Some good insight here.

As to Leasing, Don K summed it up: Those who can either afford to purchase large acreage OR inherited large acreage don't care about the comparably-small money Leases bring in. Not worth the hassle to them. The days of the farmer/rancher who lived/worked the land and leased to bring in a little cash, pay the taxes are just about over. Good "affordable" year round leases will continue to trend down in availability while demand will be up due to high land prices.

On Land Prices: Pretty well summed up by TxTrophy85 and others. As our society urbanizes, rural land within a "reasonable" drive will continue to increase in price, especially if there are towns with amenities (restaurants, wineries, shopping, etc) close by. The urban population will drive value. "Affordable" land will be that which requires a further drive than folks want to make for a "quick weekend trip."

We bought 24 acres in 2019. I initially thought I wanted 100 in the Hill Co (~4 hr away) but soon saw the wisdom in something 1.5 hr away near a town that my wife would enjoy as well and we'd use much more often. At the time I thought the price was insane, but did it anyway because I saw the trend. Now it's worth 3X that and we'll likely move there full time once kids out of high school here in Katy.

Do your research. Buy smart. Get in the game when you are able to. Waiting rarely results in lower prices (but may result in lower interest rates in next 12 months). My $.02.

TxTrophy, to my way of thinking it is junk, albeit damn expensive junk. It produces nothing but a getaway place to shoot, hunt and fish with taxes. But, the best financial deal I’ve ever done. Without the wildlife exemption, I couldn’t keep it.

I used to get a lot of mail from realtors and investors about it. Im 82 yoa and, sooner or later, the place has to go.
After paying a whopping amount of taxes, we would be able to go and do just about anything. I have the $ to do those things now but am financially conservative. I remember, many years ago coming out of a divorce dead broke. It took awhile to get financially secure and I’m not going back there.

Don’t agree about Covid and BLM being the driving force behind the land boom. That place has been increasing in value since I first bought it. About 25 years ago, I bought some adjoining 65 acres. Kept it about 5 years and quadrupled what I paid for it.

I think the real culprits are inflation due to political mismanagement/theft, migration to Texas and just a desire to get out of the city.

Actually I said it Dave as it was said verbatim to me by a very successful realtor to explain, just the last 5 year explosion in prices, not all price increases....I have no reason to doubt his honesty about it and have even heard others say it too