Land Prices

[tytower]

I was just sitting here wondering what to do next.

I started buying my first home back in my twenties and my wage was $200 pw and my house cost $30,000 . Each 10 years the house price seemed to double but my wages just didn't keep up.

So in
1974 house =$30,000 wages= $200 = 150 times weekly wage
1979 house =$80,000 wages= $350
1989 house =$160,000 wages= $600
1999 house =$400,000 wages= $850
2007 house =$800,000 wages= $1000 =800 times weekly wage

now if this keeps up in 2017 the house will be worth 1.6M and my wages (If Iwas still working would be about $1300 .


What I'm getting at is you can only repay so much from an average wage and property here is now well past that affordable sum . We must run out of room to pay for our homes so this has to pull back the price of homes.

This is in Australia where house prices have been Booming and look like continuing. This is different to the sub-prime market thing . $1 AUD =80cents USD

I see property prices peaking out after 50 years at around the levels now. Anybody got any thoughts they would share with me on this ?

I'm wondering whether to cash up now and stick it on the short term money market for the next 20 years or keep it in property. Sure as Flies on sh I wont be able to borrow any more money at my age and the repayments would be impossibly high if I could.

 

[backhoeboogie]

In '78 I went to look at lake lots here on the local lake. Got a free ceiling fan for going. $4,500 for a half acre on the lake. That seemed rediculous. Why didn't I buy ten lots?

In '94 I bought 8 acres across the road from me for less than $10K. No improvements on it. Not even a fence. I quarried 365 tons of limestone off of it, hauling it out 5 tons at a time. You can fill that little dump trailer with top soil for $12. I'd haul a 5 ton load and sell it $225 wholesale and spend $12 on the return trip. We pulled out cedar poles as long as 35 feet and up to 2 foot diameter, arrow straight. Lots of fence posts less than 20 foot long. In '99 the county had it on the tax roles appraised at $45,000 and me paying $1400 a yeat in taxes. I dumped the property AND DIDN'T RETAIN MINERAL RIGHTS!!! The the mineral rights would sell for over $100K if I had retained them. It would lease for $2500 an acre and 25% royalty.

As of right now, it is good to have bought what I did when I was 20 years old, and to have retained what I retained.

 

[dun]

In '97 we bought 160 acres of good timber for 61k sold it in '03 for 123k. The people that bought it logged and have it listed for 325k and there are qactually idiots looking at it now at that price. I'm hoping they get smart (and I get lucky) and they bring the price down to around 200k. I'ld snap it up in a heartbeat.

 

[Just Curious]

Linda and I went over to northeastern Washington for one of our daughters baby shower... I was looking at the classifieds from their town and was amazed by the land prices...
Of course they weren't what they were 20 years ago, I'm sure... But compared to here in Montana, they were pretty inexpensive! About 1/10... I saw acreage listed for $1000/acre... You won't see that around this part of Montana... Maybe in eastern Montana.. But the topography is very similar to our area...

 

[Brute 23]

Ya it is gettting very hard for the average person to buy a nice house,,, and impossible to pick up land worth a flip for any thing.

Recreation use is driving land up...

Ever heard people debate "supply and demand" vs "some thing is worth what some one will pay".

Land is no longer working off the "supplay and demand" theory. The demand is still the same, but you have a different level of income coming in to buy now.

Its like when some one sees a possible buyer pull up in a nice car the price goes up... that is exactly what realtors are doing right now.

 

[TheBullLady]

Its like when some one sees a possible buyer pull up in a nice car the price goes up... that is exactly what realtors are doing right now.

Hmmm.. don't know if I understand that remark exactly, but I'm guessing it wasn't meant as a compliment.

Land prices unfortunately are driven up when people actually pay higher prices for the land. Supply and demand is correct. Realtor's don't set prices, BUYERS do.

 

[Crowderfarms]

Land around here varies from 3,000 an acre and up. Nothing is cheap anymore, because our secret is out about low land taxes, and no State Income Tax.The folks that always laughed at us and called us dumb "Hicks" want to live right beside us. :lol2:

Not to mention the Californians that think we need to abide by their whacked mode of 'thinking".

 

[I luv herfrds]

Well Just it is pretty bad when an out of state person comes in and pays $1000 an acre for land valued at $200 an acre. He wanted his own private hunting spot.
Let's not forget our local celebrity the Toilet Paper Arsonist. Bought up the chunk of CRP and then lit up 2800 acres.
Prices are not the cheap over here anymore. A person can not buy land to farm or ranch anymore because of the price.

 

[tytower]

Its like when some one sees a possible buyer pull up in a nice car the price goes up... that is exactly what realtors are doing right now.

Hmmm.. don't know if I understand that remark exactly, but I'm guessing it wasn't meant as a compliment.

Land prices unfortunately are driven up when people actually pay higher prices for the land. Supply and demand is correct. Realtor's don't set prices, BUYERS do.

Depends where you start in
Seller lists -Realtor suggests price -seller goes high - sits and waits -don't come down much in the past. Takes it off the market waits ,things move -puts it back on the market at twice that amount again and waits again .

I reckon thats what the majority were doing . Only the desperate were dropping their price . That might change now I think and might be a lot more desperate people. After all you would not sell at a price if you think you might get a lot more by waiting.

My opinion only but its hard to get a big picture without being a Real Estate Agent with a lot of branches feeding in data- Every Realtor is gonna tell you that this is the best time to buy- right now

Benn that way for 50 years I've seen so far

 

[TheBullLady]

lol.. I AM a Realtor. I've been selling ranches in Texas for 12 years.

I always tell a potential seller what I think it will bring TODAY. Then we negotiate the listing price based on their motivation to sell, time frame, etc. etc. I don't take listings that are way above what they'll bring. It's a waste of my time, effort and money.

 

[tytower]

heard on a local radio station a Dairy Cattle Farm on the South island of New Zealand sold for $50,000 a hectare . Thats about $$20,000 an acre NZ or about US$15.000 per acre.

Where I am now is about US$9,000 per acre right next to the Great barrier Reef

 

[Stocker Steve]

Linda and I went over to northeastern Washington -- compared to here in Montana, they were pretty inexpensive! About 1/10... I saw acreage listed for $1000/acre... You won't see that around this part of Montana... Maybe in eastern Montana.. But the topography is very similar to our area...

To many southern Californians in Montana... We get a few western ranchers who would sell out and buy back "cheap" land in central MN. They have issues with the winters and the taxes, but some of them thought Californians are worse and stuck it out.

Meadow sells for about $1,200 an acre, plow ground sells for about $1,500 about an acre, and popple thickets sell for about $2,000 an acre (some people really value a place to hang their tree stand). You can actually cash flow the plow ground in sometimes. I think 2008 will be a good time to buy with the way the housing market is going.

 

[dun]

At auction today. Fairly remote piece of land, 109 acres fairly decent hay gorund $1,350 /acre, 53 acres, 20 hay field grown up in scrub brush the rest in logged of timber $1,150.acre, 109 acres logged off timber, 2 big hollers running down through the middle $1,100/acre. Didn;t stay for the other 400 acres, figured it was WAY out of my price range.

 

[Wewild]

Mostly $5,000 to $10,000 per acre for raw land. 25k plus for nice housing developements

Recently, 168 acres of flat pasture and hayfield went under contract for $27,000 an acre.

 

[usernametaken]

Well Just it is pretty bad when an out of state person comes in and pays $1000 an acre for land valued at $200 an acre. He wanted his own private hunting spot.
Let's not forget our local celebrity the Toilet Paper Arsonist. Bought up the chunk of CRP and then lit up 2800 acres.
Prices are not the cheap over here anymore. A person can not buy land to farm or ranch anymore because of the price.

I think maybe you just said it. It is not just the effect of supply and demand, which I think is still valid, but also the effect of land USE. A lot of the demand for larger parcels of rural land is no longer for farming/ranching. At least not here. What I believe has driven up the land prices here in my area are the corporate executives.

Soapbox: Years ago when I worked at a bank the guys had to have a hot air balloon. Now tell me what the heck a hot air balloon has to do with banking. And tell me how happy the lower level management was when we got no bonus that year because the profit had been spent on a hot air balloon and they tried to tell us we didn't make money when we knew dern well our numbers were the best in town.

Now it is not hot air balloons - it's 4 wheelers, bunk houses and hunting. They come in from Nashville and Atlanta and buy 300 - 500 acre parcels, pay outrageous prices and we are stuck with the " new " market value created by their demand. We used to sell the stuff for $300.00 / acre and they'd whine about lending on that. Now they are paying $3000.00 / acre for useless land that they heard someone killed a big buck on or has a bobcat on it. And the land that is not useless goes up accordingly. They go home after their adventure and we live with the prices.

I don't know what you do about it, except it feels like it must all crash and burn at some point.

That guy on the front of this site - the Pitts - he's pretty funny sometimes. His latest is on how you know there is too much money.

 

[usernametaken]

At auction today. Fairly remote piece of land, 109 acres fairly decent hay gorund $1,350 /acre, 53 acres, 20 hay field grown up in scrub brush the rest in logged of timber $1,150.acre, 109 acres logged off timber, 2 big hollers running down through the middle $1,100/acre. Didn;t stay for the other 400 acres, figured it was WAY out of my price range.

Gee Dun. I knew I was in the wrong place. Those prices don't sound 1/2 bad after what I've looked at the last 3 years. Except that part about the two big hollers. I found a place once, sounded just perfect, did a driveby, called the realtor and said how much open ground is there ? Answer was pretty much what I could see around the house. ( that being about an acre.) So, how much of it is timberland ? Oh it is most all timber land. Is what you are calling timber land what I call RAVINES ? I would have needed rock climbing equipment to repel down to the bottom of the property where 98% of the acreage was and then climbing equipment to get back up, over and over again. Not sure a goat could have survived there . :lol:

How do you advertise Ravines and Hollers as farmland?

 

[Stocker Steve]

At auction today. Fairly remote piece of land, 109 acres fairly decent hay gorund $1,350 /acre, 53 acres, 20 hay field grown up in scrub brush the rest in logged of timber $1,150.acre, 109 acres logged off timber, 2 big hollers running down through the middle $1,100/acre. Didn;t stay for the other 400 acres, figured it was WAY out of my price range.

Gee Dun. I knew I was in the wrong place. Those prices don't sound 1/2 bad after what I've looked at the last 3 years. Except that part about the two big hollers. I found a place once, sounded just perfect, did a driveby, called the realtor and said how much open ground is there ? Answer was pretty much what I could see around the house. ( that being about an acre.) So, how much of it is timberland ? Oh it is most all timber land. Is what you are calling timber land what I call RAVINES ? I would have needed rock climbing equipment to repel down to the bottom of the property where 98% of the acreage was and then climbing equipment to get back up, over and over again. Not sure a goat could have survived there . :lol:

How do you advertise Ravines and Hollers as farmland?

Ravines are worth more than farmland here. Some folks like to build big houses with walk out basements on them. There were three built in or next to my deer hunting land recently -

one by a retired contractor
one by a family that got a big insurance settlement
one by a guy that sends his wife to work at the hospital each morning

I always thought a big pole barn was a sign of success but apparently others want 4000 sq ft to heat.

 

[dun]

Ravines are worth more than farmland here. Some folks like to build big houses with walk out basements on them. There were three built in or next to my deer hunting land recently -

one by a retired contractor
one by a family that got a big insurance settlement
one by a guy that sends his wife to work at the hospital each morning

I always thought a big pole barn was a sign of success but apparently others want 4000 sq ft to heat.

Around here they just use a hill side. Most of the hollers around here would be fall out basements rather then walk out basements.