Anyone ever bought a large piece of land and split it up?

[npaden]

Okay, I’ve got what I think is a near perfect whitetail hunting property 100 miles from my house. 160 acres that I’ve had for 17 years now. Not looking to sell.

This week I got a cold call from a realtor wanting to buy it. Offered me almost 4 times what I paid for it and about 50% more than I thought it was worth. There has been a lot of wind turbines go up in the area and they have put a great big electrical substation in 1/2 mile from my place and I’m pretty sure whatever they are going to be doing with it has something to do with that.

I’ve always said this was investment property as well as recreational so I am seriously considering selling it.

So I’ve been looking for other property to make a swap and I’m starting to think my place might be worth what they offered. I can find property for as much as half the price per acre as what they are offering me but none of those really jump out and wow me as a recreational property. I would be going from my current 160 acres to 320 acres so more likely it would be worth more in the future than my little 160 would ever be but not sure it would be any better from a recreational perspective.

With all that said I have found a couple places that do wow me. The problem is they are way bigger and more expensive than I want. I would be willing to put some more money in to the pot but not that much more.

That has me wondering about buying one of those larger properties and then splitting it in half or even thirds and selling the other pieces.

Anyone ever done anything like that? I’ve always done the opposite, buy a smaller piece and then add other smaller pieces to it to make a reasonably sized property. That lets me buy in pieces that I can afford. Probably ends up costing me more in the long run because generally property is priced lower per acre the larger it is.

If I go that route it for sure will add a big layer of risk to the process. I would get up with a giant note on the property until I got the other pieces sold off. The upside is that I could somewhat choose my future neighbors and if I buy the entire place at $1,350 an acre and sell 500 acres off at $1,750 an acre that actually reduces the net out of pocket that I pay on the rest of it.

Oh well, this place is 1,105 acres and really about the perfect hunting/recreational property. Some serious whitetails on it. This is one of the smaller places in the area with some giant places adjoining it.

I’m probably thinking way over my head and I already have a ton of money in real estate with my place in Colorado. I don’t want to sell that.

So if anyone has done something like this I’m all ears. Going to call the realtor that has it listed on Monday.

 

[Salmonchaser]

Seems like you have a pretty good return on investment on your original piece. If it were me I’d buy that nearly two sections and figure to quadruple your money again. We carved off some of ours years ago and have regretted it ever since. Will Rodgers said it best “buy land they ain’t making any more of it.” I would go directly to the the wind turbine company in your area. I know folks here in Oregon who have made much more money from wind than they ever did with Cattle and wheat.

 

[Hem]

Okay, I’ve got what I think is a near perfect whitetail hunting property 100 miles from my house. 160 acres that I’ve had for 17 years now. Not looking to sell.

This week I got a cold call from a realtor wanting to buy it. Offered me almost 4 times what I paid for it and about 50% more than I thought it was worth. There has been a lot of wind turbines go up in the area and they have put a great big electrical substation in 1/2 mile from my place and I’m pretty sure whatever they are going to be doing with it has something to do with that.

I’ve always said this was investment property as well as recreational so I am seriously considering selling it.

So I’ve been looking for other property to make a swap and I’m starting to think my place might be worth what they offered. I can find property for as much as half the price per acre as what they are offering me but none of those really jump out and wow me as a recreational property. I would be going from my current 160 acres to 320 acres so more likely it would be worth more in the future than my little 160 would ever be but not sure it would be any better from a recreational perspective.

With all that said I have found a couple places that do wow me. The problem is they are way bigger and more expensive than I want. I would be willing to put some more money in to the pot but not that much more.

That has me wondering about buying one of those larger properties and then splitting it in half or even thirds and selling the other pieces.

Anyone ever done anything like that? I’ve always done the opposite, buy a smaller piece and then add other smaller pieces to it to make a reasonably sized property. That lets me buy in pieces that I can afford. Probably ends up costing me more in the long run because generally property is priced lower per acre the larger it is.

If I go that route it for sure will add a big layer of risk to the process. I would get up with a giant note on the property until I got the other pieces sold off. The upside is that I could somewhat choose my future neighbors and if I buy the entire place at $1,350 an acre and sell 500 acres off at $1,750 an acre that actually reduces the net out of pocket that I pay on the rest of it.

Oh well, this place is 1,105 acres and really about the perfect hunting/recreational property. Some serious whitetails on it. This is one of the smaller places in the area with some giant places adjoining it.

I’m probably thinking way over my head and I already have a ton of money in real estate with my place in Colorado. I don’t want to sell that.

So if anyone has done something like this I’m all ears. Going to call the realtor that has it listed on Monday.

It's a real pain to subdivide around my area. Lots of hoops. Can't be in a rush.
But then we have a little thing called family swap where you can divide and sell to a family member and bypass alot of the mumbo/jumbo. Never looked in to it, so I don't know if you can sell to a relative for a dollar, and then they can sell it at market value, or not. Obviously you have to have a solid understanding. Pisses the County off.

 

[mtmuley]

It's a real pain to subdivide around my area. Lots of hoops. Can't be in a rush.
But then we have a little thing called family swap where you can divide and sell to a family member and bypass alot of the mumbo/jumbo. Never looked in to it, so I don't know if you can sell to a relative for a dollar, and then they can sell it at market value, or not. Obviously you have to have a solid understanding. Pisses the County off.

Yeah. The family transfer. Bad idea here in Montana. mtmuley

 

[Hem]

Yeah. The family transfer. Bad idea here in Montana. mtmuley

Transfer...that's the word.
I've seen alot of people locally skirt due process.

 

[npaden]

I actually had a lease with the wind turbine place but they ended up skipping over me at the end of the run. The original plan was to put in something like 120 turbines and they ended up only putting in 100.

The problem with buying the whole place is that I don’t have an extra million dollars just laying around. I would have to borrow it and at current interest rates that’s going to add some expense to it.

I know around here 10.01 acres seems to be the magic number to keep the county off your back. I would be splitting 1,105 into either a 500 and 600 acre piece or a couple 300 acre pieces and keeping the 500 acres. I could do that on close to a straight across deal if I could make $300 or $400 per acre on dividing it.

Buying the whole thing and keeping it is very tempting but it would be a stretch financially that would limit other fun stuff we might otherwise want to do.

 

[mtmuley]

Transfer...that's the word.
I've seen alot of people locally skirt due process.

Yep. A couple shit box trailers sprouted up on some property near me. No covenants I bet. I might be a dick and call the county about septic permits. mtmuley

 

[antlerradar]

What kind of housing does the other property have?

 

[npaden]

No houses on any of it.

 

[mtmuley]

No houses on any of it.

Texas right? mtmuley

 

[Hem]

Similar to my neighbor building a hog pen right on our fence line when covenants state all structures 50' from boundary. Lucky for them the prevailing wind blows the stench at their house, and not mine.

 

[npaden]

Texas right? mtmuley

Yep.

 

[mtmuley]

Yep.

I'm sure a totally different set of circumstances than my part of discovered Montana. I'm no expert but having land is a good thing. Wishing I could get more where I am at. mtmuley

 

[Salmonchaser]

I actually had a lease with the wind turbine place but they ended up skipping over me at the end of the run. The original plan was to put in something like 120 turbines and they ended up only putting in 100.

The problem with buying the whole place is that I don’t have an extra million dollars just laying around. I would have to borrow it and at current interest rates that’s going to add some expense to it.

I know around here 10.01 acres seems to be the magic number to keep the county off your back. I would be splitting 1,105 into either a 500 and 600 acre piece or a couple 300 acre pieces and keeping the 500 acres. I could do that on close to a straight across deal if I could make $300 or $400 per acre on dividing it.

Buying the whole thing and keeping it is very tempting but it would be a stretch financially that would limit other fun stuff we might otherwise want to do.

It’s only money, easy for me to say. I don’t have it either.

 

[sccritterkiller]

You have to check the local jurisdiction requirements, could take county council approval, perk test, ect. Could be as easy as submitting the revised Plat map to records office. I would consult with a local RE atty in that area for the details.

 

[RemingtonRules]

I would be suspicious of an unsolicited offer. I would research the market and decide on a price you want, and let the buyers decide from there.

 

[npaden]

One of my neighbors has already sold to them and another is seriously considering it. The offer is legitimately above market. Speculation right now is that it is going to be some kind of modular bitcoin operation using the wind turbine power for cheap. The realtor told me that the reason the offer is above market is the proximity to the electrical substation.

 

[Letthemgrow]

If you buy the new piece I suggest owning it for two years before you entertain splitting it.
You might find out that you are quite happy with it just the way it is and would be willing to make some sacrifices in other parts of your life as a trade off.
And, what do they say? Marry the land, date the interest rate?

 

[npaden]

Called the realtor on the big place this morning. It sounds like a very nice place, but when it really comes down to it I'm not sure it would be worth the huge reach to make it happen financially. The actual process of splitting it would be pretty straight forward but there is a 2 mile deeded access road to get to the place and that would be an important detail to work out when selling it and he said the reason the quality of the deer is so high is that they just don't have the density so the ones they have are big. He said you would only be able to shoot a couple bucks a year off the entire 1,105 acres so if I split it up and the people I sell to are thinking they are going to be shooting a couple bucks and I'm thinking I'm going to be shooting a couple bucks that over time the quality of the deer is going to go down. Density is something like 10 or 15 deer per section. Running cattle is not going to help pay for it either, he said that area they are running 1 cow calf pair per 50 acres so I would be lucky to get $10,000 a year off a cattle operation on it.

Probably too big of a stretch and I need to keep looking at other places. I've found a couple smaller places but they are a little big further than I want to be driving. The current place is an hour and a half drive from my house and still a doable thing to make it down there after work on a Friday to have a sit in a blind or to make a half day trip to check on things or change out the batteries in a trail camera, etc. Seems like when you get much more than that it is going to be harder to make those types of trips work.

 

[kiwi hunter]

When you get what you're looking for I'd be interested in a swap hunt. Im in Australia and have hog deer and sambar.