Creative ways to pay-off your farm

Too bad, just think of all the fun we could have with that much steel!!! LOL

they dont know that for shure
in fact they are just now starting up a structurd test to span 10 years to clear this up once and for all as it is now there is no real proof

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Don't complain, just do it

I think the people saying that timber harvests before the land is paid off are talking about land that is owner-financed vs. land that is bank-financed. The owners may restrict what you are doing until you pay it off but the bank is less likely to be picky.

The comments on it being unlikely to find a property that can pay for itself are reliable - unless you have some sort of "in" to find these properties before other experienced investors that look for these sorts of deals, they are going to be rare - but NOT impossible to find.

For the person that is not supposed to disclose the cell phone lease amount - it is probably recorded as a matter of public record in your county/borough - including the monthly payment amount. UNLESS the company got smart and the county/borough didn't require those details so the company instead recorded a summary /abstract that just states they have the agreed right to occupy & use the property as such for such-and-such term...

Cell tower payments seem to be based on volume of anticipated use. The cheapest one that I am aware of is for $600 per month. The referenced $600 lease has an escalation clause, after 5 years, predicated on the cost of living increase. I personally believe that a 3% annual increase will not keep pace with inflation over a 25 year period. The rule of 72 says that in 24 years that at 3% a current $500 per month lease will be generating $1000 per month.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

Nothing is recorded. It is a private lease!

Kathie

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www.littlebitfarm.net

Ok! Give it to me!

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The 7th Day is still God's Sabbath
ICOG7.ORG
Layton Hollow ADGA Nubians
Taking Reservation for 2015!

Talk to the bank about it, it depends. If you tell them so much money from the timber harvesting will go on the loan, they may allow it.

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The 7th Day is still God's Sabbath
ICOG7.ORG
Layton Hollow ADGA Nubians
Taking Reservation for 2015!

Actually we did this. It has paid for most of our mortgage and some years more. It is just one more form of farming - if you do it sustainably it goes on forever, beyond your life and beyond the mortgage for sure. That is what we do.

Just as importantly, if you actively farm or manage your timber then your property might be assessed at a current use values instead of 'best use' (condos on every 1/10th acre). This alone makes a huge difference in paying off your mortgage sooner since you can pay that money towards principle instead of being over taxed. {rant} It is wrong that they tax forest land and fields as if they were condos at all. Undeveloped land is an asset to the community (cleans the air, produces O2, processes CO2, wildlife habitat, etc). {/rant}

If you are worried about that don't use WiFi or a cellphone because you'll get more radiation from either of those than from a cellphone tower. The power of the radiation decreases with the square of the distance. Cellphone towers often run on small solar panels. They don't do that much power. The studies about radiation and cancer, which were inconclusive in the end, were about utility line workers around high tension power lines.

Other ways to help pay for the land are:

1. Pay down the principle as fast as you possibly can. Principle paid saves interest. Make sure your mortgage has no prepayment penalty and keep those points down.

2. Don't buy fancy stuff, new cars, etc. Live frugally. Use the savings to pay down the principle.

3. Get your fuel from your land. When you log there is a significant amount of pulp wood, firewood that isn't good enough for lumber. Use that to heat your home and save thousands of dollars a year. In ten years that amounts to a lot of a mortgage. Use the savings to pay down the principle.

4. Grow your own food on the land from veggies to fruit to meat. Use the savings to pay down the principle.

5. Don't over earn. If you over earn the government takes a bigger bite out of your ass in taxes. Instead spend the time saving on the things listed above. This saves money in the long run. Learn to do things for yourself. Use the savings to pay down the principle. (Notice a trend here. )

6. Wind power

7. Strike gold or diamonds.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

No one mentioned anything about water. I have a good running spring on my property . Can I get money for water? Maybe sell it to the bottling companies that want to say "spring water" on the label instead of purified?

Kathie - I REALLY doubt that - a big company knows if they don't record the lease then they can't prove they have a legal right to occupy the land if/when you sell! They almost always know to at least record an abstract that says the term & location of the property at a minimum. Can you search your legal description on a local government database? You might be surprised at what is recorded there!

Using your land to help pay the mortgage? Fruit trees, raspberries, sheep, selling on weekends at the farmer's market. Pine wreaths at Christmas? Big rocks? Sell them! Small livestock, eggs. IF there's an old building to tear down sell the "barn wood" to someone who builds things with it or try it yourself.

I refinanced my mortgage last year (6 years after tower lease started). Nothing came up in the title insurance or bank paperwork.

Kathie

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www.littlebitfarm.net

When we built this house we got a 10 year mortgage but arranged to make a payment every 2 weeks. It payed off in 7 1/2 years.

According to the telephone companys most cell phone towers that will be needed most are already in place. There will not be that much of an increase in them in the future. Even here in Alabama in the boonies there is almost complete coverage ifyou have a good provider and technology will continue to advance and the towers will be needed less and less. You are not going to get a lease in all probabllity unless you have a really unusual circumstance.

Well, I have a few ideas for trying to make some side money from our land, but since I haven't actually tried any of them, I don't know how profitable they would actually be.
1. selling pine straw. Not a huge money maker I guess, but I got the plans for a simple pine straw baler from the internet. Maybe a little side money.
2. Raising catfish in a barrel. I have no idea how to market this, but I believe that you can get 50 catfish to a barrel. Not sure.
3. Sell bait. When we were kids, my grandmother taught us how to catch nightcrawlers and we had a blast. She sold them for a dollar a dozen in the '80's. She made a ton of money doing this from her home. She just stuck a sign in front of her house and by fall, she had enough money to build a new porch and buy a new lawnmower. Not bad for walking around your yard with a flashlight.
4. Raising freshwater prawn. A man my father in law knows does this. He has a small shallow pond. He puts in the seed prawn(?) and waits 3 mos. and harvests. He makes thousands of dollars a year, so I hear. I've been meaning to check into this one.

About logging off-be careful! Around here in NC/VA when land is logged it looks like a bomb site (no selective cutting here) after which a great deal of erosion happens as well. Not suppose to but no-one seems to be overseeing these companies. The couple on the next piece has 100 acres that was logged, well now they want to sell some off but I think they are having trouble finding buyers since it's such a mess, only a very young couple could have the time. Another person I know in VA bought land and had half logged but again decimated with stumps, etc left-cost her 1k/acre to have it stumped, this is done with a dozer so all the topsoil is scraped off too. So if you are thinking about doing this I would strongly suggest that you live in the area for awhile and learn what the local practices are. For us going slower, making do and being as frugal as possible is sometimes difficult but being mortgage free is the best feeling I know of, so that's my goal. best to all, Liese

If you find someone willing to sell their land, without taking into consideration the value of the standing timber, water rights, or mineral rights, buy it quickly, or better yet, contact me!!!

A few rubes hereabouts sold their land (without advertising through the grapevine) and didn't consider the value of the timber or the minerals. One buyer bought 350 acres, sold the timber and cleared 300K. A cousin sold his land, and 'forgot' about the minerals... the minerals were/are worth 10x what the land was worth... his widow still cries thinking about their mistake, as she would be getting over a thousand a month on royalties.... It is nigh on impossible to buy land in a gas producing region With/minerals...

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

You've gotten a LOT of good advice and insight from many of these comments. We have some of the last virgin land around this part of our state, and own quite a bit of forrested land. We've been approached by loggers and turned them away. I figure if we decide to have a few trees logged, we can arrange it ourselves without a middle man making money off of us. And we won't allow many to be taken at once either. We love our woods and want to keep them as they are. We house a lot of wildlife here.

We get all our firewood from trees that fall naturally. We've only had to cut one live tree down and that was one that was looking as if it might fall onto the house. We're thankful we decided to do it because once it was cut, we saw it was being hollowed out by carpenter ants or something burrowing in it.

I have a distant relative who allowed a cable company to lease part of their land to install a couple satelite dishes on their farm. Ended up in their lease that they had to provide access to their dishes - which meant if it snowed, they had to plow. This wasn't too bad until the husband died. The wife ended up having to hire someone to plow for her (by this point she was pretty elderly). We've considered cell phone towers but would most likely end up with a similar situation. We keep asking ourselves - would we want that extra hassle? It wouldn't be too bad if DH weren't working outside the home.

We've considered installing windmills for generating power for ourselves. This would be a big financial investment for us, but through the years would end up saving us a great deal and helping us in our retirement years. We've also considered the possibility of contacting electric companies to see if they'd want to work something out, using our land for wind generators. But there again, we'd most likely have to "provide access" with a path so they could drive to the windmills... which would be located a long ways from our house... and some accessible only with a 4wd pickup... in good weather.

Another thing I've mulled around is the idea of building cabins on our land for hunters to rent. However, the idea of strangers with guns out on our property doesn't make me the LEAST bit comfortable. LOL.

So we're now considering the possibility of raising a few head of cattle... getting our feet wet with that. We need to come up with some sort of income producing ideas. We've both worked hard and done without a lot, so we could save every dime we could and finally pay our place off. But retirement years will require money and our income producing years will eventually be gone. So we're trying to plan how to cut our expenses for our retirement years.

If we could put our land to work for us without much work, it would be wonderful. So far, windmills seem to be our best option, due to the way our land is situated. Now I just have to figure out how to get that going.

Who is doing the study? The phone companies?

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Sheperd, There are on-going studies in the Netherlands right now of windmill projects. I don't know where to find the references, but will try to do so for you. I know one of the recent findings was that the mills are wiping out the bat population, and certain groups of migratory birds. For some reason they are attracted, and then killed by the blades. So pls. do some research and I will too. ldc