Buying a farm/ranch

[Bigdeer33]

Jeffj, housing real estate agents diff from LAND & RANCH agents. houses are terrible investments. the housing market is junk right now.

....DJIA down 306.95 ya lets invest in that.
....land prices risen in the past 25+ yrs.
..............you pick............

let me tell ya im not your house real estate agent at all, i tell you exactly what i think, not what you want to hear just to make a dollar. just because your experince with an agent was bad dosnt mean you should go around with a chip on your shoulder bashing others. apology necessary.

[gekko man]

401K vs land purchases....give me dirt!!!!

I took an *** kicking a few years ago in the market. They still got some of it, but my wife makes the real money in the family!!! She has her money invested in paper and mine is in dirt!!!

[JeffJ]

Jeffj, housing real estate agents diff from LAND & RANCH agents. houses are terrible investments. the housing market is junk right now.

....DJIA down 306.95 ya lets invest in that.
....land prices risen in the past 25+ yrs.
..............you pick............

let me tell ya im not your house real estate agent at all, i tell you exactly what i think, not what you want to hear just to make a dollar. just because your experince with an agent was bad dosnt mean you should go around with a chip on your shoulder bashing others. apology necessary.

I really hope you didnt take what I said seriously.

Just so I can get this straight though: You want to compare one day in the stock market with 25 years of land prices? I just want to make sure I understand what you are saying...

And just for reference, I dont have a chip on my shoulder regarding my agent. As a matter of fact she is a really good friend of mine.

Apology? For what?

[Bigdeer33]

DJIA
Oct 9, 2007 ~ 14164.53
Jan 17, 2008 ~ 12159.21

The stock market fluctuates to much resulting in loses as shown above.
land has risen in the past 25yrs resulting in profits.

apology for the insult below which you posted above.
Spoken like a true...real estate agent...

Seriously, you may know real estate but you have just proven you know nothing about the stock market/investing.

[JeffJ]

DJIA
Oct 9, 2007 ~ 14164.53
Jan 17, 2008 ~ 12159.21

The stock market fluctuates to much resulting in loses as shown above.
land has risen in the past 25yrs resulting in profits.

apology for the insult below which you posted above.
Spoken like a true...real estate agent...

Seriously, you may know real estate but you have just proven you know nothing about the stock market/investing.

Okay, if what I said was interpreted as worthy of an apology then I apologize.

But just to be straight you are still comparing only a roughly 90 day period to 25yrs...not exactly apples to apples. On top of that you are comparing a very small slice of the "stock market" to the very broad "land". And just as an FYI I do have exposure to hard real estate outside of my primary residence...its all about staying balanced...just like you could have easily managed the last 90 days in the markets with a proper allocation on non correlated assets like precious metals, international bonds and currency. See Im not bashing real estate both as a recreational asset and investment asset...I just dont see it as the promise land necesarily. Different strokes for different folks.

[Captain39]

Actually if you look at the market over 25 years like the land, it has gone up an average of 12% a year. Land in Texas has gone up less than 3% over that same 25 years. Now is the time to buy houses, why would you buy when the price goes back up. 80's house bust- find me one person who will sell me the price they paid for their house in 1982 and I will buy it. And to the guy who had the agent who said everything was a deal, call me I am a Keller Williams agent, yes part time. I am a full time Houston Firefighter, I do not BS my clients. I can put you in contact with someone in Austin who will be truthful. And yes I invest in the market, housing, and land. don't put all your eggs in one basket.
832-656-0024
Terry

[JeffJ]

Actually if you look at the market over 25 years like the land, it has gone up an average of 12% a year. Land in Texas has gone up less than 3% over that same 25 years. Now is the time to buy houses, why would you buy when the price goes back up. 80's house bust- find me one person who will sell me the price they paid for their house in 1982 and I will buy it. And to the guy who had the agent who said everything was a deal, call me I am a Keller Williams agent, yes part time. I am a full time Houston Firefighter, I do not BS my clients. I can put you in contact with someone in Austin who will be truthful. And yes I invest in the market, housing, and land. don't put all your eggs in one basket.
832-656-0024
Terry

Actually my agent is with KW and I trust her 100%. As a pre cursor to us looking at anything she had already purged the idiots who had their house priced insanely high...so I guess according to the parameters I gave her everything was priced well.

Have a good one boys. Im heading to bed to get some rest. I have to hit it early in the morning.

[Captain39]

I was actually going to refer you to a agent, who is with a small agency. Not keller williams.

[huntman933]

First off JeffJ, takes a real man to apologize, I respect you for that!

I'm no expert in the market or real estate. I do have a good bit in the market
I have about 80k I could sell today that has made me a lot of money in the last 3 years with ACL. I do think that land is the way to make money at this day and time.
On the other hand I can sell stock and have that money wired to my account in 4 days. With land you never know when it will sell. To me that's one of the con's about buying land. As I said earlier I've seen properties for sale for 1 1/2 years! I plan on keeping what land I find and passing it on to my son and daughter. They can do with it what they want when the day comes that it's their's. I just think at this time that would be a better investment than stocks. I'm sure there's people out there that will disagree and that's ok.
Like JeffJ said, different strokes for different folks.
I want dirt!!! With deer walking on it of course

[Captain39]

For the land agent who said houses are terrible investments, go to any bookstore and look for Robert Kiyosaki, Gary Keller, or Donald Trump. OR on the market read a book a Warren Buffett, or David Cramer. All billionaires!!The average guys who buys a 100k property spend a $1000 a month on his note for 30 years. Put that in even a fixed CD at 7.5% and you will be a millionaire when you pay that land off. Remeber buy low and sell high.

[TX_Kevin]

Any success stories out there? Maybe I can live vicariously through others. This has been a life-long dream of mine.

My son has played a lot of baseball, and he's done ok playing on select teams around the Houston area. During all of this I met a guy named Steve who became a great friend. His son Tyler and my son Matt have played on several teams together and both are looking towards having baseball pay for some of their college at Texas A&M (if it works out for them).

This year Steve gathered together a group of investors and purchased a 10,000 acre ranch near Spofford, TX. There are 9 good sized lakes on it, one of which is fifty acres, and another of which is 25 acres, and both stocked with Florida bass. All of the lakes seem to stay covered up with ducks too.

It's a beautiful ranch. The deer in my avatar came from this ranch and it scored 180 gross. Several deer between 150 and 180 have been taken from this ranch this year, and I have passed on two 150 class deer that appeared to me to be too young. We have the hope of going back to the ranch this coming weekend to try to find at least one more big boy and maybe a couple of does. Also, there is a ridge that runs through the middle of the ranch which rises to about 300 feet or so. On the very end of the ridge there's a gazebo for picnics. One lake to the left, one to the right. It's a deer ranch, no livestock what so ever. 3000 pound protein feeders, corn feeders, corporate blinds. I can cover the entire ranch in a 2 wheel drive car (but I still drive my 4x4 pickup) because the senderos are clean and wide.

Steve is a lawyer. He stayed in school and made good grades. I chased girls and drank beer. Steve won.

Good news guys! This ranch is for sale. $16.5 mil and it's all yours - including the walk in cooler, camp house with water and electricity and satellite, 5 storage containers for the four wheelers and such. .

[Burnadell]

you will make more money by investing in land then you would in the stock market! Yes you get to watch your money go up and down in the stock market but in the end you will lose in it. Since i have been selling land & ranches the prices have jumped in the past five yrs, but the prices arnt going down any time soon. prices of land havent gone down in the past 25+ yrs. Great time to invest. look me up if your interested in some land or ranches.

Uh, pretty strong, definitive statements...are you sure of that? I always heard it's better to buy low and sell high...especially when prices run up to unsupportable levels...but hey, what do I know?

Jeffj, housing real estate agents diff from LAND & RANCH agents. houses are terrible investments. the housing market is junk right now.

....DJIA down 306.95 ya lets invest in that.
....land prices risen in the past 25+ yrs..
.............you pick............

See above comment.

Actually if you look at the market over 25 years like the land, it has gone up an average of 12% a year. Land in Texas has gone up less than 3% over that same 25 years. Now is the time to buy houses, why would you buy when the price goes back up. 80's house bust- find me one person who will sell me the price they paid for their house in 1982 and I will buy it.
Terry

Agree...and I can tell you folks who bought Hill Country ranches in the early 1980's after a number of years of rapidly increasing prices, only to watch prices began to fall after the oil/gas bubble burst.

[refugioco]

Ranchland is a great investment unfortunately you have to sell it to make your money. Very few ranches can sustain the note or cover the payment especially if it is a deer only place. If you have the minerals and get lucky that is a completely different story. I was always amazed at my Refugio landowner (who was sitting on a multimillion dollar piece of property). He would drive up in a early 80's subaru and visit. I always wondered why he did not sell the ranch and live the good life..then I finally realized he was living the good life.

[TXJon]

Put that in even a fixed CD at 7.5% and you will be a millionaire when you pay that land off. Remeber buy low and sell high.

Where are you getting 7 1/2% on a cd? I'm very interested, seriously.

[quarterback]

It's not so much about investment value as it is MY OWN PLACE. Hunt where I want to, fish where/when I want, that type of thing. Lived in or too close to the city most of my life and I want to get out at some point. Sure I want to invest soundly, but it's as much about the intangibles as it is anything monetary. I suspect that there are a lot of folks out there just like me that feel the same about having their own place. And you have a good point, Berandel. Buy low, sell high. I think it's high right now.