Anyone on here use a lease broker/can recommend a good one? I remember back in the day when I was a little kid I would ride with my dad to go meet the broker to look at leases. That was before the internet lol. I've been combing through craigslist for months now and by the time I would have the ability to get away from work to look at a lease its gone. Any help would be great, thanks.

I would not trust an in-between man when leasing a place to hunt. I would deal directly with the LO if I was leasing. Only way I would lease from a 3rd party is if he was a biologist or had a long list of references. Happy references. If you know the guys name, Google it. That will tell you a lot about him.

Ditto - dont use a lease broker - check leasehunter.com - if one comes open you like call immediately - you have to check it everyday

Don't get too hung up on titles. Lots of land owners don't want to deal with hunters, so they get one of the original hunters to lease from him to be responsible for getting a group together. I would not get on a lease where the person filling the lease did not hunt on the lease pretty much all the time. If the lease manager hunts on the lease, the rules and expectations will be much different than if a lease broker is responsible for filling the hunters. Lease broker, you will see usually one time. Lease manager you will see most weekends of hunting season plus lots of other weekends. Lots of time, land owners don't have time or "want to" to lease their own land. The more land they own, the less time they have.

I have no problem leasing from a fellow hunter that leases the entire property from the landowner, and in turn leases his hunting rights to other hunters to get his cost down. If the person you pay or lease from hunts on the property I call him a lease manager. But, if it just some middle-man that leases the hunting rights, but doesn't personally hunt the property, and then charges a higher rate to hunters so he can turn a profit then I call him a lease broker. Working through a lease manager is common place and something I wouldn't think twice about, but working with a lease broker is something I would almost never do.

Growing up we always hunted with the same group. 3 or 4 families were always on the same lease. In most cases my dad was the "lease manager" and we used a broker to find the leases (most of the time). I would much rather deal directly with the land owner, but sometimes its hard to have time to look for tracts for lease, as well as frustrating to schedule and appointment and have the lease gone before your appointment comes around. Hoping I could find a reputable broker that people have had good experiences with.

Agree

It's not a big deal to use a broker or manager or whatever they are called for a particular piece of property. One of the best leases I was ever on, we NEVER dealt with the landowner as he farmed that out to someone he leased the livestock and hunting rights to.

Having said that, I will say it is important to at least find out who the landowner is and speak with them before you sign anything just to confirm everything is on the up and up.

A lease broker is nothing more than a realtor who makes money on every property he leases on behalf of landowners. They're really no different than a realtor who leases condos on the beach. A lease manager is simply a lease member who owns the relationship with the landowner(s) on behalf of all the other lease members. He is usually the one who collects money from the lease members and writes the check to the landowner, while taking responsibility for the actions for all lease members, including himself. He may pay the same amount as everyone else on the lease, or a lesser amount for managing the lease and the property, such as repairs and upkeep.

IMO, what is most important is that everyone signs and gets a copy of the lease agreement with the landowner. The agreement clearly defines how much is being paid by whom, who is allowed to hunt the property, for what period of time, what animals may be harvested, and what happens when someone breaks the rules.

I would never join a lease where I did not get a signed copy of the lease agreement.