Recently spoke to a land realtor out of the TX Cross Timbers region about availability and current pricing of properties for sale and he shared some really interesting tidbits with me. He explained that the recent few years tripling, quadrupling, even 5x+ increases in price per acre for land sales can be directly traced to the impact of both COVID and BLM riots. He basically explained that during this time frame, there was a "run on the land market" by urban folks, primarily out of DFW wanting to escape the city sprawl and more experience the rural lifestyle. He said for 3+ years things for realtors were great, high sales commissions and fees banked. Unfortunately, it hasn't sustained the past 12-18 months, namely due to limited sales inventory as well as increased interest rates. Landowners considering selling are mostly doing a 'long hold in hopes rates decline and prices continue going upward". He additionally shared with me that this situation has also greatly squeezed the private land leasing situation with reducing available inventories and rapidly driving up pricing the last few years. He said that he has found a total of 2 hunting leases personally over the past 25+ years, having grown up in the areas and been in land sales in the area the past 20+ years, knowing hundreds of landowners and hunters. To me, this is really concerning and somewhat alarming and quite possibly something rarely if ever seen before on this scale, what say THF?

It's all way over my head and i never understood why people started paying the prices they did for land. Land was high here at 3k an acre and now for 1 acre its as high as 52k. You want 10 acres, get ready to pay about 300k. Luckily i bought in 2017 because i have no clue how our kids will ever make it like we have.

How often have you seen someone on here looking for a lease and they say "within 2 hours of DFW" or some other urban center? There's still land and leases available if you're willing to put in the miles.

More available, yes I'd agree but certainly not as available and certainly significantly higher pricing than 5+ years ago.

The guy across the road says he's got a contract on his 322 acres. He was asking 2.15M. Who knows what he agreed to. North Kimble County. He had it just for hunting. Nobody's running cattle. 'Haven't heard "moo" in a couple of years. A sheep or a goat isn't around for miles.

Rural land ownership will continue be desired.

Leasing land for hunting will continue to trend downwards, especially the year long family type leases we all grew up with

What is going to continue is outfitted package hunts where the landowner can sell X amounts of hunts to offset costs, and he doesent have people at their place 3 months out of the year.

I’ve been selling ranches for a long time. Seen many lease hunters lose out due to a sale. Never seen a landowner buy a tract and keep the lease hunters for more than a season and never seen one take on a season leasee, save for 1 guy who bought an adjacent pasture and let a outfitter lease and then sublease.

Agree with the selective hunts as opposed to annual, even seasonal leasing becoming more the trend...

Best way to look at it, is comparing a long-term residential rental to an Airbnb

There will always be a market for land. There is always an opportunity to buy and increase your wealth through real estate. I can’t tell you how many times people have said “you were lucky to get in before the prices skyrocketed”. First, luck had nothing to do with it. Second and more important, it’s exactly the same opportunity right now.

1. Control your spending and save a down payment (I refused to have a car payment).
2. Do your research and find unimproved land you can service the note on.
3. Buy it with a land bank loan.
4. Improve it yourself over 5 years.
5. Do your research again (really you should never stop)
6. Sell your original property for a massive profit (it’s a given if you did good research).
7. Re-invest through 1031 exchange in a new unimproved place.
8. Repeat the above until you have all the income producing properties you want.

Doesn’t even take 10 steps.

Based on what I've seen both firsthand and on social media, the cost of private leases has pushed a lot of hunters to public land, with some excellent deer being routinely taken.

I’ve done this exact thing. Even down to the 240k mile truck with no note

THF's "Public Hunting" forum does not prove out routinely taken....

Maybe seldomly taken

Those 8 steps are not nearly as easy in today's money world. I agree it can be done but again NOT AS EASY! I paid from 750.00 to 2000.00 an acre for all of my farms that will easily bring 15K per acre WITHOUT the mineral rights which I got when purchasing. So IF this should continue land bought today at 15k per acre would have to increase to a minimum of 120,000.00 per acre to get the same results and I do not see that happening JMO.

I saw lease prices going up rapidly in the mid-late 90's. I was tired of the leasing game so I started buying land in 1998. I was real lucky to buy 5 ranches that bordered each other (bought them over time, not all at once). Prices were a lot cheaper back then and I feel for the folks looking to buy land or find a lease. It's changed a whole lot in my area since 1998.

Agree Stompy, 300-800% increases in land pricing in 3-5 years is not what I've ever seen or heard of before....

With the prices of land and leases hunting is becoming a rich man's sport. I'm 75 years old. I'm still able to hunt but I can no longer afford it. My 28 year old son loves to hunt but he didn't step foot into the woods this year. I really feel sorry for the younger people. They can't afford houses, cars, and hunting.

You're right, it's definitely turning into a rich man's sport.

They can't afford houses, cars, and hunting.

Younger people make decisions on how they spend their money.

Is a 2400 square foot house needed versus 1600? That size house worked for many years.

Is a $100,000 truck needed when a 50,000 will get you down the road.

Are fancy phones needed, society worked fine without cell phone. What does a 6 year old need a phone for?

Are tattoos needed?

Folks can afford what they want to afford.

I hunt in northern Erath county. There are several properties that I drive past on my 3.5 miles caliche road I exit onto. I looked on the CAD website to see who owned these properties that no one lived on in one of the most rural parts of the county. All of the landowners had addresses in areas all over the metroplex. They had all changed owners in the past 10 years, and none lived on these properties. I also check lots of properties (acreage) that sell just to see who buys them and it is almost never a local person. Most of the time it is someone from California or one of the other western states (Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado). I'm thankful that my landowner`s land has been in his family for over 100 years and it means more to him to keep his family's land than to reap the benefits of cashing in. His cousin is the same way and owns 3K acres that surrounds us.

Correct TPACK, more and more land statewide is selling off to those well off lately residing in big cities, out of state or solar and wind company investors' pockets, I've seen this explosion of ownership in Young county to this end over past 5+ years.

If only it were this simple to explain, most of the tens of folks under 30 I work with and know aren't driving 100K trucks, let alone 50K trucks, nor do they live in houses, most either still live at home with parents or in apartments with often one or two roommates to offset 2 bedroom rent of 2-3K monthly. I will concede many have the latest Apple IPhone but that to them is considered more necessity than luxury in today's social media lifestyle. What I can affirmatively state, most are not worrying about how to pay for a $4-5K gun hunting lease out of their $85K annual salary jobs on top of all their other expenses.

I have a feeling I may be looking for a new lease this year as the LO passed 1 1/2 years ago but his wife wants to stay on the property. She already sold off the equipment and leases the grazing rights to a neighbor. Her DFW residing daughter wants her to move in with them. We’ve been there 10 years and would stay forever if possible as we’ve been treated very well. Just the wife and I now hunt on the property and not looking forward to searching for a similar setup.

I do not know of anyone leasing property for hunting around here anymore. The places that actually border me have been divided into 25-acre type parcels. There is a 1000-acre place that used to do hunting for WT and exotics that removed all the exotics and now just runs cattle. Others have HF and are either doing exotic or trophy type WT. I just see how many WT I want taken and get hunters to come out and do that. I used to take care of a place where I ran cattle. A very old lady owned it and leased it out to 3 hunters. I had to put up with their crap. My cows were eating the corn. My cows tried to kill them. They tried to put blinds on the fence line. The list goes on and on. I finally got tired of the crap so I paid for the lease myself and brought out a few hunters and took the number of deer I needed to pay for the lease. Problem solved. State of hunting in 5 years? Hard to say but I believe the days of year around leases are coming to an end. If you can afford to buy a place at today's prices you sure don't need the lease money.