Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Land Rush!

I have a chance to buy 30-35 acres of land adjacent to the west side of the pond. This land had the top soil and clay removed, the gravel mined down to near the ground water table, and finally the clay and top soil will be put back in place.

My initial random thoughts are:

Plant trees and have a forested area.
Put in a few small ponds for experimentation and growing fish and forage for the main pond.
Plant prairie grasses and let it go completely natural.
Do some of all of the above.
I am too old for a project like all or any of the above.

I am open to any ideas and comments!

C'mon Dwight, you know age is just a number. My personal preference would be the first two items mentioned above.


Of course people on a site called PONDboss will tell you to build PONDS if that's an option. I'd also plant trees on the rest of the property with the hope of eventually attracting more wildlife.

Sounds like a neat opportunity no matter what you choose to do with it.

If you've got the money, and the price is within your capabilities of 'safe' self-rationalization, then go for it!

Can your NRCS office provide any background on the potential uses and results of reclaimed land of that type? I would need to know just what pros and cons to anticipate in the short and long term...stuff like settling or soil integrity, chemistry, and fertility. Perhaps the mining company can provide input AND give you similar examples of successful reclamations in your area that you could visit.
-
Where does the replacement soil come from?

All of the above -- small ponds for forage , trees for wind break and privacy and grass for viewing wildlife.

BUY! BUY! BUY! Of course, that's always my answer

If this piece of land is close to your home, pond, or other area you regularly use BUY IT. I have learned that if you feel it will enhance your property or your enjoyment of your property you should BUY IT. If you don't and someone else does you may be very unhappy with what they do with it. Think about the fact that whomever buys it may own it for 40 or 50 years. You may only have one chance to BUY IT. I just bought 10 acres adjacent to my property that my father passed on about 20 years ago when he owned the land I now own. I paid exactly 27 times more than he thought was too high.

Bing

IF you have money to invest, invest it in land!
I would plant the whole thing thick with evergreen trees for all of the deer in your whole county to come and hide in. I have deer hunted near Morris, MN and there are tons of deer, tons of food, but no place for them to hide once the corn is harvested. I hunt a 50 acre patch of thick evergreen trees, and there are probably more deer than trees in the middle.

I have a different perspective that you might want to consider. All numbers in the stuff below are hypothetical and your mileage may vary. I am not considering taxes into this stuff.

Four years ago, I bought 51.5 acres adjoining my 133.5 acres. It is a beautiful place with a nice 3/4 acre bass/BG pond, a creek, deer, hogs and turkey. It is about 1/3 open and 2/3 wooded. Neat place. One day I started thinking about the value TO ME.

The payments are about $300 per month because I bought it right and plunked down a pretty good sized down payment. Since I have an AG/wildlife exemption, the property taxes aren't a killer and I've excluded them from this analysis. I owe about $25K on it and figure, for the purpose of this illustration, that it ought to go for about $3K per acre. I guess I either fish, hunt or 4 wheeler ride on it about 20 times per year. OK; that's $180 every time I go onto it just figuring on the payments. However, if I sell it, pay off the loan and pay a realtor, I can realize $120,030. At 6.5% annually, that's about $7,800 per year of income. Divide that by the 20 times that I go onto it, I figure that it costs me about $390 every time I open the gate. Doesn't make sense to me and I have it up for sale.

There are a lot of variables that I'm skipping here but the concept is what I'm getting at.

Or,you could seal it with clay and not put back any fill and have a 30 acre lake.Thats maintenance free land.

Here's my experience from an acquaintance...
10 acres adjacent to his place goes on the market which he can easily pay for but decides not to. The gentleman who purchases it turns it into a trailer park 6 months later.

Here's my experience...
5 acres next to my neighbor goes on the market and he decides that he doesn't want to spend the money on it either. It is now a pseudo-junk yard with a few hundred torn up cars strewn all over it and he now has a pretty major increase in the number of snakes on his place.

You need to decide what is best for you because either way, you are the one spending the money. It is always easier to tell somebody else to spend their money.

Three stories I could add.
1. A 10 acre parcel goes up for sale next to my friend's new retirement home. He hesitates and someone else buys it. The new owner builds a house, has lots of beer parties where all his friends bring their mudder trucks over and each weekend my friend listens to those trucks race around all night driven by drunken fools. There is not another house for half a mile so no one else cares. He now hates where he lives.

2. Another friend has a chance to buy land next door. Doesn't want to invest the money. New owner has 3 kids that tear around on dirt bikes every day.

3. A neighbor has a chance to buy the house next door. Even though they both sit on 40 acres of land the houses are right next door to each other. The house for sale is real run down so it sells cheap to someone else. The new owners turn it into a Meth house.

You can get bad neighbors anywhere you live, even in the city. But in the city there are laws against all the above. And there are lots of other neighbors to band together and keep trouble makers under control. When you've created your dream place in the country and it gets ruined you have little recourse but to figure out a way to co-exist or move. My view is any time you have neighboring property close enough that someone can do something to make your life miserable you better buy it so that you control it. How do you put a value on that! I believe that so much that when the land next door went up for sale I got another mortgage on my house so I could buy it. It has a small run down house on 40 acres. The house is right next to my driveway and life could be miserable if my family had to deal with trouble makers.

Dwight, if I were you I would buy it.

1) Fresh out of college I passed on a piece of land neighboring my fathers, it was 20 acres for $20K in the 80's and seemed like a fortune, I passed. The buyer had an oil company come in 2 years later and drilled a well that paid for the property 10 fold in oil profits, it's now worth 8K per acre in land value alone.

2) The original property I purchased in 1997 cost me $637 per acre after stringing electricity. I built a 2.5 acre pond and 10 years later sold it for 5X the buying price.

3) In addition to reinvesting everything I made, I leveraged my 401K with a loan (paying myself interest) to buy additional acreage. The property I bought last year is already showing great promise if I decided to sell. Remember, we really don't own the land, we're just stewards while we walk the planet.

While my home has doubled in price since 1990, my land value has kicked it's butt many times over. Give me raw real estate over everything as an investment. Buy it, and turn it into recreational water But most of all, enjoy calling it yours !

Come on Davidson, give your recap some effort will you ! If you get up off your butt and show/sell it yourself, you will save 6% !!! That's 32K you'll make...bankrolling that figure, you're making free trips out there at $390 x 20 or 8K a year...that's 4 years free to call the property yours and enjoy the time you spend out there

i cant top what bz and eastland have said, nice to see you posting again eastland.

11 years ago, at a time we absolutely could not afford it, we bought the neighboring 6.5 acres when it went up for sale.......we hesitated during the listing but happened to meet one potential buyer who wanted to plant eucalyptus trees and herd sheep.....nuff said.

oh yeah, screw the replacement topsoil, git yerself a dozer and dig lots and lots of GW ponds....that would be too cool.

Eastland, I have that kind of deal with the Realtor. If I sell it myself, he will bow out. I've shown it a couple of times. I've done phone time, EMail time, road time, etc. Actually, the RE fee is just North of $9K.

There are 45 acres next to our 43 that are owned by two brothers in their 70's, one of whom lives on a 5 acre parcel that is surrounded on 3 sides by the bigger piece. Both their property and ours were once a part of their uncle's farm.

One has no kids and the other has no kids interested in living in the country or farming. They have kind of allowed as to how they would be happy to see my wife and I buy the 45 acres some day (what the heck are they waiting on?).

The problem is that just plain farmland, with no buildings on it, is going for $20k an acre in my township and the surrounding areas. If we had 88 acres, I know we could live here the rest of our lives, free enough from encroachment to be happily rural. But there is no way I am going to borrow enough to buy the place at today's prices - if I have to work forever to pay for the extra land, it's not worth it to me.

I have to hope to win the lottery or have real estate prices drop through the cellar here. The place has a big gully about 125 yards long that I would love to put a big bass pond in, and that's not even considering other possible pond sites on it. My wife and I are going to have some hard decisions to make when the brothers are finally ready to sell.

This is right up my ally. I originally bought 42ac because of the location and it had a nice pond on it. I noticed a small frame house on the corner of the property, it was the only structure for about two miles. The agent told me it was going to be destroyed, I thought "goodie" I can by that lot. "wrong" the biggest bunch of turds you have ever seen moved in, it is the previous land owners 55yo never worked son and his buddies. His dad owned about 300acs part of which I bought. I bought the adjecent 44ac so a least I can limit that area. As it stands now, they will not sell the house and I have to put up with them shooting all the time, sometimes till 1AM. I have had it out with them about ricochetts.Its real nice to have to talk to a shirtless guy with pierced nipples, tattoos every where, a beer in one hand and a gun in the other.It can be a living hell in my own 86ac piece of heaven.the red lines from the back of their shack is the direction they shoot. I found them picking black berries last year in my pasture, they assumed I wouldnt mind. I want to buy the property so I have been very diplomatic because his elderly father still actually owns the house. This is an old photo. Ramble off-sorry
[img][/img]

Sgt911...

Call your county sheriff and ask him about the laws/regulations where you live about shooting firearms. Out where I am, I have been told that you can get a ticket for shooting on less than 20 acres unless it is with a shotgun. If they are intoxicated and shooting, there should be something there the county sheriff can check on.

Already checked, only state laws apply in Lee county which is a class "C" for shooting across a fence without permission. I'm a Sgt and 25yr veteran of the Houston Police Department so I pretty familiar with most laws. Ive got to be real careful about trying to police outside of Houston (They dont even want us to police "in" Houston). I'm kinda in a tough spot, they said they would move in a few years so I'm trying to wait them out. Next time it happens I will call the local law, and Ive told them that. we'll see......sorry for thread hijack. Oh, the minimal acreage laws only apply to counties with a large population(not sure of the cutoff), and I think then, that only allows them to pass a county ord if they choose to do so.

Sarge,
That sux incredibly hard. Do I read this right? There is a .89 ac bumpout that projects within your parcel(s)? Is the .89 ac attached to much larger acreage across the street? They actually moved the house to get it onto the .89 ac?

yes, I own the 86ac retangle shape property and that .89c bumps out into it and on my side of the street..it does not belong to anything across the road, they actually cut out part of the land before I bought it. I have offered to buy it several times..they owned the 28ac directly accross from where the house used to sit, they could have moved it there..the whole thing doesnt make sense to me..I was also told he was moved there to be kepst out of trouble...the one bright spot is that his older brother is a good guy and knows I want to buy the lot(they can take the house with them)...it will be a very expensive .89ac

I'm laughin' and shakin' my head in disdain at the same time. Where does that kinda thinkin' come from....? Sux hard

Sarge, thanks for letting me know the law. Well, considering your property surrounds them, you could always smoke them out with a good burnpile.

Sarge,

I don't know where you are financially, but if I was in your shoes and able to do it, I would make the old man an offer he just can't refuse. For .89 acre, the more outrageous, the better. Even if he says he's not willing to sell yet, you can probably make him willing in a heartbeat.

Peace of mind may be worth it.