Im pricing out high fencing about 300-350 acres of land in Stephens county. Deer hunting is not great as there are a lot of 100 to 400 acre tracts around me and nothing gets much past 3.5 years. Planning on leaving 50 to 100 acres low fenced.

I’m wondering how much value I would add to the place if I high fence it and stock it with exotics.

Does high fencing a place make it more or less desirable when selling the property?

Has anyone high fenced a place in hopes of increasing the value and if so, what were the results?

I appreciate your time in reading this and would appreciate your input. Thanks.

I’ve never done the math but would be surprised if it’s worth it.

IMO it definitely adds value.

To me, acreage size would be the key, IME. The larger the property under high fence, the more value attained. Thinking 750 acres ++++.

Seems small but of course my buddy high fenced 18 acres here in the city of Dallas. We bought axis and black buck and released in there and do fine with supplemental feed. Doesn't answer your question. I am sure it would but how much does that much cost?

High fencing a property that small introduces a ton of complications the average land owner is unprepared to handle. Doesn’t mean someone who doesn’t know better won’t buy it though. However I think an informed, management minded landowner would find it undesirable. Even less so if the property in partially high fenced.

If I was looking to flip a property that size I would focus on road work, water resources, and habitat diversity over high fencing

On that size acreage, it would be like the property with a 16 acre lake to me. To your interested parties on that size acreage, I would think it would be the uninformed crowd that doesn’t have any clue how much things like that cost and it would just look over priced overall to them

None of the above is true in my experience. The smaller acerage places do better on resale with high fence than bigger tracts.

I will say dont "stock" the place with animals, meaning dont turn it into a zoo. Buyers like to see animals running around in a natural state, they dont want to drive in and see a bunch of animals free loading like ducks at a city park. If the buyer wants that, then let them do it.

Also leaaving some property low fenced is a really good idea. It allows the ability to have a suprise and hunt deer that are not know about. It is a great option to send new hunters to, or if you dont have a guide to sit with people, just send them to the low fence side. Also when you have hit the high fence limit on animals you want to take, you can always go hunt the low fence.

I think your in a great scenerio and i think building the high fence will add hundreds of dollars per acre to the resale price

High fence can be a great investment, but will only appeal to buyers who want high fencing. IME you would be better off high fencing the entire ranch.....once you get sub-250 acres it becomes much more difficult to offload a high fence place, though not impossible.

As for stocking it with exotics....that's been done again and again. Stick with some good yard art, like some black buck or a few fallow and spend the money on bred WT does from a reputable breeder.

Your not really increasing the value per say other than the cost of the high fence, but you are potentially increasing the sell-ability of the place. This is not an absolute rule.

I agree. Our adjacent neighbor did the same with bred WT does and we can see the impact on the other side of the fence. They fenced 500 acres. 250 used to be part of our lease. Considering what we see and what we do, they have little to no predators. We only shoot 1 to 3 bucks a year on 1,100 acres.

Id become a Kudu breeder

Isn’t there another thread about breeding across species…..

I remember a story about the YO. First kudu...many years ago, with much fanfare...released from the trailer and ran head-long into a fence, broke his neck and a horn. Or somethin' like that.

I've shot two over the years, in Zimbabwe. Too pretty to be contained in a fence, in my opinion.

I HF my 600 ranch we owned and lived on some years back. Killed all of the native deer and put three young bucks and three bred does in. Put some blackbuck and oryx in. Only issue I ever had was the number of deer I had to take off every year - if you do the math you realize that even with just 3 does and 3 bucks the number get out of hand quickly unless you harvest pretty hard. We (and our friends) loved having the exotics there. (we even had one Zebra). We never sold hunts but rather just let friends and family hunt.

Value wise we sold the place 5-6 years after we bought it and more than doubled our money.

10-20k per off spring. I have a friend that's up to I think 7. He makes more off kudu at live sale then any thing else.

Think about your potential buyers. The more qualifications you put on a place, the fewer buyers you have that will be interested. The price of the land itself will climb without you having to spend money to make it worth more.

Thats not exactly correct. You have to weigh out the pro’s and con’s to high fencing. In some cases it makes sense, in others you would be limiting your buyer pool too much. With improvements you can also reach a point of diminishing returns.

We have high fenced some fixer-uppers places and kept others low fence. It depended entirely upon the location, terrain, habitat, wildlife population,neighbors, etc.

If your goal is to add value, adding a high fence will be a wash. The majority of potential buyers are probably not looking for a high fence property and are disillusioned with the upkeep and expense that one requires. I'd focus on adding ponds/water, brush control, road maintenance, and improving native grasses if you want to see maximum benefit. Our family is on our 3rd ranch and we've spent a lot of time with farm and ranch real estate agents to get tips on maximizing value

The pendulum has swung a bit more in recent years towards Buyers wanting low fence property as opposed to high fence; that said, plenty of high fence places still trading. But I 100% agree, spend the time and money on surface water, brush work, road work, etc. before a high fence.

I’m a Farm & Ranch Broker and have been in the business going into my 16th year now. I love having discussions about all things ranch related and especially about improvements and how it relates to value, both in dollars and perception.

The previous owner of our home also has a property outside of Cotulla. In conversation with him, as he insisted to bless us with his presence and immense knowledge of everything every time we looked at the house (after we closed, both real estate agents commented on what a #$%^ he was), he said he high-fenced his 400+ acres "to keep the big deer in." After meeting him, I'm certain it's because he thought that's just what big-shots do with a place. He put that property on the market at the same time he put this house up for sale. Going on 14 months later, it's still for sale. I know interest rates and all kinds of other things are influencing the ranch sales market, but I also believe potential buyers aren't seeing the value in what he's asking for it. Of course, other factors are at play, not the least of which being the style of cabin they chose to build there.

Water and roads. Water and roads. Water and roads.

Its not that great of a place. Weird Home ( has a Pagosa Springs house in South Texas ) ranch is pancake flat, accessed by a gravel road that has a lot of O&G traffic on it.

I'm shocked though, that it hasn't sold. I would think someone would have picked it up by now.

'Just kit-log crap. Nothing as classy as Pagosa Springs. 'Wish I could tell him that what he named the "ranch" is what my mother called urine, as in "Do you need to tee-tee?"

Thanks for all the input guys. I've already improved the roads and we dug out two ponds during the drought. We have been feeding protein already so other than the cost of the fence and animals, I don't know what additional cost I would have other than the fencing and animals. At least I don't think I would be wasting money if I installed the high fence.

Well, best of luck to you then.