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a lot of people in when this
Speaker 3: crazy run was happening, a lot of people made a
Speaker 3: lot of money. There's no secret to that. I mean
Speaker 3: we can look on social and see a lot of
Speaker 3: people that made a lot of money throughout this run.
Speaker 3: And I feel like there were speculators rather than investors,
Speaker 3: and it was very easy at that time because money
Speaker 3: was cheap. Land prices went up. And so for your
Speaker 3: friend that said for the last five years he was
Speaker 3: going to buy a farm, he's going to buy a farm,
Speaker 3: and he knows he wants to keep it for five years,
Speaker 3: six years, buy the farm if he buys it, and
Speaker 3: he's like, I think I'm going to turn this thing
Speaker 3: around and I'm going to do this, this, this, and
Speaker 3: I'm going to sell it tomorrow. Don't do that. I
Speaker 3: don't think that's a great idea. And so that's kind
Speaker 3: of my general rule is a lot of people I
Speaker 3: asked them, how long do you think you'll have that piece?
Speaker 3: And if they say, I don't know, maybe hunt for
Speaker 3: a year and then sell it after that. I don't
Speaker 3: have the utmost conviction that's a great plan right now.
Speaker 2: Just because of the situation right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, the interest rates. So let's say someone
Speaker 3: thinks that they someone like, I'm going to make three
Speaker 3: hundred dollars an acre on that farm. I'm going to
Speaker 3: do this, this, this, and sell for three hundred dollars
Speaker 3: an acre more than what I bought it for. If
Speaker 3: you're borrowing money, you're probably not going to make hardly
Speaker 3: any money period because of eight percent interests or primes
Speaker 3: eight and a half percent. And so to relay that,
Speaker 3: back when it was three and a half four percent,
Speaker 3: you could buy twice the size of the farm. So
Speaker 3: your buddy that should have bought a farm, he could
Speaker 3: have bought twice the size of the farm that he
Speaker 3: could buy today. That's how much purchasing power he has lost.
Speaker 3: And tell me it was crazy then, and you're locked
Speaker 3: into that. And so I think the general market overview,
Speaker 3: I don't want to predict anything, but I can tell
Speaker 3: you this from here in ILLINOI quarter four of last
Speaker 3: year to quarter one today, class A tillable is down
Speaker 3: almost one thousand dollars an acre on average cross the entire state.
Speaker 3: And so like that, that commodity price corn is down
Speaker 3: about thirty percent from where it was last year. It's
Speaker 3: down almost fifty percent from when it was that it's
Speaker 3: peaking in April of twenty two. Beans are down I
Speaker 3: want to say, like twenty percent or something like that too.
Speaker 3: So it's like commodity prices have really like that. There's
Speaker 3: some people that view that ag Land is like the
Speaker 3: gold standard of land, right, and so like if AG struggles,
Speaker 3: and a lot of these pieces are mixed use properties
Speaker 3: where it's thirty percent tillable forty percent tillable, so like,
Speaker 3: if AG goes down, hypothetically, recreational land prices should go
Speaker 3: down to However, year to date, from quarter to four
Speaker 3: of last year, recreational land has actually continued to accelerate,
Speaker 3: which is interesting, and so I don't know if there's
Speaker 3: a lagging period there, But those twenty to sixty acre properties,
Speaker 3: there's still a lot of people that can't afford those,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of cash out there too, So
Speaker 3: it's like the average household is probably feeling the pinch
Speaker 3: of inflation, but there's a lot of people that haven't
Speaker 3: felt that, and they look at this as a buying opportunity.
Speaker 3: So it's really hard to say what will happen. It's
Speaker 3: really hard to say. We're supposed to have multiple rate
Speaker 3: cuts this year. We haven't had a single one yet.
Speaker 3: We don't even know if one's going to come in September,
Speaker 3: and so there's this a lot of uncertainty in the market,
Speaker 3: which could be good if you're very confident in your
Speaker 3: plan if you are a newbie and you don't have
Speaker 3: someone in your corner and you don't really know what's
Speaker 3: going on, I would probably follow some level of uncertainty.
Speaker 3: But if you've been shopping, you've been waiting, you've been
Speaker 3: this has been your dream, don't let those outside forces
Speaker 3: stop you from sticking to your plan. Like, it's your plan.
Speaker 3: It's not the averages, it's not it's your plan. It's
Speaker 3: what you want to buy, it's what you want to
Speaker 3: keep for five years, six years, seven years, then do it.
Speaker 3: So I think that's the best way to look at
Speaker 3: It's like, look at it is an investment, not a speculation.
Speaker 3: It's the best way to say it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is the again, this is not the
Speaker 2: short term turn and burn market right now. But if
Speaker 2: this is like the hey, I want to get a
Speaker 2: place and have it for a while and then maybe
Speaker 2: five years down the road, you know, flip and grow
Speaker 2: like okay, yeah, go for it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think I think that's always a great plan.
Speaker 3: I think that's always been a great plan. And I
Speaker 3: think that when like Warren Buffett or like there's all
Speaker 3: these different things like where you look at if you
Speaker 3: put money in the s and p five hundred. The
Speaker 3: chances that you lose money in a week is whatever,
Speaker 3: and then you look at it for a month and
Speaker 3: then one year, five year, ten year, twenty year. It's
Speaker 3: a similar thought process with land, and I think that's
Speaker 3: the easiest way to illustrate it because that's how people
Speaker 3: are familiar.
Speaker 2: Yep, that makes sense. Now, please forgive my ignorance, But
Speaker 2: I have not bought land myself, so I've never had
Speaker 2: to look into this. But what about refinancing on a
Speaker 2: land purchase, Like, is it just like refining on a
Speaker 2: house or is there something different? Because imagine some people
Speaker 2: are thinking, Okay, I'll buy my land now, I'll get
Speaker 2: a mortgage at eight percent because I have to, but
Speaker 2: hopefully four years from now I can refinance when it's
Speaker 2: more reasonable.
Speaker 3: Is that yeah, Yeah, that's definitely, yeah, that's definitely a
Speaker 3: viable option. It depends on who your lender is and
Speaker 3: everything else. Which this is probably the biggest piece of
Speaker 3: advice when it comes to buy land. Everyone wants to
Speaker 3: shop for a parcel, right. Everyone wants to go look
Speaker 3: at all these farms. Call at least five different banks
Speaker 3: or credit unions. Call at least five explain what you're doing,
Speaker 3: find a bank that understands what understands land, understands what
Speaker 3: you're trying to do, and shop rates because they can
Speaker 3: be a lot different. I mean, the first farm I bought,
Speaker 3: I had to put thirty percent down. It was a
Speaker 3: high rate, and then I ended up finding a bank
Speaker 3: just through work. And if I buy anything else, I'm
Speaker 3: going to go through you guys, because they're the most competitive,
Speaker 3: easiest to deal with a lower down payment, And so
Speaker 3: I think that's a very key important piece here to
Speaker 3: talk to multiple banks and find someone that understands what
Speaker 3: you're trying to do before you go find a piece,
Speaker 3: fall in love with it, and then you call your
Speaker 3: local bank that you've banked there since you were a kid,
Speaker 3: and got a you know, a ten hour to deposit
Speaker 3: into it. Like call some more banks, all right, because
Speaker 3: that's just as important as getting a good deal arguably,
Speaker 3: Like if you can save a percent on a purchase
Speaker 3: of that size, it makes it makes it a huge difference.
Speaker 3: So yeah, you can definitely refinance. Something that's also interesting
Speaker 3: is land loans. A lot of times are arm loans,
Speaker 3: so suggestible rate mortgage, so sometimes that's a three year
Speaker 3: arm loan or a five year, ten year, seven fifty.
Speaker 3: So that's something you have to this. When you call
Speaker 3: the bank, say tell me sound real smart, say this,
Speaker 3: tell me a little bit more about your products. They
Speaker 3: love when you say that, tell me a little bit
Speaker 3: more about your products. You guys just give me money,
Speaker 3: but tell me tell me about your loan products. Like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, So that's something that I would just ask.
Speaker 3: And so thirty year fixed rates probably going to be higher.
Speaker 3: But there's just so many different things that go on
Speaker 3: with what's happening to prime and how you know the
Speaker 3: bank is borrowing money from another bank in order to
Speaker 3: give you money, and so they have to get martgage
Speaker 3: on it. So call out of banks, be prepared to
Speaker 3: refinance if you need to, or keep saving money and
Speaker 3: keep looking because there's something's going to come along eventually.
Speaker 2: Are there any other things along those lines that a
Speaker 2: first time buyer oftentimes is not aware of, or hasn't
Speaker 2: thought about, or is not prepared for. But that would
Speaker 2: be very useful to know before taking this leap.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a lot of it is probably bank specific.
Speaker 3: If you're self employed, you have a little bit more
Speaker 3: going against you, is the reality of it. But I
Speaker 3: would say, plan on having twenty twenty five percent ready
Speaker 3: for a down payment, ask them about their loan products,
Speaker 3: way out, whatever you think is the best one for you,
Speaker 3: and shop around. I think that's probably the most important thing.
Speaker 3: And ask these people are here to help you. They're
Speaker 3: here to earn your business, right, they want you to
Speaker 3: do business with them, And say and ask them what
Speaker 3: advice do you have? What what are some things I
Speaker 3: should look at? And so because a lot of these
Speaker 3: bankers do they specialize in land, and they are familiar
Speaker 3: with the market, and a lot of times their opinion
Speaker 3: isn't probably my opinion, but you can get their opinion too.
Speaker 3: Is just another data point. So I think those are
Speaker 3: the biggest things. Shop chopper, a lender understanding you have
Speaker 3: a down payment. The biggest thing debt to income ratio.
Speaker 3: You got a sixty seventy thousand dollars truck sitting in
Speaker 3: your park, in your garage, and you pay fifte hundred
Speaker 3: dollars a month on that. That's your first farm. It's
Speaker 3: sitting in your garage instead of on ther I think
Speaker 3: that's probably the hardest thing for a lot of people
Speaker 3: to really realize. And I truly believe and that's part
Speaker 3: of the reason why I started a land podcast is
Speaker 3: I talked to so many people that, like the friend
Speaker 3: you mentioned, I would always love to own a piece
Speaker 3: of ground, and you start learning it's way more accessible
Speaker 3: than what you probably realized right here today. It's not
Speaker 3: going to happen by accident, but you can do some
Speaker 3: small things in your life to figure out how to
Speaker 3: get to that point. And it might not happen in
Speaker 3: a year. It might take two or three years for
Speaker 3: you to get to where you're at, but you can
Speaker 3: definitely do it. I firmly believe everyone can own land
Speaker 3: if there make some microadjustments in their personal finance or
Speaker 3: in their life, if it's that big of a priority.
Speaker 3: I truly believe everyone can own a piece of ground
Speaker 3: at some point in their lifetime. And so to me,
Speaker 3: that's liberating, right because a lot of people are just programmed, well,
Speaker 3: you know, I wish I was born into a farming family,
Speaker 3: or I wish I hit the lottery, or I wish
Speaker 3: I did this, or I wish I did that, but
Speaker 3: wishing and just put together a plan and get there,
Speaker 3: because you can do it. If I growing up, I
Speaker 3: just dreamed of owning a farm like that was like
Speaker 3: no matter five ac or ten acres, twenty whatever. It
Speaker 3: was like that was my goal and it was way
Speaker 3: more accessible than I think everyone realizes. And so I
Speaker 3: just I just want to champion everyone of not to
Speaker 3: get discouraged and not to say, oh, I would be
Speaker 3: really cool to own a piece. If you want one,
Speaker 3: you can do it. I guarantee it.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that a lot of folks
Speaker 2: consider if they're you know, on the fence about this,
Speaker 2: and it's it feels like a financial stretch a little bit.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: One of the common piece of advice that we'll hear
Speaker 2: is is look at ways to derive income from your property,
Speaker 2: so you know, essentially find ways to get dividends of
Speaker 2: a sort from it. You can either you know, put
Speaker 2: crop into or put put land into production, lease out
Speaker 2: your ground for for row crappers, uh, do a timber
Speaker 2: harvest on the property, sign up for some kind of
Speaker 2: government program, all that kind of stuff. There's options, but
Speaker 2: I'm curious, you know, if if the headline is like, hey,
Speaker 2: you can make money off your property through all these
Speaker 2: different things, and I think most people know like that's
Speaker 2: an option, But when you get into the nitty gritty
Speaker 2: of it. You know, how does someone go about assessing
Speaker 2: the potential, like before they buy and they're thinking, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: can I can I afford this farm? I think I
Speaker 2: can maybe afford it, But but man if I could
Speaker 2: make some money off the timber, and if I could
Speaker 2: make some money, if I could get this in the quip,
Speaker 2: or if I could get this in CRP or something
Speaker 2: that I've heard about on this podcast, and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden it was bringing in another eight hundred bucks
Speaker 2: a month that might help a lot. Like how does
Speaker 2: someone actually figure that out? Because there's a lot of
Speaker 2: like hypotheticals like yeah, do this, do this, But then
Speaker 2: when it comes down to the brass tacks, how realistic
Speaker 2: is that? How do you figure any of that out
Speaker 2: before you buy the place?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a that's important of having an agent. For sure.
Speaker 3: I hate to be the guy that like champions the
Speaker 3: industry here, but you need a good agent. No, no,
Speaker 3: But in all seriousness, those are really good points. And
Speaker 3: so I think that a lot of people just know
Speaker 3: that to your point, the very surface, they know what
Speaker 3: it is and they maybe can tell you a sentence
Speaker 3: or two about it. Yeah, but just because something is
Speaker 3: in CRP and it's not going to be compliant or
Speaker 3: eligible for re enrollment, then like you need to call
Speaker 3: the NRCS office in the FSA office and say hey,
Speaker 3: you get an FSA release form from the sellers and say, hey,
Speaker 3: I need to know is this potentially eligible for re
Speaker 3: enrollment or so just to break down so like cash rent,
Speaker 3: if a piece that is recreational, usually there's not gonna
Speaker 3: be a bunch of farmers that are super excited at
Speaker 3: farming in a lot of parts of the country. It's
Speaker 3: more of like they're doing you a favorite of farming.
Speaker 3: That's been my experience on multiple pieces. And so just
Speaker 3: because everyone has such yeah everyone has giant equipment, and
Speaker 3: you know there's just so many it's like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: will farm. It's kind of what it feels like a
Speaker 3: lot of times when you talk to pull my arm. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now that might be different if you're looking at a
Speaker 3: different type of farm. But you know, for someone that's
Speaker 3: looking at a forty and there's ten acres of tollable
Speaker 3: on it, your highest income is probably going to come
Speaker 3: from CRP. Now you have to own that farm for
Speaker 3: one year before you enroll CRP. So if you buy
Speaker 3: it and you think, oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna get
Speaker 3: CRP payments right away, you need to own it for
Speaker 3: a year before you go into enrollment, and so that's
Speaker 3: really important. The other thing too, is asked to have
Speaker 3: cropp in history. So let's say someone bought it and
Speaker 3: they put it it was in pasture before, and then
Speaker 3: they bought it, they put it into beans, and then
Speaker 3: they're selling it and you think, oh, I can put
Speaker 3: it in the CRP next year, you wouldn't because the
Speaker 3: wouldn't be enough cropping history. So that's where there's a
Speaker 3: lot of things that go into this to really get
Speaker 3: a full full idea and plan and utilize those free
Speaker 3: resources like the USDA office provides. That's their job, that's
Speaker 3: they have that information for you. So I think that's
Speaker 3: probably one of the biggest things. And a lot of
Speaker 3: recreational farms you are lucky if you can get a
Speaker 3: quote unquote three percent return, like you'd be lucky now.
Speaker 3: Back in the day when land was a little bit
Speaker 3: cheaper and there was better CRP payments relative to the
Speaker 3: price of land, it was easier to get that. But
Speaker 3: most recreational farms are probably looking at one to two
Speaker 3: and a half percent in reality as a law of average.
Speaker 2: Can you can you explain what you're saying when you
Speaker 2: say you're getting one to two percent that is cash.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so meaning okay, so forty acres and I don't
Speaker 3: know if it's actually going to pens on to the
Speaker 3: percentage range that I'm providing. But let's say forty forty
Speaker 3: acres for two hundred thousand dollars and there's ten acres
Speaker 3: on it, and you're getting two hundred dollars an acre
Speaker 3: of a CRP payment, So that'd be one percent. That's
Speaker 3: probably reminiscent to what most people are going to look at.
Speaker 3: So in reality, in my opinion, most of it's like
Speaker 3: it's gonna help pay for food plots, eater, It's gonna
Speaker 3: help pay for whatever I'm going to put onto it,
Speaker 3: and so it's hard. Now, there's different parts that like
Speaker 3: to me, like the best. If you're a guy that
Speaker 3: said I need to scratch my investment itch and my
Speaker 3: hunting itch, the best everyone wants a big block of timber.
Speaker 3: I know that for fact. Everyone everyone wants a big
Speaker 3: block of timber because I think that's the best. If
Speaker 3: that is you. I would look at a marginal tillable
Speaker 3: type ground that could be enrolled in a CRP or
Speaker 3: a CRP farm, and I'm talking eighty acres and it's
Speaker 3: got two ditches in it or three ditches in it
Speaker 3: in a place to have a couple stands. It's gonna
Speaker 3: be an easy farm to probably burn out, but you're
Speaker 3: going to have the income from the CRP and that's
Speaker 3: going to help you, you know, maybe buy a little
Speaker 3: bit bigger farm. So I think that's something too, is
Speaker 3: whatever you have in your mind, you have to be
Speaker 3: able to be flexible. If you want to have the
Speaker 3: investment type piece, then you're going to have to have
Speaker 3: something on there. And you brought op timber, and I
Speaker 3: think that's a great point. And this is just my opinion.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people look at that as
Speaker 3: a land shortcut, and I don't think it's probably the
Speaker 3: best thing for the timber that's on it. So there's
Speaker 3: a study out of a University of Iowa and black
Speaker 3: walnuts outpaced the S and P five hundred historically. So
Speaker 3: when you chop down that tree that has a you know,
Speaker 3: Steve Hansen and Skip have both given very similar independent
Speaker 3: opinions on this topic. I've spent time with both of them,
Speaker 3: and they both almost gave you the same concept of it's
Speaker 3: like shooting one hundred and sixty inch three year old,
Speaker 3: like you know, cutting a young timber. So like people
Speaker 3: look at that and they're like, oh, man, I can
Speaker 3: you know my down payment's forty thousand, and I can
Speaker 3: you know, get however much money from a timber cut,
Speaker 3: when in reality, if you waited ten years, you could
Speaker 3: have got drastically more. So I think it's a good
Speaker 3: thing to have in your toolbox. It's something to consider.
Speaker 3: I think you really need to talk to a forester
Speaker 3: and get a professional's opinion. Except I think that here
Speaker 3: I could walk fifteen farms and one of them is like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, there's some timber value on this. Because everyone
Speaker 3: has the same concept of the short sided mind of
Speaker 3: like I'm gonna go in there and buy and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna get all the trees out of it, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to get some money back. In reality, if you
Speaker 3: were truly trying to scratch that investment, it's you were
Speaker 3: going to actually do a crop release, let those trees
Speaker 3: continue to grow, take care of them, and let them
Speaker 3: grow and then that value doesn't leave, right, Like that
Speaker 3: tree is there barring a thunderstrike hits it or a
Speaker 3: tornado rips through it, but like that value is going
Speaker 3: to continue to grow. And to me, that's something that
Speaker 3: needs to be protected rather than exploited. And that's just
Speaker 3: what my gut says. Like there's a million there's a
Speaker 3: lot of ways to find success to what you want
Speaker 3: to do. But that's just my public disclaimer of think
Speaker 3: twice before you just try to extract all the value
Speaker 3: out of the trees, because I think it's, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: being exploited. And is it?
Speaker 2: Is it something that is commonly like accepted practice to
Speaker 2: get a forester out there with you before you purchase
Speaker 2: a piece of ground, like tell your agent or tell someone, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm interested in buying this, but I want a forester's perspective.
Speaker 3: Can you get away with that kind of thing? Or
Speaker 3: I think it probably dependent on the seller. I think
Speaker 3: some sellers will be open to that. And here's the
Speaker 3: reality of but two, it's like we're all dealing with
Speaker 3: different personalities, right. You can have some super relaxed sellars
Speaker 3: and then you can have some people that are really
Speaker 3: uptight and so I think that's probably dependent on the
Speaker 3: type of seller, and I think I'm not anything close
Speaker 3: to a forester, but I can at least give you
Speaker 3: a starting point or a springboard of like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: this is a really good example of one that has
Speaker 3: some value now but will be exponentially worth more in
Speaker 3: however many years, and when you go to sell that, right,
Speaker 3: that value isn't gone. You can portray that value to
Speaker 3: the next guy. Sure, So I think that's just really important,
Speaker 3: but it is certainly a good option. Though. If you
Speaker 3: buy a piece and it's a that tree's gonna die
Speaker 3: because it's so old and big, then yeah, that makes sense,
Speaker 3: But don't kill the three year old one hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty inchier like you don't want you don't want to
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so okay, So you can. You can lease out
Speaker 2: your ground to a farmer. You can put it into
Speaker 2: a government program and get a payment. You can look
Speaker 2: into some kind of timber harvest if appropriate. Are there
Speaker 2: any other revenue opportunities with a piece of recreational ground
Speaker 2: that you've found that's actually a reasonable opportunity for someone
Speaker 2: to look at if they're trying to figure out how
Speaker 2: they can make this work financially, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think yeah, equip equip is an excellent, probably underutilized
Speaker 3: government tool to get some income from a piece. I
Speaker 3: wouldn't really necessarily say it's true income, but it's kind
Speaker 3: of like you're getting paid to improve the parcel. And
Speaker 3: so you can do exotic removal and basis species removal.
Speaker 3: You can get paid paracor to do that. And that's
Speaker 3: something you don't have to wait to own it for
Speaker 3: a year. That's something you could apply right away. Now
Speaker 3: there's application periods, but that's something you could start working
Speaker 3: on the day you buy it. And so there's there
Speaker 3: are so many different EQUIP projects that you can do.
Speaker 3: I've done and basis species remove, I've done tree planning,
Speaker 3: drug planning, and there's there is a lot of them.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you there is a pile, there's uh
Speaker 3: bird houses, there's brush piles, there's erosion control, there's there's
Speaker 3: a lot of different things. Now you're not going to
Speaker 3: get rich from any of this, but it could help
Speaker 3: improve the parcel. And if you do the labor yourself,
Speaker 3: then you can put a little money into your pocket.
Speaker 3: And so I think that's really important. And then I
Speaker 3: mean some of the more obvious ones. If you don't
Speaker 3: like turkey hunting, you can lease the turkey hunting rights.
Speaker 3: I think another thing is if you buy one with
Speaker 3: a house on it, you could parcel off the house
Speaker 3: and sell the house or rent the house or airbnb
Speaker 3: in the house and you know, block out those dates
Speaker 3: when you're going to be there hunting it. I think
Speaker 3: another one that is probably more advanced, but something to consider.
Speaker 3: There's no secret there's a lot of solar panels going up.
Speaker 3: If you can find a farm that has three phase
Speaker 3: power running near near it with a substation with a
Speaker 3: capacity to add a solar panel system, that could be
Speaker 3: a home run. Now it's very, very very specific and
Speaker 3: you're gonna need to utilize some experts on that, but
Speaker 3: that's another more out of the box idea that you
Speaker 3: could at least consider. And so those are those are
Speaker 3: some of the biggest ones. But I think the biggest
Speaker 3: thing is buying a farm for a fair price. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's that's really what it boils down to, and then
Speaker 3: just figuring out what you can afford. I mean, if
Speaker 3: you are if you're that tight, where twenty bucks an
Speaker 3: acre cash rent is going to make or break you.
Speaker 3: You're probably spending too much money. So I think that's
Speaker 3: probably the biggest thing too, is like, don't be so
Speaker 3: shortsighted that you have to exploit your land in order
Speaker 3: to pay for it. Like you bought it. You want
Speaker 3: to be a good steward of it. You want to
Speaker 3: take care of it. You want to this is what
Speaker 3: you dreamed of, Right, do you want to go degrade
Speaker 3: it in order to pay for it? I wouldn't personally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, I want to play game, ah jake,
Speaker 2: what Yeah, I want to call it green light, red light?
Speaker 2: Walk me through some green lights and some red lights.
Speaker 2: When it comes to a farm, if you're shopping for
Speaker 2: a farm, you're out there, you're looking at pieces, you're
Speaker 2: walking pieces, or you're looking online listings, what would be
Speaker 2: some of the top things that would give you like
Speaker 2: that ooh yes, green means go kind of feeling. And
Speaker 2: what are some of the top things, especially things that
Speaker 2: maybe people overlook that would be hey, red light, tap
Speaker 2: the brakes. This is concerning.
Speaker 3: When we start with a green light or red light.
Speaker 2: First, let's start with the greens, because people want to
Speaker 2: be excited and want to buy a farm. So we'll
Speaker 2: get them all excited like, yes, you can buy, and
Speaker 2: then you can confront them with the reality of the
Speaker 2: red lights.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think number one of the most obvious green
Speaker 3: lights and probably something that I have noticed a trend
Speaker 3: of people being way more focused on access, you know,
Speaker 3: whatever the predominant wind is, that's what they really really want.
Speaker 3: So I think that's probably one of the biggest things
Speaker 3: of looking at, is this access suitable to your goals,
Speaker 3: because I think that is one of the most important
Speaker 3: things here too. Everyone in the head things they need
Speaker 3: to buy a farm of kill booters. There's not a
Speaker 3: lot of farms that can truly produce that. If someone
Speaker 3: tells you that they're lying mean opinion, they're not hiding
Speaker 3: behind every tree in Illinois. No, I can tell you that.
Speaker 3: I could tell you that for a fact. Now there's
Speaker 3: some farms that So I think just to establish the
Speaker 3: red light green light, Like if your goal you have
Speaker 3: a ten year old son and you want to go
Speaker 3: on the weekends and help with your son and have
Speaker 3: quality time in the summer and everything else, your green
Speaker 3: light and red lights are gonna be different than a
Speaker 3: guy that really really wants to kill butter. So we'll
Speaker 3: just talk to the average guy here, because I think
Speaker 3: that's where most of us are. Access is huge. I
Speaker 3: think another green light is it within two hours of
Speaker 3: your primary residence where you plan on going to look
Speaker 3: at it, because I think a lot of people, depending
Speaker 3: on what part of the country, and man, this farm
Speaker 3: that's seven hours away is thirty percent cheaper than the
Speaker 3: farm that's an hour away, they buy the one that's
Speaker 3: seven hours away. Like, we didn't really go down as
Speaker 3: often as we wanted to, or the kids and wife
Speaker 3: didn't want to go down there as often. So I
Speaker 3: think two hours is kind of the cap where I
Speaker 3: think you sure your radius should be. So that's another
Speaker 3: green light. Oh it's within two hours of my I
Speaker 3: think another thing too, is obviously greenlight. I can afford
Speaker 3: this based off of the income or based off of
Speaker 3: the price of it. And I think this is also
Speaker 3: dependent on what you're like, the type of buyer that
Speaker 3: you are. If you are young, energetic, you you know,
Speaker 3: I hear this all the time. I want something that
Speaker 3: I can put my DNA on or put my fingerprint on,
Speaker 3: or I want to develop it. I want to I
Speaker 3: want to raw piece of land. So a green light
Speaker 3: could be not a really great listing, maybe a scanned
Speaker 3: image of the map of the property, and you're like, oh, man, okay,
Speaker 3: there's a chance that you know this is a family
Speaker 3: friend that's selling this for them. So I think that
Speaker 3: could be a green light. I think sometimes the crappier
Speaker 3: the listing, the more excited I get as a as
Speaker 3: a shopper. There's some benefits of a really nice listing.
Speaker 3: I mean I would if there was an amazing farm
Speaker 3: that was marketed really well and I was in the
Speaker 3: market and checked off all my green lights, I would
Speaker 3: be excited. But I think that's something that that people
Speaker 3: can get excited about of like ooh, talking about inefficiencies
Speaker 3: in the market, right, this is an inefficiency of marketing
Speaker 3: this property. And if I can go walk it and
Speaker 3: see that you know this this fallow field is actually
Speaker 3: recorded f s a acres and I can get back
Speaker 3: into production no problem, or all these different things. So
Speaker 3: those are some other green lights. Another one is I
Speaker 3: know that farm's in a great neighborhood based off of
Speaker 3: my own knowledge or my agent's own knowledge of yes,
Speaker 3: this isn't a good neighborhood. I think those are some
Speaker 3: other other bigger green lights. I'm trying to think of
Speaker 3: anything more out of the box that would be a green.
Speaker 2: Light before you're While you're doing that, I'd love a
Speaker 2: little bit more thought on the neighborhood thing, because I
Speaker 2: think that's one of those things that like has been
Speaker 2: drilled home, Like we know we need to be in
Speaker 2: a good neighborhood. I've learned that myself, and I think
Speaker 2: it's it's great in practice and it makes a lot
Speaker 2: of sense, but I think sometimes it's easier said than done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, have you found.
Speaker 2: Any tricks to the trade as far as how to
Speaker 2: get a better assessment on that? If you're not from
Speaker 2: the area and you don't know these people, and maybe
Speaker 2: your agent doesn't like know them firsthand, how do you
Speaker 2: go about getting a feel for man, is this a
Speaker 2: good situation I'm getting into or is this going to
Speaker 2: be a mess?
Speaker 3: I think one thing you could do is walk the
Speaker 3: property edges of walk the boundaries of the property and
Speaker 3: see how many stands there are, what type of stands
Speaker 3: are they. I mean, that sounds really bad, like of
Speaker 3: profiling another hunter, but it's it's it's kind of the
Speaker 3: fact of it. Yeah, if they're all double buddy stands
Speaker 3: ten feet off the ground. They're probably not going to
Speaker 3: be the best neighbors. I hate to say that, but
Speaker 3: they might be great people, but if your goals aren't align,
Speaker 3: they're probably not going to be your best friend, and
Speaker 3: so go ahead.
Speaker 2: Well, so that that brings up another question though, So
Speaker 2: this is something I've debated debated myself, which is would
Speaker 2: I rather be surrounded by a bunch of not serious
Speaker 2: hunters who might not have the same goals as me?
Speaker 2: But like, so the downside of that would be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: they're gonna shoot every young buck and they're never going
Speaker 2: to pass on the deer I want to pass. But
Speaker 2: the upside might be that they're not very good at
Speaker 2: hunting or that they don't take as serious and I
Speaker 2: might have a better chance, you know, to kill the
Speaker 2: one big deer in the area because you know, I
Speaker 2: put a more time effort. YadA, YadA, YadA. Now the
Speaker 2: flip side is like, do you want to live in
Speaker 2: Mark Jury's neighborhood? Where might righte? Mark Jury and Jeff
Speaker 2: Lindsay and all these guys around there have got the
Speaker 2: most incredibly managed farms. They're all managing for big deer
Speaker 2: and they're all really invested in it, right, But the
Speaker 2: same time, you're surrounded by people that really know what
Speaker 2: they're doing. What which is better? Like I've kind of done,
Speaker 2: I've had both. I would I haven't been neighbored with
Speaker 2: mark jury, but I've been neighbored for someone that is, uh,
Speaker 2: maybe as serious as that person. Yeah, and it is
Speaker 2: a little debilitating where you know, if you have a
Speaker 2: big deer, your odds of killing that deer are very low. Now,
Speaker 2: the good thing is there's a lot of deer that
Speaker 2: they probably wouldn't want to shoot that or mature and
Speaker 2: still make me happy versus I've hunted farm. Further is
Speaker 2: it's heavily hunted, and I don't spend many time much
Speaker 2: time on those farms because there's not a deer to
Speaker 2: the age class that I would like. So I think
Speaker 2: if you would ask that question in like the early
Speaker 2: two thousands or nineties, when we didn't have cell cameras,
Speaker 2: we didn't have all these different tools to make not
Speaker 2: so serious hunters more proficient to kill like a solid buck,
Speaker 2: and there's nothing wrong with that, But if your definition
Speaker 2: of what you want to shoot is, you know, slightly
Speaker 2: above that solid bucker older than three years old. I
Speaker 2: think the three year olds have gotten easier to kill
Speaker 2: with all the tools that are available, so I think
Speaker 2: that has probably changed.
Speaker 3: I think i'd rather have I would definitely rather have
Speaker 3: Mark Curi or someone like that as my neighbor, because
Speaker 3: I think that there's gonna be it's gonna be a
Speaker 3: more target rich environment, there's gonna better age class. You
Speaker 3: know that you're gonna be healthy because they're taking spending
Speaker 3: a lot of money, leaving a lot of crops, and yeah,
Speaker 3: will you ever compete with them, Probably not on a
Speaker 3: smaller parcel, but you kind of get the fringe benefits
Speaker 3: of what they have going on. Yeah, Versus opening day
Speaker 3: of gun season and you get cell camp pictures of
Speaker 3: the deer. You're hoping, oh man, I hope he makes
Speaker 3: it through, and then the exactly it's like, this is
Speaker 3: the last picture I ever get of that deer. That's
Speaker 3: the last picture I ever get of that deer. And
Speaker 3: to me, that's more frustrating than like, Hey, congratulates, since
Speaker 3: you shot a giant, you did all the work. I'm
Speaker 3: really really happy for you. So so to summarize, I'd
Speaker 3: rather have the super serious name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, So were there any other major green lights
Speaker 2: or kind of under the radar green lights that you
Speaker 2: wanted to mention or do you want to do you
Speaker 2: want to move over to some of these red light situations.
Speaker 3: I think another green light is as you're walking it,
Speaker 3: seeing the sign and I think that's obviously a good thing,
Speaker 3: and there's there's actually been a lot of farm for like,
Speaker 3: I know there was a big deer on that farm
Speaker 3: just from Hearsay, just from and you walk it and
Speaker 3: there's not that much sign on it, but you know
Speaker 3: that deer had spent a lot of time on that farm.
Speaker 3: And then there's other ones where you walk it and
Speaker 3: you're like, wow, this is tore up. There's got to
Speaker 3: be giants on there, and then there isn't. So I
Speaker 3: think that's something that like, as a if you're ate
Speaker 3: up enough to save up a bunch of money and
Speaker 3: you know the bloy capital to buy a farm, you
Speaker 3: probably have your own spidy sense of white tail hunting.
Speaker 3: Trust your gut. I think, like, don't trust the agent blindly,
Speaker 3: don't trust the seller blindly, follow your own gut. I
Speaker 3: think that's probably just another your own internal green light.
Speaker 3: But then we can we can talk about red flax.
Speaker 3: There's quite a few, quite a few of those. Two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's let's let's uh put some reality in front
Speaker 2: of us here. What are some of those things that
Speaker 2: should be at least I'm the type of person that
Speaker 2: when I want something, like when I when I kind
Speaker 2: of like I could see myself at some point when
Speaker 2: I'm if I'm gonna do this, and I decide, Okay,
Speaker 2: now is the time to buy a piece of ground.
Speaker 2: Once I make that, once I flip that switch, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna want to fall in love with something and I'm
Speaker 2: gonna fall in love with it hard and fast, and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be like, oh no, this is this is
Speaker 2: the right neighborhood, this is this is the thing. It's
Speaker 2: got that sweet little crp field the middle that I've
Speaker 2: always wanted. Like, I'm sure there's certain buttons that a
Speaker 2: property could push that would have so much sex appeal
Speaker 2: to me that I would be willing to like gloss
Speaker 2: over certain other things because I do you know what
Speaker 2: I'm getting at, Like, I can see myself falling for
Speaker 2: that kind of situation. So what are those red lights
Speaker 2: that that I cannot overlook, that I can't gloss over
Speaker 2: that I can't you know, they can't put lipstick on
Speaker 2: this pig kind of situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you're you're buying the sizzle, not the steak.
Speaker 3: Is like famous thing there. So I think I think
Speaker 3: some red some red lights in general, and this this
Speaker 3: may fall more over under like a beige flag. Right,
Speaker 3: So we've all done this. So you're looking on land
Speaker 3: Watch or wherever and you see this price, like, man,
Speaker 3: this thing is half the price of everything else. Yeah,
Speaker 3: click it, and they're like, oh, it's in w RP.
Speaker 3: So it's in the wet end Reserve Program, which means
Speaker 3: that you're very limited. It's not a bad buy if
Speaker 3: if your only goal is deer hunting, but you're limited
Speaker 3: on what you can do yet if you get approval
Speaker 3: to put you to put in a food pot and
Speaker 3: all these different things. So that's something that I think
Speaker 3: is just a general beage flag. Like if something is
Speaker 3: priced extremely half of market, it's probably in WRP, or
Speaker 3: it's in CREP, which is an easement that you couldn't
Speaker 3: build on it, all these different things. So that's something
Speaker 3: just to consider as a beige beige flag. I think
Speaker 3: some other red flags. If I walked by and there's fence.
Speaker 3: There's seventeen tree stands on the fence line. I with
Speaker 3: most people that are buying forty to eighty acres, you're
Speaker 3: not gonna win that battle. Man, Like you can do
Speaker 3: all the TSI, all the food plots in the world,
Speaker 3: You're gonna be You're gonna be frustrated, I think. And
Speaker 3: that's not what you want, right Like, you want to
Speaker 3: buy this and be happy. There's gonna be ups and
Speaker 3: downs just like anything, but you're probably not gonna be happy.
Speaker 3: So that's a that's a pretty pretty big red flag.
Speaker 3: I think some other ones that are you kind of
Speaker 3: have to get a trained die, like if it has
Speaker 3: epa risk, like there's been a couple run ins there
Speaker 3: where it's like this is probably too good to be true,
Speaker 3: or there's probably more more to the story here, and
Speaker 3: that's something else to consider. So how would you know?
Speaker 3: It's my gut feeling, what's one of them? I walked.
Speaker 3: I walked one farm, which I talked about on the
Speaker 3: Land podcast, but basically this farm came up and it
Speaker 3: was pretty close to me, and I went and walked it,
Speaker 3: and uh, it was really weird. This felt, Yeah, some
Speaker 3: some feels off, like on the some of the hillside
Speaker 3: there was really old growth, and up top it was
Speaker 3: all really younger growth, like thirty forty year old trees,
Speaker 3: the trees that are typically there when there's been disturbance.
Speaker 3: This top knob was all switch grass, which is clearly okay.
Speaker 3: This was some sort of remediation. It ended up being
Speaker 3: an old area where the soil was contaminating, and so
Speaker 3: now granted you could have bought it and still would
Speaker 3: have been okay, but that was something I didn't want
Speaker 3: to do it. There was another, more recently, a really
Speaker 3: sweet farm, really sweet farm. Client text me about it.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, we need to go look at it.
Speaker 3: And it's next to a place where they used to
Speaker 3: make explosives. And then you start doing some due dilts,
Speaker 3: you do some googling, and you're like, oh, there might
Speaker 3: be some EPA issues here, and so like that's something
Speaker 3: you don't want to mess with. I mean to me, like,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of upside reward if everything's good, but
Speaker 3: there's also if this is your first farm, probably suggests
Speaker 3: you to avoid that. There was one that I went
Speaker 3: looked at it. It was an old it was an
Speaker 3: old landfill, and I was like, oh, sweet thousand bucks
Speaker 3: an acre and you go walk in and then you
Speaker 3: do some due diligence, you call the EPA off it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's not in compliance, and there could be a million
Speaker 3: dollars of remediation. You get it up the code and
Speaker 3: trying like okay, well that's not it. And then so
Speaker 3: like what people would do is they would just buy
Speaker 3: it in different LLCs and like do some sort of
Speaker 3: shell like it was someone bought it and they let
Speaker 3: it go to a tax sale and then someone else
Speaker 3: bought it and then they resold it. So those are
Speaker 3: like some really kind of more I would say advanced
Speaker 3: red flags. I think most people will be able to
Speaker 3: catch on to that, no problem. But I think another
Speaker 3: thing is access for sure. I think one one red
Speaker 3: flag is a lot of farms sometimes gets split up
Speaker 3: and the tillable gets sold, and then you have one long,
Speaker 3: skinny access point all the way through there. So in
Speaker 3: the morning you're gonna scare deer walking in. In the evening,
Speaker 3: you're gonna scare deer walking out. And unless you have
Speaker 3: a really good plan for screening your access, that's a
Speaker 3: battle that I'm not sure if you can really win.
Speaker 3: So I think that's that's another really big one. And
Speaker 3: I look, I love looking at farms like I geek
Speaker 3: out look at all the time online shopping. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: And so I think another like more red flag is
Speaker 3: typically these are in all caps mature trees, giant bucks,
Speaker 3: turnkey and you know, okay, there's maybe mature trees, but
Speaker 3: are they cottonwoods or is there really giant bucks because
Speaker 3: what you might call giant buck and what I call
Speaker 3: giant buck might be two completely different things. Or turnkey
Speaker 3: is another big one too. It's like, so what makes
Speaker 3: it truly turn key? Because they put in a clover
Speaker 3: plot in a box line, or because like there's a
Speaker 3: million things you can do to your farm, right like
Speaker 3: quite literally maybe a million, And so like if it's
Speaker 3: just two or three things, is it really turn key?
Speaker 3: And are you paying a premium for a non premium property?
Speaker 3: And I think this is another potential red flag is
Speaker 3: like people talk about a fliphouse, or they talk about
Speaker 3: like the the landlord painting the outlets white, like everything
Speaker 3: is just white. Don't buy a farm that was this
Speaker 3: painted white completely everywhere with really bright lights to make
Speaker 3: it look awesome. So I think those are kind of
Speaker 3: they're red flags. But if the if it's price right,
Speaker 3: like I would buy anything or encourage you. I want
Speaker 3: to buy anything if it's price right. So I think
Speaker 3: that's like what is the farm and how does it
Speaker 3: really fit into the market and is it fair? And
Speaker 3: so that's the easiest way to say that, But it's
Speaker 3: kind of dynamic. But those are some general some general
Speaker 3: red flags. Or in some parts of the country, if
Speaker 3: there's an oil rig on it in the heart of
Speaker 3: the farm and they got a drive in there every
Speaker 3: single day, in and out, like you canna be happy
Speaker 3: with that, right? So yeah, there's wind turbines, Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I on a farm that had a wind turbine on
Speaker 3: it and it was just all day. Did you go
Speaker 3: to sleep and you still hear it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Did you find did you ever have issues with like
Speaker 2: you know, folks coming in checking on those that the
Speaker 2: utility trucks and stuff, or I always wondered, I've had
Speaker 2: a bunch of those put up in some of the
Speaker 2: areas that I hunt, and I've wondered, like, gosh, what
Speaker 2: if that happens to one of the.
Speaker 3: Pieces that I hunt. Well, the dear.
Speaker 2: I imagine the deer get used to it to a degree,
Speaker 2: but I could also see like every time they come
Speaker 2: in that buck will jump back eighty yards. And how
Speaker 2: many hunts might that mess up?
Speaker 3: You know? Have you experienced it? I hunted a couple
Speaker 3: of times. I'm like, I'm over this place because it
Speaker 3: it didn't have the It didn't it wasn't you know.
Speaker 3: Like I'm a big advocate of like we only have
Speaker 3: so many days in November, so many days in October,
Speaker 3: and if I don't feel really good about it, I
Speaker 3: don't want to spend time there. Ye, So yeah, I
Speaker 3: think that. But here's the thing. So it's like this
Speaker 3: is this goes back to the investment versus hunting. What
Speaker 3: if you buy that and you get a letter from
Speaker 3: a windmill company and say, hey, we're gonna pay you
Speaker 3: fifteen thousand dollars a year, we're gonna put up a windmill.
Speaker 3: The if it's the investment version of you, you're going
Speaker 3: to say, yeah, put that thing up tomorrow. But if
Speaker 3: it's truly a hunting parcel, you're there to say, I
Speaker 3: don't think so, but it is a lot of money,
Speaker 3: and I you know, so that's why all this is
Speaker 3: so personalized. It It truly is, and that's what makes
Speaker 3: it fun.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so so I hate going back to the
Speaker 2: financial side of things because we spend a lot of
Speaker 2: time on that in the front end. But it's it's
Speaker 2: such a it runs through so much of this conversation,
Speaker 2: I guess because when you're mentioning like that turnkey property,
Speaker 2: that's something I've seen a lot when I've done my
Speaker 2: looking and stuff. You'll see this property that they're on
Speaker 2: the listing. They've got trail camera pictures of the Big
Speaker 2: Bucks and they said they put food plots in their
Speaker 2: stands up there, and like usually those pieces like I'm
Speaker 2: just I don't even want to look at them because
Speaker 2: I'm just assuming like it's they've already marked it up
Speaker 2: the way I would want to mark it up someday. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: if I were ever going to buy a property, it
Speaker 2: would be to start small, do the work, and then
Speaker 2: I can flip it and make money off of because
Speaker 2: I would do all that stuff myself and market it, YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 2: When I've seen that somebody else does that, I'm assuming
Speaker 2: it's probably overpriced and I'm not going to have like
Speaker 2: that margin that I was hoping to gain myself by
Speaker 2: buying it, improving it, and selling it. So my question
Speaker 2: is like, how do you how do you how do
Speaker 2: you go about figuring out what is a fair price?
Speaker 2: And if I'm trying to do what I just described,
Speaker 2: which is I want to buy something that has opportunity
Speaker 2: for investment growth by sweat equity and whatever, how do
Speaker 2: I pick the right property for that kind of thing?
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm assuming you're ideally looking for an undervalued
Speaker 2: property with a lot of potential, But how do you
Speaker 2: how do you find that kind of thing? And is
Speaker 2: there anything unique in the search process compared to what
Speaker 2: you've been describing already.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a great point because I think
Speaker 3: that's the majority of people, is they want to buy
Speaker 3: something that is rough and make it quote unquote turnkey
Speaker 3: whatever that is to them when they go to sell it.
Speaker 3: And so a lot of is this patience in searching
Speaker 3: A lot I think is the best way to say that.
Speaker 3: And I think that if you're a guy that for
Speaker 3: sure to say, hey I want to I want to.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing, like every even even those turnkey farms,
Speaker 3: like there's still so much stuff that can be done.
Speaker 3: That is potential value add right, Like there's if they
Speaker 3: did two of the two of the million things, well
Speaker 3: there's still nine hundred and ninety hit whatever things to do.
Speaker 3: So I think the biggest thing is like figuring out, okay,
Speaker 3: the average parcels are selling for this, and because everyone
Speaker 3: thinks that, there's a lot of assumptions in the world
Speaker 3: of land, right like you hear people like, oh he
Speaker 3: bought it, he just doubled his money. That doesn't really happen,
Speaker 3: So I think for overall, so I think the biggest
Speaker 3: thing is seeing if okay, if the average price is
Speaker 3: four thousand and he's asking forty one hundred and he
Speaker 3: has ten thousand dollars worth of box blinds on there,
Speaker 3: well maybe that actually pencils out to a fair price
Speaker 3: for forty one hundred, and you could still like do
Speaker 3: value add I had Pat Porter on the Land podcast.
Speaker 3: He's written books about real estate. I bought a bunch
Speaker 3: of them and they're very quick reads, and I like
Speaker 3: him a lot. And he said people don't have imagination.
Speaker 3: Take the imagination out like so do the work. And
Speaker 3: I think that is why a lot of those properties
Speaker 3: do go well because someone buys their first piece of ground,
Speaker 3: they maybe they never put in a food water, maybe
Speaker 3: they've never put up a blind. And so I think
Speaker 3: if that was me and I'm trying to do this, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's to quote unquote turn key, But what could I
Speaker 3: do that I can see in my own eyeballs to
Speaker 3: take the imagination away for the next person and do
Speaker 3: those things that truly add value to the property. And
Speaker 3: so I think that's the best way to do. But
Speaker 3: in terms of like figuring out the best way to
Speaker 3: find a raw arm, it's patience. I mean, that's just
Speaker 3: the reality of its patience. And I think going back
Speaker 3: to like the green lights and red lights, I think
Speaker 3: a potential red light would be a farm that's been
Speaker 3: on the market for a very long time, right, But
Speaker 3: it could be a potential green light if they have
Speaker 3: newfound motivation because it's sat on the market for a
Speaker 3: year and nothing happened to it. And so I think
Speaker 3: that's just the weird balance of all of that too.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, you know, you thought it was worth this.
Speaker 3: If it was worth that, I would have sold. Would
Speaker 3: you consider this? And so that's the dynamic fun thing
Speaker 3: about real estate. So yeah, trust me because everyone wants
Speaker 3: to find a raw farm. They're becoming less and less
Speaker 3: like talking about the efficiencies of the market, like we
Speaker 3: are becoming very efficient. Like people are becoming so well
Speaker 3: educated when it comes to buying land, like the access,
Speaker 3: Like I've talked to a lot of people this year,
Speaker 3: like I only want this type of sided access on
Speaker 3: this farm, and I won't look at anything else. And
Speaker 3: so back in the day, that wasn't even a thing.
Speaker 3: Did I have big deer and could I put in
Speaker 3: a food plot? Yes, yes, Okay, I want to buy it.
Speaker 3: And so I think that's just like we as hunters,
Speaker 3: we as consumers continue to evolve and change what something
Speaker 3: could be worth based off of what could be produced
Speaker 3: on the ground. And that even includes solar panels. Like
Speaker 3: ten years ago, who cares it would have been a
Speaker 3: drawback if there was a big power line running nearby, right, Like,
Speaker 3: oh I don't like that. Now it's a potential huge
Speaker 3: value add So I think that's just that's the awesomeness
Speaker 3: of land is just it's it's like some people like
Speaker 3: shed hunting, right, people are eight up with shed hunting.
Speaker 3: I like land hunting. That's that's what I like I
Speaker 3: like looking for that eighty inch side like hypothetically as
Speaker 3: a farm, because I think that's like, that's what makes
Speaker 3: me excited, Like going walking a farm that you have
Speaker 3: you looked at online and you're like, oh, I didn't
Speaker 3: see this, or oh this wasn't on the listing, or
Speaker 3: I didn't know there was a creak through here, or
Speaker 3: so that's just the best way to look at It's like,
Speaker 3: look at it with an inquisitive mind and ask yourself
Speaker 3: as many questions until you think you have enough answers
Speaker 3: and vision.
Speaker 2: If I want to if I want to do the
Speaker 2: buy something and fix it up, sell it by a
Speaker 2: bigger farm, you know, if that's my dream, that's what
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do. I want to work my way
Speaker 2: up to having one hundred and forty acres soon to
Speaker 2: start with thirty. Is there any kind of rule or
Speaker 2: best practice as far as like what kind of delta
Speaker 2: or like how below market value do you want to
Speaker 2: try to find a farm in order to be able
Speaker 2: to see an investment. I'm having a hard time describe
Speaker 2: what I'm trying to say here, Jake. Basically like knowing like, hey,
Speaker 2: I want to be able to flip this thing in
Speaker 2: a couple of years and make some money off of it.
Speaker 2: How much under what everything else is going for? Do
Speaker 2: I need to look for to define this as like, okay,
Speaker 2: this is an undervalue properly that gives it Like if
Speaker 2: the going rates five thousand bucks an acre, would a
Speaker 2: forty five hundred dollars acre property be something that would
Speaker 2: be worth buying because I can bump it up and
Speaker 2: fix it up and then sell it for fifty five
Speaker 2: Or am I looking for something that's like two thousand
Speaker 2: dollars less than everything else? Like what's Yeah, if you
Speaker 2: can find one that's two hundred dollars two thousand dollars
Speaker 2: an acre below market, then definitely buy that, no doubts
Speaker 2: about it, because hardly exists anymore. I mean I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think the maybe something I think even like I said,
Speaker 2: at a fair price, because people don't have the vision,
Speaker 2: they can't see what you could do to it to
Speaker 2: get it to a five thousand dollars an acre piece
Speaker 2: to six thousand dollars an acre if you do this,
Speaker 2: this and this, So I think that's one way to
Speaker 2: look at it. I think the other one is if
Speaker 2: you could find something that is I mean, honestly, like
Speaker 2: ten percent of market I think is pretty something to
Speaker 2: get a little bit excited about.
Speaker 3: And so, but that's looking in the rearview mir where
Speaker 3: the market has been, where is it going to be
Speaker 3: in the future. And so I think that's a general
Speaker 3: with them, like if you can find something for a
Speaker 3: fair price that checks off, you know, within two hours,
Speaker 3: and you have value adding all these different things, then
Speaker 3: that's good too. I Mean there's clients that have helped
Speaker 3: that bought things at what felt like maybe a touch
Speaker 3: above fair, but time has been on their side and
Speaker 3: the market was on their favor and they did really
Speaker 3: well with those. And so I truly believe that the
Speaker 3: biggest bottleneck to land ownership is paralysis by analysis, because
Speaker 3: like we've just been talking this whole time, and I
Speaker 3: feel like I probably haven't educated you anymore to get
Speaker 3: you excited to do it when we started, because it's
Speaker 3: it's like though it's people are their own people getting
Speaker 3: their own way of success. I really believe that, like
Speaker 3: they'll it's not the farm isn't perfect enough, Like you're
Speaker 3: not gonna find a perfect farm, especially if it's your
Speaker 3: first one. By the farm, learn what you can make
Speaker 3: some mistakes, have comfort and making mistakes because that means
Speaker 3: you're growing. I think it's the same thing for a
Speaker 3: deer hunter. They're like, I don't know he's on the farm,
Speaker 3: I don't know if I need to go in, or
Speaker 3: I don't know how to do this, versus like just
Speaker 3: go try and you're gonna learn something and get better
Speaker 3: next time. And I think land follows that same thing.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that I feel like a
Speaker 3: lot of folks worry about is like if I sink
Speaker 3: my savings into this farm and it's not perfect, if
Speaker 3: the thing I was worried about ends up being the
Speaker 3: case and it's not as good as I thought it
Speaker 3: was going to be, or there's a bad neighbor, or
Speaker 3: there's not a bunch of big deer, whatever it is.
Speaker 2: How hard is it to offload a property like that? Like,
Speaker 2: are you stuck if there's a red flag like that
Speaker 2: that you discover? Or is there so much demand these
Speaker 2: days that even those properties that aren't perfect, there'll be
Speaker 2: someone who is willing to take a flyer and give
Speaker 2: it a shot.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think there's still way more buyers than our
Speaker 3: sellers in the market right now, So I think you
Speaker 3: have some level of protection for something like that, and
Speaker 3: then once again, it kind of goes back to the
Speaker 3: maybe you thought it was going to be an awesome
Speaker 3: deer hunting spot and it's twenty acres, but maybe it's
Speaker 3: a really nice place to build a house and have
Speaker 3: some pasture out back. So like that's the thing, Like
Speaker 3: we are so dear focused that we often forget the
Speaker 3: guy that wants honeybees and it's away from ag and
Speaker 3: he can have his honey bees out back. So those
Speaker 3: are just some different things. Or maybe it could be
Speaker 3: an orchard or you know, there's so many different land
Speaker 3: uses and potential there. So just because there's a bunch
Speaker 3: of neighbors there and you want to run cattle or
Speaker 3: have horses and that's not going to impact them. So
Speaker 3: I think it's definitely a valid concern, right, But there's
Speaker 3: also people that is, I want a place to hunt.
Speaker 3: I got kicked off everywhere. I'm sick of paying for leases.
Speaker 3: I just want a place to hunt. I don't care
Speaker 3: if I see a deer, I'm gonna be so happy,
Speaker 3: Versus maybe what your goals were going into, Like I
Speaker 3: want to target five year old deer home and so
Speaker 3: that's that's that whole bell curve of potential buyers. And
Speaker 3: so I don't think you every want to be deceitful, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that neighbor's a jerk and you're not gonna like him.
Speaker 3: Like I think you probably say, hey, he's hasn't liked
Speaker 3: me that much, but maybe you guys will get along better.
Speaker 3: And I think that's just like the easiest way to communicate,
Speaker 3: you know, like to never be deceitful, because like the
Speaker 3: world is tiny, whether people realize that or not, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: be honest, explain like, hey, these are the things that
Speaker 3: didn't work for me on this farm, but maybe you
Speaker 3: could fix them, or maybe maybe this doesn't bother you,
Speaker 3: but I do want to let you know these you
Speaker 3: know that this is going on, and I think that's
Speaker 3: really important. But to summarize though, yeah, I think you
Speaker 3: probably sell it. And I've talked to a lot of
Speaker 3: people and I have not found many people that have
Speaker 3: lost money from selling a piece of crown historically, and
Speaker 3: I think that comes down to owning it long enough too,
Speaker 3: So I think that's really important. And like circling way
Speaker 3: back to like the investment versus land, this is one
Speaker 3: of my favorite conversation on the Land podcasts. It was
Speaker 3: a father and son and the father went bankrupt during
Speaker 3: the farming crisis in the eighties. It was like a
Speaker 3: very powerful story that I really enjoyed. And then the
Speaker 3: son has been so like multi family investment, investment, investment,
Speaker 3: and then they bought a farm and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is pretty awesome, Like we did pretty well, and
Speaker 3: my son loved to go out and work on it.
Speaker 3: And so it's like we always we get in our
Speaker 3: own way of crunching the numbers and Okay, what is
Speaker 3: peace and quiet worth? What is running a tractor and
Speaker 3: doing your food? But what is that worth? Because like
Speaker 3: at the end of the year, I always write down
Speaker 3: what are my five favorite days of the year. Three
Speaker 3: of the five are always a day like working with
Speaker 3: my wife or my family on a farm. Like that's
Speaker 3: that's me. So like what is that worth to me?
Speaker 3: It's worth a lot. And so I think that's the
Speaker 3: biggest thing is we get so caught up on like
Speaker 3: the numbers. We get in our own way. This farm
Speaker 3: doesn't have this, or this one could be better, or
Speaker 3: did you hear about this other farm? It's like you
Speaker 3: got to give yourself permission to be happy and move
Speaker 3: forward with what you want. I really like I think
Speaker 3: it's more in our brain than anything else. I think
Speaker 3: it's a really good final thought to send this out.
Speaker 3: I think that's probably the message a lot of folks
Speaker 3: need to hear. But I want to give you an opportunity.
Speaker 2: If there's anything else you want to send folks off with,
Speaker 2: speak now or forever hold your tongue. And then secondly,
Speaker 2: could you give folks the rundown of where they can
Speaker 2: find all the different great work that you and the
Speaker 2: folks at Exodus and everyone are doing with the various
Speaker 2: podcasts and media you guys have, I would love to
Speaker 2: hear about all that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, once again, thanks for having me on here. My
Speaker 3: shameful shameless or and maybe there's some shame I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm a licensation here in Illinois, and so I'm more
Speaker 3: than happy to assist anyone in some of the conversations
Speaker 3: that we had here, or if you're anywhere in the country,
Speaker 3: happy to talk to you as a friend and give
Speaker 3: you some ideas and point you in the right direction.
Speaker 3: When I started a land podcast the goal of helping
Speaker 3: one hundred people by their first farm, and I'm getting
Speaker 3: really close to that, which is so cool to say,
Speaker 3: you know, like whether this is someone an email like hey,
Speaker 3: I'm in Wisconsin and you helped me have enough confidence
Speaker 3: to move forward. I bought a farmer. I love it,
Speaker 3: and so like that's why I started it, and so
Speaker 3: it's really cool to share kind of what I've been
Speaker 3: doing for the last one hundred and thirty some episodes
Speaker 3: of the Land podcast comes out every Monday. And the
Speaker 3: other thing Exodus outdoor Gear, our YouTube channel and the website.
Speaker 3: Exodus outdoor Gear dot com manufacture trail cameras and arrows,
Speaker 3: and this may will be nine years of Exodus, which
Speaker 3: is crazy to say. And it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of content beyond If you're a
Speaker 3: big woods guy, probably not your dude, but if you
Speaker 3: want to talk about land, I'm your guy. And so
Speaker 3: we have a lot of different types of content. If
Speaker 3: you like whitetails, I guarantee we talk about wherever you're
Speaker 3: hunting in the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Chad's got that big Woods game dialed in
Speaker 2: to talk about there.
Speaker 3: I always give him a hard time. Yeah, he's all
Speaker 3: about it. Not for me, but he's all about it.
Speaker 2: Hey, different strokes for different folks, right, absolutely, All right, well, Jake,
Speaker 2: thank you so much. This is great, And make sure
Speaker 2: my buddy listens to this and gets off his tail
Speaker 2: and buys that farm. And I think there's a lot
Speaker 2: of other people who, in all seriousness, I can't recommend
Speaker 2: your stuff enough. The Land podcast. I've listened to a
Speaker 2: bunch of it as I've gone through. I go through
Speaker 2: these like ups and downs, and maybe I should do
Speaker 2: it now, right right now. Maybe I should do it now,
Speaker 2: right now, And so I'll periodically jump in and explore
Speaker 2: the archives. And you've been doing some good stuff lately,
Speaker 2: So thank you for helping so many people. You maybe
Speaker 2: are approaching one hundred people that you've helped that have
Speaker 2: told you and confirmed that they've been helped. But I'm
Speaker 2: sure there's many, many thousands who have benefited from what
Speaker 2: you're putting out there along the way.
Speaker 3: So keep with the good work, appreciate that. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 2: All right, and that's a wrap. Thank you for joining.
Speaker 3: Thank you again to Jake for everything he shared with us.
Speaker 2: I think we got a wealth of information there, and
Speaker 2: as I mentioned earlier, if you're looking for more, go
Speaker 2: check out Jake's podcast, Go check.
Speaker 3: Out the resources he mentioned.
Speaker 2: There's a lot more there to dive into. So that
Speaker 2: all said, thanks for being here, and until next time,
Speaker 2: stay wired to hunt.