How did you end up with your farm?

[Roothawg]

My wife and I have resolved ourselves to convert our 1 acre lot into a suburban homestead, mainly due to the lack of a good deal. Every piece of property we look at around here is way overpriced. I think the economy has people buying land to hedge their 401K accounts.

I watch Craigslist and most of the realtor websites, but honestly I have about given up. Without being too nosey, how did you guys afford your land? For example, 80 acres here within an hour of OKC is averaging 2,000 an acre.

I can never be self sufficient if I owe "The Man" for 30 years. We don't have a lot of bills, just our mortgage and a car payment, (which is a modest car payment).

Did you guys sell everything and hope to find something for sale? Or did you put money back for 15 years and then buy? Just curious what vehicle you used to get that dream farm.

[Bamacrazy]

I don't know if you can find farm land any cheaper than that. I guess you could say I was lucky. My grandfather and his brothers pledged to save the money they made during WWI. When the war ended they pooled their money and used that as a down payment on timberland. They paid off the land by harvesting turpentine from pine trees.

[Maura]

My DH had a modest house when we married. We purchased 35 acres 3 1/2 miles inland from Lake Huron, which is how far you had to get off the lake to find affordable land. We ended up not building a house there because DH changed jobs. When we sold the property it had tripled in value. This, and the sale of our house made it possible to pay $20,000 for 6 1/2 acres. Understand, this is after our children were grown, so we weren't spring chickens.

Do you need 80 acres? How about 20 acres?

[simi-steading]

My wife sent me an ad for a piece of propety in WV last fall... 30 acres and a tear it down house... She though maybe we could salvage it... It was more of a "dream" kind of thing since we kept talking about we wanted to move back to the countryside..

So I figured I'd one up her and show her something a little better... I searched around on the web for about 15 minutes and found another within about 100 miles of what she showed me...

57 acres, a two story house being lived in (needed some work) out buildings, creek, caves... and what we considered a decent price...

Well before you know it, that night, I called and talked to the Realtor...

Started calling around the next day looking for a loan.. .a small one, all things considered... couldn't find anyone that would deal with a land purchase.. They weren't listing it as a home sale... but rather a land deal, because the owners were horders, and the house had issues...

Talked to a friend that used to own a bank, and is now a CFO with BOA.. he told me to call Farm Credit... I did, three days after we talked to the Realtor...

Sent in a pre-approval credit app, and they called us back a couple hours later... Approved... "HEY, can we loan you some more money too? Need to fix the house? buy equipment? Need animals?"

We said no thanks, and called the Realtor back and told her we had pre-approval and wanted to look at the place... Met her out there two days later... a 5 hour drive..

We really liked the place... so the next day called and made what we considered a lowball offer... WOW.. they accepted it....

And here we are... trying to get the house fixed up so we can move in July 2014...

Kinda funny it all started as a joke and a dream and moved so fast... Our mortgage is really small... we hope to have it paid off in less than 10 years. If we could keep our jobs we have now, and move out there (impossible because of a 5 hour one way commute) we could pay it off in two...

[chewie]

asking around. stuff here is not for sale very often. oddly enough, houses/barnyards sit empty for years, til they fall in, and yet, no one will sell. its maddening.

I did however see a spot I thought would be good for us and asked around. winds up it was owned by the little old lady who we sat behind in church! I asked to see it, she said ok, but "I'm a land hog". (doesn't sell) but, also said there was this nice little spot she would like to show me as well as the one I seen. the one I spotted was basicly in a swamp. not good. the one she had in mind was perfect, and here I sit. took us 10 years paying on the land/barn, while working for a ranch elsewhere. then that ranch sold out, we built this house and here we are. sounds slick and simple but it was years of looking, longing and so much work it makes my head spin,.

and farm credit service was the only place who'd lend us to build. if possible, I'd build very small and add on when needed, but we had 2 teens and needed our house now, so we got a mortgage. I woulda still done it small with adding on but hubs just wanted to be done. can't say as I blame him, having a never ending building project isnt' fun at all.

[unregistered168043]

My grandfather bought a house and a couple acres in the 'country' for 12,000 dollars. He passed it to my dad, and he passed it to me. By that time it was no longer the 'country' but a high priced suburb. I sold my business, sold the house, and moved up here where land is affordable. Sold out just before the real estate crash that I knew was inevitable.

[Pheasant283]

Originally Posted by chewie

asking around. stuff here is not for sale very often. oddly enough, houses/barnyards sit empty for years, til they fall in, and yet, no one will sell. its maddening.

I did however see a spot I thought would be good for us and asked around. winds up it was owned by the little old lady who we sat behind in church! I asked to see it, she said ok, but "I'm a land hog". (doesn't sell) but, also said there was this nice little spot she would like to show me as well as the one I seen. the one I spotted was basicly in a swamp. not good. the one she had in mind was perfect, and here I sit. took us 10 years paying on the land/barn, while working for a ranch elsewhere. then that ranch sold out, we built this house and here we are. sounds slick and simple but it was years of looking, longing and so much work it makes my head spin,.

and farm credit service was the only place who'd lend us to build. if possible, I'd build very small and add on when needed, but we had 2 teens and needed our house now, so we got a mortgage. I woulda still done it small with adding on but hubs just wanted to be done. can't say as I blame him, having a never ending building project isnt' fun at all.

stuff here is not for sale very often. oddly enough, houses/barnyards sit empty for years, til they fall in, and yet, no one will sell. its maddening. - Yup I know the feeling for sure!!

After a while of asking around enough, word spreads that you are looking for property. . At least thats how I sumbled accross the piece of property I am trying to buy right now. As far as funds I have been buying, fixing up, & selling cheap old houses in the little town I live in for the past 5 yrs. Maybe a little like monopoly, I started with a old rundown single wide trailer, now I have a 3 bdrm 2 story, with garage. Which is now for sale, as that $ will be the down payment for the property I am trying to buy. As far as financing, yes Farm Credit, the other banks wont even touch a small piece of land that has houses and out buildings on it.

[Dreamfarm]

found a place online, checked out the town, looked at usda soil maps, asked hundreds of questions. went out to look at it, made an offer, got owner contract and am now making payments. Still live in the big city in another state, but that is how I am getting the $$ to pay it off fast. Wont move until it is paid, still need a house, but will buy one close by or build.

[farmerDale]

Well, my grandparents came from Germany in 1928 and bought this place as their true homestead. Then my dad farmed it when his dad died. And then my dad died at a young age, and I started farming it when I was 16.

I did have to buy the land from my mom, as she was not really too well off, back in the late nineties. Back then, here land values were in the 300 to 400 dollar an acre range, so it was not all that expensive. BUT: farming sucked badly those years, it has not been a real easy chore to make payments when farm income for many years was negative, due to extremely poor commodity prices. And then in 2009, I finally got a chance at another section of land adjacent to our home place, and it was about 500 bucks an acre. As you can tell, land prices here are comparatively cheaper. They are now around 800-1000 an acre.

The great thing, is that we are at the edge of agriculture and wilderness, which is so awesome. Yesterday a cow and two calf moose were bedded behind the house. I got 590 pictures of elk eating my hay three nights ago at the end of our lane!!!

The bad thing, is our growing season is so short. The soil is awesome, the land is very productive, among the most productive areas in western Canada, and we have good rainfall every year. In the 80 plus years since this farm existed, drought has never occurred. Wetness has been an issue about 2 in ten years though. The reason our land prices are so low, is that we are in the sticks in the truest sense of the word. There is zero urban pressure, zero wanna bees.

And so that is how we got our land. Now the task is to pay it off!!! Which in todays farm economy should be doable fairly easily, if we can grow some consistent crops at these prices.

I realize we are fortunate that land is relatively cheaper here, but that does not mean it is often available, or has as great a return from farming like in the corn belt, or a great investment return over the course of a decade. I mean, prices here have only finally gotten to where they had been in 1970's. With a long term stagnancy/crash in the interim years...

[Ramblin Wreck]

Some of the farmland was a gift from my Father, and I bought additional acreage from siblings and a neighbor. To be honest, the 80 acres for $2K within an hour of OKC sounds like a great deal to me. I've never bought any that cheap around here. I do understand the desire to avoid debt. I could not avoid it when I started out, but I certainly understand the desire. Good luck.

[MO_cows]

We went out of the city far enough that land was cheaper. And we also accepted living in a smaller, older house in order to be able to afford land.

Real estate prices are still down in a lot of areas and foreclosures still coming on the market. Real estate is "on sale" and interest rates are low. You don't have to "owe the man for 30 years". Live beneath your means right now and build up all the cash money you can. You might find something you can buy without a mortgage at all, or with a shorter term..

[Yvonne's hubby]

When buying a piece of land, always remember this.... at the bottom of the deed the owners transfer the property to you.... and your heirs.... FOREVER! How long will that 20k automobile last... how long will even a well built house last? land is cheap, at double the asking price whatever it may be! 2k per acre an hour out of OK city? dirt cheap!

[jwal10]

I rented 14 acres when I was 12, I already had 60 sheep and 20 cows, a Farmall B and some equipment. 2 years later I bought it and every year added to it. I had 1000 acres of farmland in 6 years and then bought 1 parcel of 1200 acres of timber and meadows the next year. Sold out in '92. The 4 acres we call the farm now came in a trade for 2 cow/calf pairs I was given as a Christmas present the second year I worked for a little cattle ranch. He gave them to me for a bonus for sticking with him for 2 years. I figured worth $1300.00 at the time. It had a small pond and an old barn with community water. I dug the pond bigger, stocked it and tore the barn down and used the material to build a small barn/shed. I built a small apartment in the loft and we have used it as a family camping spot/getaway since 1995....James

[joebill]

Wouldn't exactly call it a "farm", but in the y2k, we went looking for warmer country. Luckily, my business involved driving all of Arizona and New Mexico and parts of Colorado, so I saw most of the places I was interested in, first hand. Liked SW NM a lot, and did internet searches until I located a couple of places, then did a sales run down here.

This place was a mess, with a broken down hippie house, another building site, 2 good wells, power to both sites but no phones and no cell service anywhere nearby. 30 acres. The people needed to sell, but the place obviously was not worth much and everybody nearby hated his guts.

He wanted to keep 10 acres and live on it, but I really didn't want him for a neighbor, so I held out for everything or nothing. Price was $30K, and I didn't have that much, so we went to a title company for title insurance and an escrow company to handle the loan. Really simple. You send payments to the escrow company and they send the money to the mortgage holder, That is, the former landowner, that way nobody can make any false claims about payments either way.

As asoon as I had made a few $300 payments on time, he sold the note to people who buy those kinds of investments and the escrow company started sending them the checks. Phone company ran the phone and high speed internet lines 6 months after we moved in. Former owners didn't even know it was going to happen.

After a couple of years or so, we hit a few good licks in the money department and paid it off. Built me a new machine shop for making our products, then started the new house. No permits or zoning here, so built it as and where we wanted it. Did a lot of trading for materials, mixed and poured the concrete ourselves with help from the kids. Traded with a life-long friend for most of the timber and found a deal on siding remnants. Bottom line, 1000sf house for two, about $5k in materials and no labor. Then built me a 300SF office out back and are in the process of building wife a 450 sf office and fun room alongside.

Work zooms or drags as cash flow from business does ditto, but there is always progress. It's much easier to spend money on construction if we have a nest egg set back for emergencies. Really hard to dip into business working capital for construction materials. No food is as expensive as golden goose.

Most raw land and rural properties around here sell just that way, that is, owner financed. We had paid enough down to get them moved to their new circumstances, so it was a win/win situation for everyone......Joe

[simi-steading]

Originally Posted by Yvonne's hubby

When buying a piece of land, always remember this.... at the bottom of the deed the owners transfer the property to you.... and your heirs.... FOREVER! How long will that 20k automobile last... how long will even a well built house last? land is cheap, at double the asking price whatever it may be! 2k per acre an hour out of OK city? dirt cheap!

That's the way my wife and I looked at it.. we got land and a house for what a nice car would have cost us we might have gotten 10 years outof and been worth almost nothing..

[am1too]

Originally Posted by Yvonne's hubby

When buying a piece of land, always remember this.... at the bottom of the deed the owners transfer the property to you.... and your heirs.... FOREVER! How long will that 20k automobile last... how long will even a well built house last? land is cheap, at double the asking price whatever it may be! 2k per acre an hour out of OK city? dirt cheap!

I would say that is right. I am 45 minutes out an got mine at 1100/acre 10 yrs ago. Current asking prce is 3000/acre in my neighborhood.

[am1too]

Well I got real lucky. Mom was a don't wanter and would not list the property. I was tired of being treated like...... as a renter. So my deal was a 5 yr plan lease to own. Six years prior lost my house to forclosure. So I only paid the land price and not 3 times more to the banker. Paid cash for a camper trailer and moved in with no water, phone or electric. Took bout a month to get it together. The place did have a well and electric service. Still clearing trees. Need to cut bout another 500. Paid cash for everything including new tractor. I started with a 24" bow saw. My grass was thick and 20ft tall. Mowed brush with a string mower.

My best advice is do not hire locals for anything.

[Wendy]

We only have 3.5 acres. We rented here for about 15 years. We bought our property from the landlord's daughter who had gotten it after he died. She did not want the upkeep of the buildings. She still owns the 180 acres surrounding us. We got the house, barn, & a few other sheds. Enough for goats, rabbits, chickens, a huge garden, & some fruit trees. We paid around $70,000 for it all which was a good deal at the time. We have since remodeled & are putting up a garage in a week or so. Last appraisal was $135,000.00. We would like to have more ground, but it's enough for now. We have a 15 year mortgage & will pay it off early.

[Living Skies]

We got incredibly lucky, although at times we question if all the hassle would be worth it in the end.

We discovered our place through a wanted ad my wife posted. Our house at the time(which we still own) was involved in a disaster claim due to flooding and she posted looking for an acreage to rent and/or rent to own. She explained our situation and that once our claim was settled we would be looking to purchase. I never thought much would come of it but sure enough we were contacted by a couple who were moving from their current farmyard to a bigger house after an unexpected third child. The wife did not want to see her little house she loved rot away as many do out here so she convinced her husband to work on a deal with us and sub divide 15 acres off of the 1/2 section the house sat on(and he still owned). The deal was a one year lease where our rent for the first 8 months went towards a down payment and we would have financing in place at 12 months, the owner needed the majority of that time anyway to complete the sub division process.

Everything started off ok, pretty much the entire year went smoothly except for the part about the government giving us a fair settlement. Their take it or leave it offer ....10% of the value our house was appraised at 2 years prior. Didn't matter apparently that an engineer's report(commissioned by them) stated the house's condition was caused 100% by the flood damage. Bottom line....we now couldn't pay out our existing mortgage which was going to make obtaining financing for our farm pretty difficult.

In the end we did obtain financing even while sitting on a useless property which we'll have to bulldoze. The next problem started when the owner set our closing date, no problem we got our financing and were ready to go....oh wait, somehow the guy missed a few minor details. Like for one the property had been subdivided but he never thought it necessary to split the titles, our lawyer discovered this little detail and all of a sudden everythings on hold. Next he missed the detail that he still held a mortgage on the entire property along with his father who had cosigned and he now had to apply to have the subdivided property released from the mortgage(luckily he had enough equity to do it). All the time while we were finding out about this and it has been tied up in red tape he has been treating us like we somehow were responsible for all the delays. He never paid for the sub division so now they are after him and actually tried to come after us to pay it even though it was in our agreement that he was responsible. Overall he has just made our lives hell for the past 4 months and all due to his negligence.

Sorry for the incredibly long post but hopefully to end my story.....lawyer called yesterday and everything is finally finished!!! Within the next couple weeks we will finally own our little farm with a tiny mortgage for our area and amount of land which we will have paid off within ten years.

[CesumPec]

Originally Posted by am1too

My best advice is do not hire locals for anything.

I've had some major frustrations with a few locals, but over all, for $8/hr cash, I can get anything done and usually done very well, usually done better than I could do it myself.

Before I bought the place, I spent quite a few days getting to know all the neighbors. I made notes about who they were, what they do, phone numbers, kids, etc. Now I've got many new friends and if i need anything, I call a few people and ask "who do you know that can..."