Thanks. We really appreciate the support. Good luck and have a great day.

Agreed, plus it is a forced savings plan for those young people (well, really for anyone). Just making the land payment forces a person to save money that they can recoup later by selling the land if they have too. As long as the land appreciates roughly at the rate of the interest you are paying to own it, you are coming out ahead every year. Making money on the bank's money. Good luck.

Zach, thanks. We have seven total episodes all edited and ready to go. We should be releasing them every couple of days until early next week, and then I need to get back to the projects of land management and improvement and some more thoughts on how to hunt whitetails.

@@bill-winke look forward to them Bill. Thanks

I appreciate the comment. I am not sure there are any real secrets now. I hope everyone has the joy of owning hunting land someday. Have a great day.

I know that is the safe approach, and I appreciate that everyone should do that. But my accountant says the timber value present at time of purchase can be assumed as long as you cut it shortly after buying the property. If you cut $75,000 in trees off the farm a year after you buy it, it can be assumed that there was at least $75,000 there when you closed. But, I am sure getting an actual appraisal right after buying a piece is the cleanest approach especially if you plan to take trees over a period of time and need to have that starting point baseline. That would eliminate any question about how much was there when you bought it and how much value was added by trees growing after you bought it. That would all impact how much you can take against the basis long-term. Good insight and thanks for the comment.

Thanks for the comment and the support Afif. I appreciate it. You can do it. Just set a goal, make a plan and then work hard to stick with the plan. It does take some real effort, but it is worth it not only because you get a cool place to hunt, but land truly is a great way to cause you to create generational wealth. I would never have worked as hard as I did if I didn't have some kind of goal. Land provided that goal and forced me out of my comfort zone.

Agreed. I don't have any consumer debt and never have, but I never felt that debt related to land (assuming you buy right) is very risky. You can always sell the property if you need to and clear the debt and walk away with the equity. It takes some mental gymnastics to get comfortable with debt of any kind, but land debt is the least painful to carry.

@@bill-winke That’s right. I wished I would have learned about that years ago. Keep up the great content buddy.

This is number four. We have seven total. Will try to release them every couple of days. Thanks for the support.

I second this. I don’t find the series long winded! Very interesting stuff. 👍

Thanks Jacob. I appreciate it. My own experience with small town lenders follows this same course. I have had great success working with smaller banks where everyone knows everyone and the lenders can see and understand my goals and my progress. Keep up the good work. Have a great day.

That is a good idea. It would take some work to set up, but it would be really popular once set in place. Good idea.

Land in Iowa went flat from roughly 2008 through about 2011, but then it started trickling up again. It never crashed. In your area, I would give it some time if you are looking at investment property. Wait until it stops going down. It may take a few years. Good luck.

Thanks for the comment. Keep with that dream. Good luck.

Yes, ten years from now do you really think you will care if you paid $500 per acre too much for that piece?

@@bill-winke I agree! But this dude is driving me nuts! It started out selling 60-66 acres @ 1,500 last Feb. We toured the place and what he wanted to sell. Came out at 50.7 acres. Told him I would get a lawyer to do a contract and get it surveyed. Called me a week later to say he's not selling now, one of his son's is buying it. IF anything changes, he would call me. This past Dec, he called me wanting to sell cause son didn't want it. Told me on phone to add this 2 acre area on the front end. After taking 1/2 day off to go to lawyer, spending 75.00 on contract drawn up, then sending it to him by email cause him and his wife was sick with COVID, he got mad at me because "I misunderstood" what he wanted. He said he told me 90k for the land. Which he has never told 90K at any point. also some of the other details of the deal he disagreed with even though he was the one to tell me that. Bad part, I've got a survey scheduled for end of Feb (had to beg to get it that soon cause dude was booked out till late summer). So meeting this weekend to try to hammer out the final details of the contract before he goes to TX for 3 months for new grandchild.

@@jasonhaga5412 That is a tricky one. I would just be really patient in dealing with him and it will likely all work out. If he gets completely unrealistic you will have to walk away again and realize that the land is not actually for sale right now. Good luck.

Do what you have to do to seal the deal, even if it is aggravating. Put on a smile and just nod, buy the land it will never fall in your lap again or his greedy kids will one day want top dollar in a real estate deal that you will have zero control over. Just smile and nod, buy the land however you have to do it. Once it's yours you will see how petty your being. I get it, been there

Thanks Wes. I appreciate it. We have three more episodes and will release them every other day starting tomorrow.

Good point. Thanks Mitchell.

Thanks Brad and good luck in your quest.

Thanks for the comment Jessie. Have a great day.

Maybe it isn't overpriced. You have to look at comparable sales to see what other land is selling for in that area. If nothing has sold, it is much tougher to establish a price, but what you paid for land in 2012 means nothing now. Way different market now. Good luck.

@@bill-winke yes I get that but value has not gone up that much. I’ll look at a few comps and see.

@@stevedenoyer5956 For sure, that is the place to start.

Some of those expenses you can't avoid (like fixing fences if a tree goes down, etc.) but most of the expenses related to recreational land are actually choices. Other than property taxes, there aren't a lot of things you need to do. There are, however, plenty of things you want to do. I will cover that in a future episode. Good suggestion.

Thanks Don. I appreciate it. Have a great day.

Rob, it can be on some properties, for sure, but the days of people not knowing what they have are about over. So you need to understand what is real and what is not when a seller or realtor starts spouting $XX,000 in timber value. That can be a dramatic over-statement. The more you know about that the better. I will touch on it again soon.

Agreed. It is rare that partnerships work out long term. That is why I suggest that it is understood going into it that the partnership is just a stepping stone. I would not partner on the final dream farm, but not as big of a deal on the investment properties as it would be well understood right from the start that those aren't long-term holds. Good luck.

The market seems to be easing up a bit. There may be some decent (at least acceptable) value out there in the next couple of years. Good luck.

It does take sacrifice. That is for sure.

I don't know the answer to that, Javin. I have talked to a lot of people about this and it doesn't really make sense which would suggest that it won't last. But, I would hate to be on the wrong side of that and sit idly by as prices keep going up. I don't see how anyone can buy farm land at these prices unless they are already farmers with all their equipment and other land paid for. I don't understand people investing in farm land at these prices just to own land for the return. Recreational land also is way over priced based on historical price growth, but that doesn't really have an economic underpinning. In other words, people buy rec land because they want it for recreation and not because it produces a cash flow return (as in farm land). I don't know for sure where this is all going. A big recession would definitely cause a drop. If I had to gamble I would gamble that land prices in general will be the same or less in two to three and the same or higher in five. But that is just a guess. I do think if you hope for your children and grandchildren to own land, you can't wait too much longer to buy. In the end, it is going to come down to supply. Not only are they "not making any more of it" as the old saying goes, but they are actually making less of it as recreational land is being converted to developments every year. I am personally betting with my own dollars that five years out, land will still be worth what it is today, but who knows what happens between now and then. Good luck.

I have seen that work many times. A lot of landowners aren't locals. I think it is not as good to own your dream farm more than a few hours away because it is really tough to get there as often as you would like. But it is OK to own an investment farm somewhere else. You will need to create a number of contacts in that area to get your needed work done on the property or you will need to have a complete set of equipment there.

@@bill-winke good point, thank you for the advice Bill

The banks have a standard way to measure that ratio between your income and your debt. Of course, other liabilities (other loans for example) factor in too. In the end they have some kind of multiple. Let's just say they expect your free cash each month to be at least two or three times the loan payment (or something similar). In other words, they build that into the formula they use regarding how much money they will loan you. I don't think our loan payments ever stretched us too much other than 2008 and 2009. With that recessions the advertisers were cutting back so the magazines were buying less pages of edit (if they even stayed in business). It was bad. 2008 was also my first year of Midwest Whitetail and it was taking tons of time and not making any money. That was a very tough year. 2009 was really tough too. It smoothed out a bit from 2010 on - once the economy recovered from that big recession and advertisers and sponsors started spending money again. I was ready to sell the farm in 2009, just to get out from under all the stress. But God spoke to me through a fellow at our church. Long story short, one day in church I spent the whole sermon sitting there deciding whether or not to sell the farm and shut down Midwest Whitetail. I finally decided I would sell and move on - bag groceries at Wal-Mart. Whatever. Anything other than what I was doing. What I was doing didn't seem to be working. I was really burned out keeping everything afloat. At the end of church I was just sitting there when this fellow named Bob came up to me out of the blue and said, "If you shut it down now, you will never be any good to anyone." Then he just walked off. I sat there for a few more minutes just trying to accept that word. I really wanted out. Needless to say, I didn't shut it down. That's a true story!

No, it was actually two pieces: a 240 acre piece and a 160 acre piece. That 240 had a really big buck on it when I sold it. I bet he was pushing 200 inches. I never hunted him even though he was daylight active on camera. I had some big deer on my home place and this farm was an hour away. Plus, I thought leaving that buck for the next owner was a show of good faith. The guy that bought that farm did say the buck gave him confidence that the farm was in a good area and capable of producing big deer. Someone else a mile away shot that buck before the new owner could get to it, but only a few years later his wife shot a buck in the 230+ range! That was a good farm!

It's exactly the same now, you just start smaller and probably grow slower. Everything else is still relevant.

You also may want to be a bit patient right now to see where prices go from here.

Yes, we found him the next spring. He was not far from the house, just down the hill. At least that is where we found him. I can't say for sure where he died. My guess is that he lived for a few days after the shot - unfortunately. That was a really crappy deal all the way around. A shot I would like to have back. Here is the link to the episode where we found him: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mbRnaragmLy5omw.html

@@bill-winke I lost one a few years ago. Based on the blood trail I did not expect it to go anywhere. The day after I shot it I went out with a blood tracker and the dog jumped the deer and it jumped a fence and crossed the highway. There was no way that deer should have been alive. They are rugged animals for sure.

Hmm, I may need to pick your brain on that tractor part!

Talked to two realtors today representing Iowa and Missouri. Both said land is not selling nearly as quickly now as it was a year ago. Prices are leveling out. Not sure where they go from here, but probably not up. Flat or down is most likely.

Making it better for deer hunting. Almost every farm I have ever looked at was way down the scale of quality habitat, quality food sources and just overall huntability. By upgrading those things you make the farm worth more. Maybe that also includes making a few access lanes and possibly even building a pole barn/storage shed/sleeping quarters. Though I was always reluctant to actual build something on a farm I intended to sell, thinking the buyer would have a different set of preferences and goals than maybe I would have. Good luck.

Bucknuts, I always felt the land was the thing I wanted. The management came after ownership, so I prioritized the land itself thinking that I would figure out a way to do the other stuff later even it meant planting Poor Man's Plots. I will cover those in future episodes of Dream Farm. At a certain point you get big enough that you have to think about buying equipment, but not at first. You can always hire a youngster from a nearby farm to plant your small food plots, etc. Good luck.

Never buy that stuff before the land. If you pay cash you lose all your DP money. If you finance it, you lose your Debt ratio on purchase power. It would be WAY better to buy the land and then work on what you can. Limit the equipment to what you truly need and will use regularly and not just load up on stuff that's used once every couple years. Pending what you need to have done, it may be way more logical to pay someone to come in and do it for you. Its their equipment and they should have the know how to get it done right the first time.

John, I would start close to home first, but don't be surprised if they say they don't want to take the risk of lending in a market that far away. A lot of their decision will come down to the relationship you have with them. If you have been a loyal customer, doing a good job with loans in the past, they will likely take more risk by lending in an unknown market than if you don't even know them. But, I would still start close to home and see where that leads. Good luck.

Only cost share programs that pay me to do certain conservation and habitat practices. You can make a bit of money with some, but mostly you are just getting your money back that you spent. Examples, Timber Stand Improvement, burning, planting trees.

I think it probably benefited from my day job of writing for hunting magazines. I met a lot of really interesting people that way. I also learned that the best way to get a favor is to give one first so I tried hard to help everyone I ran across. As they say, the pen is mightier than the sword, so I could make an impact for people and they appreciated it. Soon, I knew tons of people. But also, the shared general passion also helped, for sure.

I never felt really good about working with anyone except River City Hardwoods in Muscatine. But that was many years ago. I am not sure how they are operating now. It would be a starting point, but likely you will need to work with a consulting forester to get a good program set up for your timber. They can handle the sale for you and make sure it is fair and competitive. Good luck.

I think you have to pass on it. Just make them a fair offer and let them digest it. If it really is overpriced, no one else is going to pay it either. I guess everyone has their own standard, but I hate paying much more than 10% over market price even though it borders me. Good luck.

@@bill-winke yeah but my offer would be around 3k an acre. Based on the list ? Idk it’s been on the market over 8 months

@@stevedenoyer5956 If it has been on the market that long, they already know it is overpriced and will likely look at any reasonable offer.

Talk to a good accountant. Mine told me that as long as we cut the timber soon after buying the property that the timber value was assumed to be part of the purchase price and had not "escalated" as the trees grew later. So cutting those trees was basically just taking off what I had already paid for and could be counted against the basis rather than taken as regular income. Again, it pays to talk to your accountant about that and be very specific about the law in that regard. Possibly your accountant would want a "credible source" to create a document that states the value of the timber at the time of purchase as proof, just to be safe. But again, if you take the timber off right away, that value is just assumed. Also, if you can get a bridge loan of some kind, you can use the timber to fund your down payment, if possible. I have never done that, but I know people who have. Good luck.

You would have to be creative here too. I have seen it done a few different ways. I think you ideally have a friend loan you the down payment with the understanding he/she gets their money back when you harvest the timber. With the right person, that would work. If all else fails, ask the banker what they think would work. That would be my last resort because they may want the timber value when you cut it thinking it is part of the collateral of the property. This is another reason to work with a friend or small town banker because they will likely take the time to create some wiggle room in this regard. Good luck.

Michael, each situation is different. One case might be that you bought a great value (whether because it has good marketable timber on it, or maybe there was something wrong with it that you could fix - landlocked for example, etc.) and then when you sell it you have a lot more equity to play with and can step up to a bigger property by putting more money down and not increasing your payments much. That is the ideal scenario and why it is super critical when building to buy right (stuff with value built in). The other scenario is to find ways to increase your income. That can be tougher for some people, but in general, incomes go up and if you are self-employed the evolution of your business will likely move you in that direction where you just have more discretionary cash that you need to find a place for anyway. Otherwise, you are correct, but again, don't buy stuff that only moves with the market. You want to buy stuff that is undervalued for whatever reason. Yes, I realize that can be tough, but I am guessing it won't always stay that way. There will be some good values again at some point. Not sure when, but I do believe it will happen. Everything has cycles. In our history nothing just kept going up with some kind of pullback along the way. Good luck.

I doubt you will get preferential treatment without that agent being a friend to begin with. They all have a short list of people who want to know about new listings as soon as they get one. You would be at the bottom of that list, but at least you would be on it. If you are really serious, you will call them, or e-mail them, every week just to check in. Keep it very short, or they will get sick of you. There are good recreational land agents all over the country, but to be honest with you, I have not found many that will actually look for properties for me. They are usually too busy with the stuff they already have in the pipeline to worry about trying to find me something in someone else's listings or something that is off-market. So, while it makes sense to regularly call several in the area where you are looking, at the end of the day, it will be up to you to go through the MLS (multi-listing service) websites and even individual realtor websites to see if anything new has come along. Short of talking with landowners themselves (and people at the coffee shop, etc.) in an effort to find something (that occasionally works but is very time intense), that is your best bet. Again, if the real estate agent is already a friend you have a chance, otherwise it really comes down to your own efforts to turn up something to buy. Good luck.

@@bill-winke that's what I kinda figured. Thank you for your time.

What state are you looking into? I could suggest two or 3 in Missouri

@@ryanfarmer5155 Thanks for the reply Ryan. I'm looking in the Southwest and South Central Wisconsin area.

They tend not to want to tie up their capital that way. They do best when they keep their cash moving - buying logs and reselling them and then moving on, rather than buying land and having to sell it again at some point later. Some loggers do it, but most would rather just deal with the logs and keep the money moving.

There is so much to learn, there needs to be a practical class for normal people on how to make wise money moves. I guess that is what Google is for, but there is still so much background noise around any financial topic that it can be hard to separate good advice from bad. Never stop learning.