Posted: 1/21/2009 7:22:01 PM EDT
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I keep trying to decide where to invest because I sure do not trust the stock market.
My thoughts keep turning to land. So I thought I would start up a thread on which county/locations are the best options, how much land is optimum, price, and for anyone who knows of good deals to post it in here. If this seems like a good idea to you guys maybe we can get it tacked. Here are some of my initial thoughts on what to look for: 1) 100 miles or less from home (approx 2hr drive) 2) Big enough to shoot on and maybe hunt 3) Part of it needs to be big enough where you could plant a sizable garden and/or run a few head of cattle (SHTF or retirement maybe) 4) Open water would be great, but more expensive 5) BLM adjoining would be nice as well to keep the neighbors down What else? What counties are friendly to shooters and which are not? Is this thread a good idea or not? I live in St. Charles which gives me a semi circle westward to about the middle of the state. 
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I am in same boat. Looking for 20-40 acres an hour or so from KC, mostly timber. Kinda hard to find.
Assuming you don't have an issue of neighbors what is the smallest piece of land you get buy and be able to shoot on? 10 acres? I am assuming you would have a berm built as a backstop. |
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Something to consider. Not sure on your side of the state but in my area the building codes suck. No barns with walls higher than 12 foot. No Morton building houses. Stuff like that. If you plan to retire to this property it is something to think about.
We have 5 acres and shoot all day long. No trap or anything like that,but pistol and 100 yd rifle shooting. No one ever bothers us. |
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what does the colors on the map mean ??
farm land is very high right now , we had some outside investers pay over 3k a acre over the summer here in carroll county ,, there is some nice land for sale west of Richmond on 10 hwy going toward the city .. ive seen it from 40 to 200 lots which would be a good bug out from the city . the city is a nice place to visit but i sure wouldnt want to live there , been there done that and the rurual life is the life for me . TS2 |
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I'm looking too.
I live in Arnold (Used to live in St,. Charles) and what I have found so far is that the cheapest land is in southern missouri. Iron and Reynolds county still has it fairly cheap. Anything in the St. Charles, St. Louis, Jefferson county areas is gonna cost ya. |
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Quoted:
what does the colors on the map mean ?? farm land is very high right now , we had some outside investers pay over 3k a acre over the summer here in carroll county ,, there is some nice land for sale west of Richmond on 10 hwy going toward the city .. ive seen it from 40 to 200 lots which would be a good bug out from the city . the city is a nice place to visit but i sure wouldnt want to live there , been there done that and the rurual life is the life for me . TS2 colors on the map? don't know if there is a meaning or not. I just googled Missouri Counties, picked the first picture I saw and linked it in for reference. i want a big enough piece of land to shoot on, grow a garden, maybe build a cabin someday. You can buy land in the southern part of the state for a little over a thousand an acre. It's going to be hilly without any decent timber. Timber will be hard to find. This state was pretty much clear cut of good timber in the first half of the 1900's. Near the Missouri river is some great land, but expensive. Gently rolling, fertile. Northern Missouri starts the great plains, good farmland, BIG deer, and big prices for most. I was thinking along the lines of something about as much as a car payment or a little more for 15-20 years. Pay it off sooner if you can. I don't know what kind of interest rate you can get on land, but I would think it would be decent considering there is little risk and (even now) decent resale. |
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you should be able to find that in your price range in carroll or any other county in northern MO ,, from the amount of money you stated i would look for 20 to 40 acres
semi wooded with rolling hills or have a parcel in crp where you should receive a check back from the Gov atleast it may pay for the taxes on it . i heard that 40 acres sold on the court house steps last week that went cheap .. if you want me to forward any parcels or any up and comming auctions drop me a line . TS2 Quoted:
Quoted:
what does the colors on the map mean ?? farm land is very high right now , we had some outside investers pay over 3k a acre over the summer here in carroll county ,, there is some nice land for sale west of Richmond on 10 hwy going toward the city .. ive seen it from 40 to 200 lots which would be a good bug out from the city . the city is a nice place to visit but i sure wouldnt want to live there , been there done that and the rurual life is the life for me . TS2 colors on the map? don't know if there is a meaning or not. I just googled Missouri Counties, picked the first picture I saw and linked it in for reference. i want a big enough piece of land to shoot on, grow a garden, maybe build a cabin someday. You can buy land in the southern part of the state for a little over a thousand an acre. It's going to be hilly without any decent timber. Timber will be hard to find. This state was pretty much clear cut of good timber in the first half of the 1900's. Near the Missouri river is some great land, but expensive. Gently rolling, fertile. Northern Missouri starts the great plains, good farmland, BIG deer, and big prices for most. I was thinking along the lines of something about as much as a car payment or a little more for 15-20 years. Pay it off sooner if you can. I don't know what kind of interest rate you can get on land, but I would think it would be decent considering there is little risk and (even now) decent resale. |
| Not trying to sneak in an EE post, but my Dad has 26 acres of nice woods with a creek for sale 10 miles north of Cannon dam. It's a natural deer funnel, surrounded by crop land. In limited hunting, we took three deer off of it this deer season, including a very nice 8 pointer. IM me if any one would like more details. |
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I don't know if this would help anyone on where to look for property, but a while back I was considering buying some rural wooded property in an area that wasn't going to develop, and so I downloaded data and created a land cover map of Missouri that showed forested areas and government land (state parks, mark twain, etc), and counties that were losing population. Just to give me an idea where to look.
The green is forest cover, the black is gov't land, and counties in grey are losing population. Also shows major highways. If interested, IM me and I'll send you a large (8MB) .pdf that you can zoom in for considerably greater detail. 
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The truly sad part is that you can never actually own the land free & clear. Think you can/do? Try not paying your property taxes on it and see how long until Johnny Law comes and takes it away.  True, but most of what we are talking about here would be $100 per year or so in most rural counties. It's pretty easy to shoot that much ammo up in a day. I had not thought about the farm angle (lease or .gov giveaways). |
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Played the same game. Lost lots of money in a 401(k) from a previous employer. Paid the taxes and the penalty on the withdrawal then used it as a down payment for 100+ acres of vacant land in Wayne County. One of the problems you run into is, my lender wouldn't discuss a traditional mortgage. I had to get a commercial loan on the "vacant" property (the old house needs to be bulldozed and burned) as they wouldn't call it residential. It's a 20 year amortization, but comes up for renewal every 3 years. This was my wife's family home place. Her grandparents raised nine kids on it, kept a cow for milk, cut a little timber. We are the 4th generation to own it, though 5 generations were raised there. (Ownership skipped one generation). This is our retirement place - at least in my mind that's the plan - and is also our SHTF locale. We have a cabin that we're building/working on with no electric, no running water and propane for heat. We are looking at wood stoves due to the abundance of wood available, but flue pipe is unbelievably high. IMO, vacant property will continue to appreciate. Especially if you can be self-sustaining on it. There is no telling what will wind up happening or where we'll be in the next ten years. I may be a little late in my planning, but this was the first opportunity which wasn't overly inflated. |
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I don't know if this holds true in MO, but in Nebr land that has an agricultural use, such as pasture or cropland, usually works in a multiple of 30%. In other words, if the land is valued at $100K and you can put down $30K, the rent will cover the land payment and taxes. This arrangement is usually for 5 year note. At which time the land is paid for. Rereading this, this formula also works almost anywhere in the Plains states, IL, IN, OH, etc.
My brother is the chief ag loan officer for the largest farm bank in Nebr and I checked with him to see if this is still "the rule". It still is. Now, if you go putting a lot of dirt work in, or put a pivot and irrigation well down after you pay, of course the numbers don't work that way. I'm guessing I won't retire in MO, because all the rough hilled timber land costs as much as farm/ranch land is other areas. I'm planning on renting the land except for around the home place, and pay off my home mortgage on my retirement house? Just my .02 |
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Taxes on land are not expensive. My land was less then $150 per year. If you buy land you need to work with a bank that is in that line of bussiness. If one of you guys want to talk about this PM me. I just looked at two farms today. I like this better then pure hunting ground since you can make $ and still hunt it.
Also you can do 20 year loans on land. Paul |
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If you are careful you can pick up land for much less than $1000 and acre down in the southern counties. I am not usually a fan of "city" people moving in, but that is your best bet. lunyou The chances of my wife moving somewhere rural is somewhere between slim and none. For now, it would be nice to have someplace you could go and camp, shoot, and hunt. Someday down the road maybe a small cabin for weekends (but then you have to worry about people messing with them). |
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This is a very nice piece of property, but it is out of my price range.
property 37 acres with river frontage |
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I got a heckuva deal on my loan for land. Went with Southwest Bank out of STL and was able to finance the entire price on a 25 year mortgage.
The caveat is; is that it's an interest only mortgage HOWEVER there is no pre-payment penalty. If I only paid interest I'd pay millions of dollars for a property and never own it. SO, I pay extra principle on that baby and the interest owed goes down each month I pay extra.....again with no penatly for doing so. Pretty sweet deal. Allowed me to pick up 27 acres in SW MO for future building. |
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I got a heckuva deal on my loan for land. Went with Southwest Bank out of STL and was able to finance the entire price on a 25 year mortgage. The caveat is; is that it's an interest only mortgage HOWEVER there is no pre-payment penalty. If I only paid interest I'd pay millions of dollars for a property and never own it. SO, I pay extra principle on that baby and the interest owed goes down each month I pay extra.....again with no penatly for doing so. Pretty sweet deal. Allowed me to pick up 27 acres in SW MO for future building. That's probably the best deal I've heard of, if you know how to be responsible with your money. I/O's and irresponsible people are part of what got us in this mess to begin with! None of the big residential lenders know how to deal with land loans...it's outside their "box". There's a company that specializes in land loans, believe it's called Farm Credit Services, but I think they ALWAYS want 20% down and the rates start around 7 or 8%. |
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If you are careful you can pick up land for much less than $1000 and acre down in the southern counties. I am not usually a fan of "city" people moving in, but that is your best bet. lunyou How about if we move back? The trend in Soutwest Missouri has been rapidly rising prices caused by people from Florida, Arizona, and California buying up property. However I haven't checked lately, and I'll bet that has slowed. Property price in SW Missouri is always sensitive to the size of the parcel and fraction of unimproved or improved size. An enormous place that is overgrown in brush will have the least per acre price, the same size place all in hay with a couple of barns and water will be three times the price (or a little more). Here's an angle to consider- There's a shortage of storage buildings in Texas and Wright County. I was checking for space two years ago and there was not a single unit of any size available between Licking and Mountain Grove. Nothing has changed, and I don't think a single unit has been built. This is a pretty low maintenance way intensive use for a small parcel that should return enough income to pay for a place. |
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Just a random thought, but if you by some miracle can get some land outside Whiteman AFB or any other military installation, I've always heard the .gov will pay INSANE amounts for land outside military base borders if and when they decide to expand. There's some guy that owned some land outside the fence here at Whiteman, and I heard he made quite the killing on what he got for his land. You'd be surprised how much of it is now enclosed by the base but not used. They have plans, like a Whiteman Museum and more housing, that is still in works.
Also, another thought...any land in developing towns like Warrensburg might be a good bet. Warrensburg has been growing ever since I got out here, like a new Lowe's and strip mall, and even just before I got out here, a new Pizza Hut, the Wal Mart Supercenter, etc. If a company wants that land they may pay big $$$ for it. I know a whole bunch of land was bought by some developer right off of 50 highway by the Hwy 13 exit, they were supposed to build a mall and stuff over there, I heard the old timers blocked it, heaven forbid the area grow and develop! But I'm no expert so take this with a Peterbuilt worth of salt. Just my random thoughts... |
