Seriously considering purchasing some land for hunting and a good family getaway in the next couple years. Land costs are high, so looking at some ways to make some money off of the land to help subsidize the payment. Cattle and hay were the obvious ones that come to mind (as well as leasing to hunters- which I would prefer not). What kind of income can come from those types of sources? The more income potential, the more land I’ll look at buying. Appreciate any advice and insight.

I sell land for a living so I’ll offer my insights:

You can produce an income from land from several avenues:

Raising livestock

leasing the grazing rights

Leasing the hunting rights

Oil or other mineral royalties/production ( must own the mineral and be in a producing area)

Wind farm

Solar farm

Farming/leasing the farming rights

Agri-tourism


Issues arise with all scenarios….I’ll use my personal property as a example:

I don’t want to raise livestock, so that takes that away. I could lease the grazing rights for prolly $3.00/acre but would only cover my property taxes and would be a burden on the land.

I bought the property so my family could hunt and I’m not interested in leasing the hunting to make a few thousand bucks a year

I own no minerals and am not in a producing zone so oil revenue is not an option.

Am not in a an area where they are erecting wind farms ( thank God)

Am not in an area that has transmission lines were a solar farm would be feasible, and the terrain is too rugged.

Unless we have a viable use for a good rock crop farming is gonna be a non-start.

So that leaves Agri-tourism. I could Air BnB my property during the off season…would make more money than I would from any other type of avenue but I would have strangers on my property, would have to up my liability insurance and I couldn’t pop in and out when I wanted, I would have to plan my trips around what guests I had scheduled, which is a big negative as I’m usually here a couple days a week in the off-season. So that’s an option but not something I’m super excited about doing at the current moment.


Real hard to make significant money on a property buying in recent markets. You may be able to offset some costs in various ways but the margins are real slim. I used to farm some hay in a prior life, both on the half’s with the landowner and on some property we took 100% of the cut and it’s still an offset in terms of paying for the property, we never made much money, certainly not enough to be worth the headache when you consider equipment costs, fuel, time, etc.


The only thing I have found I could do to cover the note would be the AirBnB if demand was strong.

I think to rephrase what txtroph said was ------------ if you cant afford to buy the land to hunt on, then dont do it.

Trying to make any money that amounts to much is pretty hard to do unless you get very creative and or build a meth lab on it. Oil and timber harvesting is honestly the only ways that amounts to enough to mess with other than the traditional hay and or grazing rights and that’s pretty much just to keep the AG Exemption’s going. I look at land from an investment standpoint, if your needing income from it to make it work then your probably asking for trouble IMO. Wind and Solar farms weren’t mentioned because I wouldn’t even consider doing that unless a neighbor pisses me off real bad and I’m out for revenge which is highly unlikely.

I will say if you buy land you live on or close by then we have done fairly well growing certain tree’s we sell to nursery's but that comes with a serious learning curve and takes a pretty long time to see any profits, it takes baby sitting or at least keeping close tabs on them or you could loose everything in a short period of time. Something to ponder anyway..

Thanks for the insights. And I probably should have clarified that I wasn’t looking at making money, more just curious what options were out there to pay the taxes or reduce the cost of corn and protein. I would not ever purchase something that doesn’t completely fit the budget. Thanks again!

We have a guy that comes and bales hay off our property. It doesn't even pay the taxes. It just provides for a tax write off.

If you are investing in a good sized piece of property, and if you have the budget to do it, I would designate a section to build a drop yard. Depending on the location, there are guys that will pay upwards of $400 a month for permission to drop their one rig for home time and only using it on the weekend, maybe not every weekend at that.Bigger companies will pay big $$ for a place to drop trailers and “secure” is a relative term. You would not believe the place I have seen big companies using for a drop yard. Just a few acres it does not have to be huge.

You’d have to fortify the ground somehow. I know there is a right way and a wrong way to do everything, I have seen and used places that were little more than a fenced off piece of property with the top soil removed, and crushed rock spread around. Some places even worse than that, where erosion has ruined it so bad that someone will occasionally roll a rig or slide off into a ravine. Just crazy stuff.

In fact you could become a wealthy man just building a drop yard in a vacant lot somewhere if you have a good location. If I had good credit I’d have already done it myself.

The trucking industry is the fastest way to get rich.

In all honestly for what your looking for if your buying a decent sized piece of land I’d decide on the type of exemption to best fits the needs and sell a few hunts a year for management deer or doe hunts to offset the feed bills. I do this on occasion and it works out pretty good if you have the herd to do it with. It’s advantageous for 2 reasons, 1 is it helps remove unwanted deer and 2 is you can use the funds for upgrades or feed bills/tax’s. You could still sell the hay to make a few bucks but if your buying it to hunt on I’d loose any thoughts about cattle myself.


Bryan that’s location location location and has to be on a main highway with easy access and equals commercial property when you start talking tax’s, we have a big lot we rent spots on a per rig basis but we’re only getting $150 a month per rig. I think we have around 96 renting this month currently but it sounds much better than it is. In a bigger metro area I’m sure you could get more but then again the lands going to be way more expensive as well.

Texas ag exempt land taxes are minimal.

To answer your question more money you make doing one thing limits the other uses. Example farming may have a great ROI then say Ranching, but farming limits year round cattle and limits hunting habitat.


Your best bet is cattle and farming(winter wheat) mix or timber sales

No matter what you do, you need an exemption or taxes will eat you alive. It’s like a luxury tax or having teenage daughters.

I started out with grazing then sold the cows when the wildlife exemption became available.

Now, I manage for deer, hogs, coons, bass, etc and taxes are fairly minimal.

When you have hunting and fishing property, friends are awfully easy to come by.

Even though I paid off my 133 acres a long time ago, there are still expenses of maintaining a second house; electricity and propane, problems with the water well, fences, poachers, neighbors, etc.
TAXES.
I would do it again.

This!
May want to check with appraisal district to see what is allowed as ag practices as it varies from county to county. Does the property considered currently have ag exemption?

If you think leasing hunting rights to a buncha [censored] is a PITA, just wait til you lease grazing rights for cows.

There is no good way to make any appreciable income from property.

The only way to make income off land is to buy it cheap and sell it high. I raise Nubian Ibex plus have a few cows to keep the grass down. I could make more working at a Whataburger part time.

When I did it, you could only get the wildlife exemption when going from a grazing exemption.

There is really no reasonable way to make significant income from the land that won’t impact your intended use or take up all of your time. How many acres are you talking about?

The statewide average for leasing out pasture land is $7.70 per acre. So buy 100 acres and lease it out for cattle and get $770. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze

If it was easy, everybody would be doing it

Exactly. Nobody buys land for $8,000 an acre & leases it for $8. That’s why I hear so many “cow men” complaining nowadays. The time of low land prices & low leasing (for anything) is long over.

Prices for deer leases are adjusting higher, but that’s for recreational use (meaning it doesn’t have to make financial sense). Leasing for cattle or farming is about over, because at the end of the day, that does have to make financial sense.

It works if you work it. It’s not about a big metro area, a lot of guys drop their trailers and bobtail home. A whole lot of rural areas trucking is the only kind of work you can do and live out there. Truckers and retirees. That, or ag. Lots of farmers run trucking and excavating businesses and stuff like that as well. It’s hard to live off just ag these days.

Of course, then you gotta deal with truckers. We can be a pain in the [censored]

I’d love to say I’m looking for a huge place, but 150-200 acres is probably as big as I could afford. Cattle is out (thanks for all the advice on that). Sounds like hay for ag exemption, unless wildlife exemption is immediately possible. Not sure if anyone would pay for a management/doe hunt on a place that size, but maybe. I think I could get some sweat equity out of friends to build up the hunting/management side and the enjoyment of spending time with them would be worth having them hunt with me. Then I just enjoy it for years and years and have something to pass down to the kids. Thanks again for all that have given some input.

Yup, that black crude is about your best bet, should you have it.

“A cow only makes money standing in the shade of a pump jack”

Crime does not pay, neither does ranching.

You can make money off land but it’s usually a long term process and mostly in appreciation. Buying hunting/ranch land will afford you a property tax exemption which reduces your fixed holding costs by 90% vs. most other real estate investments. If you buy anywhere but the very top of the market you’ll generally see a minimum of 2-4% annual appreciation over any given 10-20 year time period.

With interest rates doubling over the past year, and lenders tightening credit requirements, this should continue to put pressure on current land prices and I’ve already seen a lot of price reductions of 5-10% in my area over the past few months. I think then next year will be a good time to be looking at buying land. Just find the property that meets your location and budget needs and enjoy and hold on to it. You’ll build equity over time and can sell it for big profits next time prices spike.

There are some other items that you need to look at before you buy any land.
1. is it AG exempt.......if not walk away.
2. Does it have electric.........cost of bringing it to the property could be prohibitive.
3. Does it have water..........same as electric or digging a well.
4. Fences....what shape are they in.
5. Tanks....got any water for wildlife on your property?
6. Land gets cheaper the farther you are from metroplex. How far are you willing to drive?
7. Cost of building a house or bringing in a trailer to stay in or staying in near by motel.
Even with all these headaches, it is worth it to own your own dirt.
My best advice is to buy something a couples of hours from the big city that is Ag exempt. keep it that way
by raising hay if you can. If not change it to wild life exempt. Then enjoy all the hard work you are going to
have to do and the fruits of your labor.