In 2018 I asked my wife if we should buy or lease and she responded with "we need to buy", God bless her!

We sold our house, scraped up all the cash we could get and bought as much land as we could afford in the area we liked. We ended up with raw land, no water, no electric on site, no fence and no ag exemption. $60k later we have water, a drive way and a level, graveled pad, electric on site a mile of fencing and gates and going on the year 4 of a cattle lease to regain the ag exemption.

Company and comradery I can import. If and when I sell, I'm sure I will get my investment back plus more. I just spoke to a customer of mine who has a great lease for years and the land owner died around Christmas time. He and his fellow lease holders are pretty much screwed, as the former owner's out of state son will no doubt either sell or put the lease out on the open market. At best, the lease will cost them a lot more, at worst they are out and all of the investment they have made is gone too.

Renting my house in town has been pretty liberating. In the past two years the A/C, the water heater, the electric stove and the microwave have all crapped out. How nice it is to call the landlord and get on with my day when all that crap happened!

I'm not seeing both sides of land ownership here. I get the warm fuzzy feeling of driving in your gate. But what about the other side?
Bad neighbors watching you leave and then hunting your property. Trespassers and poachers coming onto your property. Neighbors setting up feeders and blinds too close to the fence. People shooting across your property. Stealing your livestock, breaking in your house. Drunks driving through you fences and always that crazy neighbor you can't stand.

Buying a place big enough is a issue as well. Land in nice areas isn't cheap. After you build the house, driveway, and shop. Once you have the utilities installed and get blinds and feeders set up you know the place like the back of your hand. Hunting the same blind and spot over and over gets old. These reasons are why I lease. I also like exploring new property and seeing different deer.

Of course there are issues with leases as well.

Verde

Done them both for long periods of time ea., pluses and minuses to both, most of which has been mentioned throughout here. Our immediate family leased 1000+ acres in South Texas for 3.5-4 decades and it was mostly awesome though a good haul from the metromess, quality and quantity of game pretty much washed the distance negative out. I have owned a sub 100 acre place in SW Young Co. the past 15 years and I must admit, there is something very pleasing about being the master of one's own place. Maybe liberating is the better description. That said I joined a fellow THF'r friend in leasing a couple of hundred acres about 20 minutes from my property in Throckmorton Co. so I feel I again have the best of both worlds and some variety of acreage to hunt too.

Im an absentee land owner on multiple holdings throughout last 20 years, ROI of land both on paper and yearly income is worth way more than any hassle I've had from poaching or trespassing.

Just My opinion, but Im not wound too tight either.

This is my reasoning. I have been able to hunt in the best area of Texas for huge deer on alot of acres for the past 15 years. We have year round access so several of us members enjoy going down in the off season to piddle around and do a few improvements.

When I did own my own place I loved it and sold it for a tidy profit - we lived on the place but it was a 45 minute commute each way which got old.

So IMO neither is right or wrong - in my case I am happy where I am.

Different strokes for different folks. Me personally, I'd rather suck start a shot gun then retire to live in the city. Owning my own place rather than leasing, set me up for retirement. A lot of this comes down to guys marrying a woman who doesn't want to live on a ranch in retirement, and that's their own fault for not choosing wisely.

Owning your own property would be much better than leasing. I have leased property to hunt on for the last 40 plus years. In that period of time that same money invested in land that i would own seems much better than leasing.

18 for me.

Yup, exactly.

Not all of us buy in East Texas

Jokes aside - We’ve owned the last 15 years and it’s not just the land value that is an investment. Every drop of sweat equity gets poured into something that you own and can share with family and friends without the worry of what others will think. I may still lease if I find the right situation for something other than whitetail like Mulies or Quail.

…..says the wise one that lives alone…..

There are trade offs.

I have owned my place for about 40 years. It’s only 133 acres of junk land that the realtors call recreational property. 60 miles from my home in Hurst. All trees, rocks and hills. I bought really cheap and paid it off a long time ago. It’s nice to have a getaway place for us and friends. I tried cattle but that kept me on the road, 60 miles from home, to care for them. Had to buy a lot of hay and fix a lot of fence. Lost my butt on that deal.

The value has skyrocketed but so have the taxes. Yep, I also have insurance expenses. If a guest or poacher gets injured I can be held liable.

Leasing the hunting rights wouldn’t come close to paying the taxes. I have another house(mobile home), water well, outbuildings and fences to maintain. Yep, I have had poachers and thieves. The 3 year drought has hit my ponds hard. If and when we get some big rains, I will buy fish to restock. That drought has also hit the wild life hard.

I love it but will probably cash out in the next couple of years.

ROI on land is not as good as ROI on properties. It has negative cash flow. That's why they want more down and higher payments. While you are waiting for the land to appreciate "if ever" you are paying taxes and upkeep on the land. So when you sell you have to subtract all your costs. Am I missing something?

Not even a second thought. No way I’d lease over owning my place. I’ve leased all over Tx but none of them compare to owning my own place. My neighbors are good folks, I live 15 min away and I make the rules. I enjoy the work as much as the hunting and my taxes are less than $200/yr

Missing alot.

It’s true that a lot of raw land does not cash flow, at least not in any appreciable amount, at best Ag and Hunting leases will cover the taxes and then maybe a little for the kitty, whereas a residential rental will usually cover the note and taxes. On most portfolio loans your gonna have to put 20% down and the loan amount is proportional to the term.

However, both have expenses and upkeep. Raw recreational land in Texas typically accrues at a rate of 6-8% min year over year, with some locales accruing more. During the Covid era we saw some areas appreciate 25%-50% in one year.

With any property, be it residential, commercial or recreational rural you are gonna have entry and maintenance costs that are going to have to be subtracted from the gross proceeds upon sale to derive the net gain.


I saw it early in my career, that you could buy cheap land out in west Texas or the panhandle that had CRP and DCP contracts on them that would cover the note and pay off the land in a short amount of time, but I haven’t seen those deals in Texas for quite some time. This was old farmland that was being sold for $200-$350/acre, not prime country close to a metro area

this is incorrect, I make money off my land every year or I couldn't own it. Crop share, Soil bank, CRP, WRP, Grazing etc.

teach me your ways!

For real. I want to learn this.

I leased and gained permission however I could, but purchasing property has worked out well for me. Don’t have to worry about losing it to uncontrollable events.(landowner passes, sells, goes up on price, etc). Even if you have to start small it can happen, and work. Start with cash. Even a good interest rate gets ridiculous over time on larger purchases/numbers. Make a couple good buys/1031 exchange some sells, and it could happen. Some may disagree, but some investments/improvements to a property you may not recover when you sell. Keep that in mind when making a long term plan for said property. I know, I know, it all cost money and sounds silly. But start with a 500k property, you spend an additional 150k on roads, electricity, water, equipment shed, fencing, etc. when you put it back up, a lot of buyers don’t fully understand what those things can cost. And your 200 acres will look overpriced.

I agree with you. Buying land versus a residential rental is no comparison on ROI. That's all I was saying. That if you want a big ROI it won't be from buying land. I am not knocking buying your own place to hunt, I just can't see how to do it and sell it for a profit when you are done.

Land is a great ROI. Low taxes but you just can’t expect it to triple in price in a couple of years. A lease has the same ROI as renting an apartment. Zero.

not in my case and I rarely have tenant issues. If you look and compare land as just recreation then you have to look at rental structures as just recreation.

Exactly.

Buying land has been very, very good for my family for a few generations now. No investment "advisor" is ever going to suggest it - it's not in their "wheelhouse" (and they're not going make a commission/management fee).That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it...for diversification if nothing else.

Yep, true. No fee earning financial planner will ever suggest it. Buy either ag use or income producing and get as much as you can. i've seen people work it successfully both ways. Mine is all income producing and has paid off handsomely. I am not finished either. Only wish I had gone out and secured more earlier. Btw, the net on any of my buildings more than pays for all of my hunting and fishing.