What's the cost per acre in your area?

One lot right down the road from us is selling for 69,900 for 2 acres. Raw land! Right next to us is a raw, backland 10 acre piece being sold for 110,000 and they will get it. We paid about 3,000 an acre with all improvements when we bought our place years ago. Back then it wasn't "The Place" to build to get out of the city as yet. Now they are building these big, palacial homes in the woods sitting on a piece of wooded land. They turn their kids and dogs loose and allow them to get into trouble thinking that it is ok to do as they live in the country. 3 dogs were coming down from one of these houses and were killing everything in sight. One morning I chased them out of our yard and they went down the road and killed a families chickens then killed their little Beagle Hound right on their porch. The dog warden took care of them in a hurry. They were 2 golden retrievers and a black lab, all purebreds. Haven't seen them since. To us big land prices mean trouble's coming!

Question:

Are the prices that homes have been selling for reflective of the tax assessed value? Our home, according to the county, is valued at $174,000. In reality, it would sell for $300,000. This jump in what people will pay has happened in the last year.

Is this happening in other areas as well?

Early 90's...$18,500 for 58acres...at this same time i could have bought a house with over 100acres for the low $30K..i don't want to think about what the value would be today.

Now the land would go for about 2500+/acre in Southwest WI.

Do i see a bubble? i don't know, but i do see some extreme inflation! The prices seem to have moderated some lately (seem to be staying steady), but the only way they go down is if borrowing costs go up up up!

It is only a short matter of time until the artificial real estate bubble bursts and those with high dollar mortgages are in a world of hurt.... along with some of the rest of us. Even Alan Greespan has made comments on how high the bubble has inflated and should be curtailed.... so watch out it is headed to a place near you soon....

Here in beautifal Central Idaho, with its pristine? waters and virgin? forests and run down wilderness areas... private sales for bare ground go between 1500 and 7000 per acre... if there is marketable timber on the ground of course it goes for the higher dollar value most of the time..... however the $7000 per acre land has been on the market for at least 2-3 years now [no water power or telephone within 1/2 mile which is not a bad thing just not worth the extra dollars for a snow belt]. Put a 3 bed 2 bath house on 5 acres and you jump to between 125 and 200K for a house that my cost to build with materials bought locally would be around $35K or so depending upon the extras added in.

Then you get into the 4- 10 bedroom houses that the folks who moved in here with large families put up and you get outrageous figures being asked for 5 acres some as high as $600K and my cost to build some of the higher figure houses wouldnt be much over $100K... building materials really dont cost much once you get the basics covered so a person can build triple size for about double.... and most folks around here dont put up a garage.....

once you get into a farmable type ground you MIGHT be able to buy such for around $1500 an acre..... but usualy it is sold in 500 - 10,000 acres and the 3 large ranches have been sold and split up 35,000 acres, 20,000 acres and 15,000 acres and they had timber on those so a large chunk of that ground went to a couple larger sawmills. Anything that has a good portion of marketable timber and has had a mill cruise it will have a standing offer for cash against it just so the lumber company can have the stumpage.... log it off and resell the ground, which is fine but some of the ground gets left in a mess that is hard to deal with for some people at the price they are asking for it now.

there are 3 new realestate offices that have moved into this area in the past 6 months and another one being builtto be finished later next month..... If the bubble dont burst soon then we will see another rise in idiots moving in and demanding more services they were used to where they came from.... raise the taxes, clog the hiway and complain about the weather and wonder why people are bitter towards newcomers to the area..... so i rant a little... but $56,000 for 40 acres is not a bad value if it were here it would be double and gone nearly as fast.

William

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It is probably all over the lot, depending on where you are. If it is a recent happening in your neck of the woods, the tax folks will catch up very, very quick. Many cases of huge windfall profits for the tax man because many places do not adjust the tax rates to equalize the actual out of pocket tax payment to something like the actual dollar amount in the prior year. i.e., you need to decrease the rate to hold the actual payments somewhat steady.

Lots of angles to the problem. None of them good if you care about what you actually are paying for taxes. Many cities and towns get used to the new money and always cry poormouth for more. Can be lots of unintended consequences and might be the reason many people "Want to Get Away from it All".

Lots of actors can get involved. Like the banks would will write any mortgage but doesn't hold any of them very long. Horrible if you just want to continue to live in many of these places. Can be sort of good if you can take the money and run, provided you choose well.

As long as you only focus on the "Money" it sounds good. Focus on the problems and spinoffs progress can bring can make you wish houses were sold for kisses instead of money.

Talk about a bubble.

Well I already "Beat the Bubble" if it comes. Cashed out and ran. Sitting on the money and watching what I am starting to believe is the end game. Interest rates will be part of it. I think in many areas it has far outstripped the ability of the new suckers to ever play the game for any length of time. The start of the pounding the nails in the coffin was the bottoming of interest rates, huge reining in of the ability to constantly refinance and roll over a personally unsustainable process based on the family income. Lot of suckers in Boston couldn't pay the bills no matter how many jobs they tried to work. Dropping real wages for the working drones.

In order for the game to continue, you must believe in a price growth scenario. To be real you must then be able to answer all of the spill off questions of why it can continue. I will venture this may not be the end, but maybe the start of what could be begining of this market bubble's end. Your guess as good as mine, what is the scenario as the mood catches up with the reality. Beware any market when people start to talk about huge profits and why they will continue forever and ever.

You don't have to sell exactly at the top. Just soon enough that a suitable buyer can be found that can afford to buy your little piece of Heaven. Once / If it turns, they will become like hens teeth on the way to the "New Bottom".

For our 30 acres a couple of years ago - 20 acres cleared, 10 acres timber and creek setbacks, house, 2 barns (in really good shape), 1 outbuilding, well, water rights - we paid $345K.

Today, the 5 acre lot across the street from us - house, 1 functional barn, 1 barn standing out of habit (I wouldn't set foot inside the thing, a sneeze will bring it down), shallow well tapping ground water instead of the aquifer, patial water rights - is going for $250K and they'll get it.

The raw land in 5 acre lots just north of us is going for $120K. That's for a shared well and homeowner's association (guess which property boundary the guinea coop is located near? ). The acres are long and narrow so there's no getting away from the neighbors.

For comparison, our 2 bedroom, 1 bath, 800 sq. foot house on a corner lot in Seattle sold for $365K a couple of years ago. That house is now probably worth close to $500K.

We took the money and bought ourselves a really nice place with gently sloped fertile ground. Got my apples, my huge garden, my critters, and I'm not going anywhere.

Mine was $7000 per acre which was a (gag) _good deal_ because land out there is $10,000 per acre. Of course I got 2 acres that floods all the time so it wasn't really a good deal after all.

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There is a parcel off our road being offered for sale - 58 acres for $5 million! This land is wooded, was probably last cleared around 1900's.

Here's the listing

Location location location. Unimproved brush (no rootplows) with no water, no utilities, will go about $500 an acre here. Surround that acreage with high game fence, stock it with trophy class animals and its a different story.

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I'm in the process of paying $3800/acre of Arkansas mountaintop pasture. Did a lot of looking and anything less was un-useable rocky mountainside! There's a lot around there for a lot more than that also.

Western WA - most recent sale right down the street from our primary residence = 9 acres for $1.2 million.

Rural property in the country purchased last year for $3,000 per acre.

Wayne

In this area, outside Huntington, WV, the land goes for around $1,000 to $1500 an acre. I thought we got a pretty good deal on our place. Two story 120 year old farmhouse w/4 bedrooms, large pond, 15 acres of partially fenced land on top of a ridge and one barely standing barn for $80,000. However, we have since found an old fruit orchard with apples, pears and cherry trees-still producing! It needs alot of work, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

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Here in Austin it goes between $30-120k! That's one of the reasons why I'm seriously considering moving out..I've said this before but I'm gonna move!

Are there jobs outta there for machinists? Am thinking of going back to school for that but would rather live in a rural area and work as a machinist.

Ted

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Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
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Merrique

Are you in WV or OH. Sort of the thing I have been looking for. Really think I want to avoid WV, reminds me too much of MA in a lot of their taxes. I know they are available on the OH side of the river. Want to be up a bit in elevation too. Those flood water scare me to death. Plus as I am finding, a bit of height is nice for summer temperature and humidity.

H,mmm, if you are retired and have a place in both WV and OH, do you have to pay WV taxes, get screwed around with your cars, etc????? My country place COULD be in WV. Maybe, huh.

Alex,

I guess I should know this since I've been on this forum for a while now and have seen your posts before, but are you Canadian? How does a U.S. citizen buy land in Canada? Even if they let you buy it, do they let you live there?

I guess if you are a billionaire you can live anywhere you want to, but if a person's net worth is say under a million dollars, I don't know if it's possible to live anywhere you want (outside the U.S., if you're a U.S. citizen).

depends on location. but overall it has skyrocketed here in the last few years. i bought a 1.34 acre lot on the main body of Lewis Smith Lake in 88 for 12,000 and now right next door to mine they are going for 45,000 and up. yep i am selling lol now out in the county off the lake i gave 1,ooo a acre eleven years ago and just sold a five acre parcel for 34,000. it seems to be about 5,000 a acre in the county i live in and surrounding areas. old reclaimed strip pit can be had for about 1,000 still and some land is over 10,000 a acre but discounting the lake its around 5 and acre on average.

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What we have here...is a failure to communicate.

I'm an hour NW of Atlanta, and raw land is now going for a minimum $15K an acre, oftentimes much more. My brother and I purchased a 40 acre tract on Lookout Mountain in NE Alabama three years ago for $850 an acre, most of it usable, forrested land. I bought a 100 acre tract in New Brunswick that lays much better than either the Georgia or Alabama land for $150 an acre. It had been clear cut but did include an old farm house with several acres recently in cultivation.

In 1996, land around here was $500-$1200 acre. Now it is $5000-$8000 an acre.

I'm in North Alabama, looking from middle of North Alabama to the North East corner of the state ..... so far we have seen land for as little as $1000 and as much as $8000 per acre. Depends on what it is, where it is and how much of it you want.
We're still looking

Here beachfront can go for as much as $70,000 per LINEAR ft of water. River is a little less - around $10,000 per linear foot.

Inland with no water averages around $12-14,000 per acre with no improvements and you can get a boat in during a hurricane. Wetlands (which doesn't neccessarily mean water is near) run around $10K per acre - this means you can drive up a driveway approx. 6 mos out of the year...the rest of the time you use monster trucks or boats.

Water tables average 2 ft underground....makes drilling wells interesting.

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