Ep. 781: How to Buy a Great Deer Hunting Property with Jake Hofer

hunting ground. We've talked about leasing, We've talked about getting free permi, and today we are going to discuss how to buy a hunting property of your own, especially how to buy your first You know that very first property you take the leap on, takes some takes some nerve, it takes some guts, It takes a lot of planning, and for a lot of folks it is intimidating. So today I'm joined by someone who has a lot to share on this front. He is a real estate broker himself.

He's helped many people purchase their own first farms. He has gone through this process himself and bought a farm of his own too. And he is the host of the Land Podcast, which is all about helping people get the information they need to make a land purchase themselves, a hunting, deer related, recreation property, whatever it is you want. Jacoffer's got the information to help you do that. He's also the host of the Exodus Trailcam radio podcast. He's

part of the Exodus Trailcam company crew. He does a lot of great stuff. I am a big fan, highly respect his opinions, his perspectives. He's a great communicator about this stuff, and he really brings a lot to the table because, like I said, he's been on all sides of this equation. He's helped sell properties to people, he's bought property himself, and he's talked to all sorts of

different experts on this very topic. So we're going to get into everything from understanding, you know, what kinds of folks should be looking at buying property, and maybe who is buying property not right for We're going to talk about how to know when you are ready. We're going to talk about when's.

stuff along those lines. We talk about buying and flipping proper versus properties that you want to buy and keep for the long term with your family, if you are interested in purchasing a deer hunting property, if your own someday. You really should give this one a listen that all said, great episode. I'm excited for you us to hear this one. I'm gonna leave you with one quick update, which is

that this coming Saturday. If you're listening to this when it just came out, This Saturday, May eighteenth, twenty twenty four, We've got our first Working for Wildlife tour event is in Kentucky. It's kind of near London, Kentucky at the Daniel Boone National Forest. If you want to sign up, go to Dear Association dot com. Slash wf W that's Dear Association dot com slash wfw that's the National Dear Association's registration page for this event. This particular event is

in collaboration with them. We're gonna be working on some white oak restoration, some hunter access improvements, different things to help out public land and help out wildlife. If you are in the area, I'd love to see you.

and uh we'll have a good time. So for that all said, let's get to my chat today with Jake discussing how to buy a great deer hunting property. All right with me on the line now is Jake Offer. Jake, Welcome to the show.

So you find one that you like and tune in and pick up what you can. So I really appreciate that.

turns out well. I enjoy your guys. The stuff you guys do a great job across across the board, everything you're doing, Land Podcasts, Exodus, Trail, Came Radio, all the gear you guys are making. I just want to start it out by giving you guys all big kudos.

But you know, as I got thinking about it, it seemed like an oversight to not at least spend one good conversation here talking about that, you know, most in depth, the biggest investment of an access type of project, which is actually buying a piece of ground. And you know, when I was thinking about I've talked to different real estate agents over the years, and I know a lot of folks from a lot of different good agencies out

there in groups, there's a lot of good options. But you bring something unique to the table, and not that you know, not only are you a license broker yourself and you're helping folks do this, but you're also talking to a million different people through your own podcast about buying land. So you've got you know, firsthand experience, and then you've also become a student of the game and studying everybody else's so I think you can really give

us a unique viewpoint. And so where I kind of want to start it off is, you know, with an anecdote of sorts and that I've got a good friend who is always talking about, you know, how he wants to buy land. He's going to buy land someday. Every year he's like, I'm buying land, I'm buying land. This is the year, go to buy land. And then he never does it. And it's always because ah, things aren't right, or ah the Marcus crab, or everything's overpriced, or that

there's always something. And so the thing I'm curious about first is when is the right time? How do you know when you should actually jump off this cliff versus you know, holding your cars back? Because I think a lot of people for years and years and years have had the same question, maybe especially so right now. So what's your takeout the gate on that?

farm when I was twenty six. I saved literally every single dollar I could live, well blow my means, and even as soon as I got my down payment, I bought a farm. And all those emotions were the same exact things that were going through my mind when I was buying it. And I had helped other people purchase farms, and I kind of coach myself, like, because this is in the back of mind, Well, what if a better deal comes up? What if this other farm that is probably never going to sell, but what if it does

sell after I just deployed all my capital. Yeah, And so all those things went through my head and I bought it, and I've been super happy, and it's been it's been super rewarding. The market is appreciated since I purchased that. And even then, you know, land is very localized, right, and so you can go to the coffee shop, someone buys a piece of ground, there's chatter, oh my gosh, that guy crazy. Did you hear what he paid for

this farm? And then you just jump forward about five years in the future, which I can do now, and they're like, did you know he bought that for this right man? What a steal man? Why not buy that? And so that is this a common theme over time. So I think I think that those emotions in that thought processes for everyone. But I can tell you this the people I talked to and personal experience and talking to people that have been owning that's owned farms for decades,

and it's the same. I bought a farm. It wasn't perfect, but I got into it. I made it a little bit better, and then I decided I want to get closer to home, or I wanted something a little bit bigger. And it's the same exact person that would maybe not exact, but there's a lot of parallels to someone that says I'm not going to buy a house. I'm just gonna rent.

Everything's overpriced, I don't want to live there. And then versus the guy that saves up buys a two bedroom, one bath house, puts a new roof on it, puts new siding, updates the kitchen, and they're like, you know, our family's expanding, let's get a little bigger house, they sell that house and they go buy a little bigger house, and it's you know, fits their goal is better. And I think that same parallel can follow along when it

comes to land ownership. It's not a direct parallel, but a lot of the same thought process and everything else. Because even when you're house shopping right like, well, what if that house on the corner of so and so Street I heard they might sell and then they never do. Like so it's you know, not to ramble too long there, but it's it's a natural consumer and consumer behavior and also this human behavior that something better is going to come along when reality work with what's in front of you.

And you know, if someone has the down payment state up, they've done all the due diligence, they've looked at farms, and they find one that checks off enough boxes that makes you happy, buy the farm. Buy it. Because I'll tell you this too. It's like when you buy your first farm, you learn, oh, I would never buy a farm that has this type of access or this type

of neighbors. And if you wait forever and you you know, hypothetically, if you are just spune enough to be able to save up to buy that really big piece that you've always dreamed of. You might make a giant mistake because you didn't go through the proper channel of try on air throughout that process. So those are just some initial thoughts regarding that.

my own piece. And so I think for a lot of people, and this is maybe in a parallel as well as like for someone like Michigan, right like you, you probably jones to go hunt the Midwest, right mm hm. But for someone that grew up in the Midwest, like myself, you are already in a great location. You dream of owning land. So it's like there's so like for you, it would be leave Michigan, go to Iowa, and then once you're in Iowa, I want to buy a piece of ground because I want to have control over it.

I want to grow giant deer and have the best parcel on the face of the earth, which isn't always the reality of it. So I think, really what it is is someone that when I think is someone that wants to buy land, I think usually it is more than just killing a deer too, because you can go kill a deer in a lot of different locations. It's for someone that wants to spend their weekends working on

their farm. It's someone that wants to continue to self educate and learn how to make the habitat the best that it is for beyond white tail, and it just opens up Pandora's box of so many different things that you can never imagine if you just leased or if you just hunted public land. And that's just that's my opinion, because that's that's what's happened to me, because you're just like, well, how do how do you do this? How do you

do that? And then you just get to learn so much more, which makes it so much more fun, and then you can try different things. And so I think it's for someone that wants a little piece of their own American dream, because I think if we look back at in the age of America, the eighteen sixty law where you go get your forty acres and establish and have your own little piece of heaven and on your ground, yeah yeah and literally yeah, so things about that show up and they give it to you. Yeah, And so

that's not the case anymore unfortunately. Yeah, but it's it's I feel like it's rooted in our DNA as like American heritage of you want to on a piece of ground because you want something to call your own, to spend time with family, get enjoyment and hopefully, you know, spend some time in a tree sand in November. Yeah.

this kind of thing. I'm the type who came from a very financially conservative family, so the idea of cashing out my life savings to buy a farm or something terrifies me. Kind of feels like I need to be a millionaire before I can afford to buy a twenty acre farm to feel comfortable. Yeah, how do you advise someone think about this? How do you advise somebody look at their own personal finances to determine Okay, yes, I can carve out this to buy a starter farm or something.

How would you think through that?

say is my budget per month for a farm. And so he would continue to save fifteen hundred dollars and make sure that you know everything the wife and kids and house and everything's still taken care of, and kind of go through a practice run. And when you realize that there's no pain in that and you can easily do it, you have the margin in your life. I think that's a great way to do a dry run. It really is, if you're just practicing that payment and

the beautiful thing. Hopefully in your careers, your income is going to accelerate, the land is going to appreciate. Obviously, you don't want to count on appreciation, but historically, over a long period of time, you can count on appreciation. You can count on forced appreciation. And then I remember sold the farm and it was the guy that started with nothing owns a lot of ground in the area, and I was like, how'd you do it? And he's like, well, I just invest in land because I can control it.

I can prove the soil, I can control my crops, you know, to the best of his ability. And he's like, I was like, do you have any other form of retirement? He's like no, And so like there's all ends of the extremes that I've dealt with of like one hundred

percent all in in land, right. And then you have some people who are really successful and it's like they kind of feel like they're cheating on the retirement to buy a farm because they're like, well, it's not going into my four one k and it's going to that. And so I think it comes down to the personal appetite and personal risk tolerance is what it really comes

down to. But I think the most practical advice is save up your down payment, maybe figure out whatever your future payment will be in this practice, and then say like, oh, man, fifteen hundred might be a little bit too much because the kids are in travel, baseball and blah blah blah, I can only do a thousand. Well, now you know, and it's not like you make this huge commitment and now you have to figure out a different way to

come up with that deficit. So I think that's probably one of the most practical ways, or just this is the most simple thing. Do a monthly budget and see how much money you have and that's not accounted for is another really easy way. But you know, I just think there's so much emotion to it, and it's so different to what a lot of people think is a good investment. Because you talk to ten different people that have no clue about land and they think you're crazy.

All you can do is deer hunt on it. Why would you buy that, what's the income? All these different things, and then whether it's good or bad. I've talked to so many people that have found so much success in this space that you'd become like, you see, there's another way to do this, and it can be a viable investment. It can be a great way to even build some wealth. In reality, like, there's just so many different ways to do it. It's and that's the beauty of it. It's

like there's so many different ways to do it. You can buy your forty and be happy with it and own it for fifty years and give it to your kids, or you can continue to snowball and build up to something like Bill Winki, for example, like a really good example of that that a lot of people would be aware of. Yeah, so.

it's usually appreciating five percent, ten percent, twelve. I'm thinking like if someone's thinking about, okay, how would I compare and contrast an investment in land versus an investment in the market where you can expect four or five six percent whatever it is annually? How might land be the same or different?

a historical, historical run of land values. During you know, the pandemic era, land appreciated so insane quick across the entire country, all forms of real estate, right. And I remember talking to some really sharp people and they're like, well, inflation's out of control, and the best hedge against inflation is land. So there was a lot of people with a lot of money that were really smart, and a lot of investment firms that went and bought a lot

of farm ground. And when there's limited supply and a lot of demand, you can imagine what happens. And when commodity prices were really high. So like in my opinion, we saw a really strong, extremely strong run of land prices across the board. And I think we're getting back to reality to where maybe we can expect a flat here or two. But if you had a ten year period anywhere between five and seven percent, I think is

a fair rule of thumb. Now, another thing that I personally love about land is the stock market is an extremely extremely efficient market. You have algorithms, you have the smartest people on the face of the earth on Wall Street. You have so many things that are out of you and i's control were lying on other people. Then you have rural land, which has become way more efficient than someone like a Dan Perez in the nineties, like you know, like it has become more efficient, but it is not

nearly as efficient as the stock market. When there's inefficiencies in a market, you can hedge to get more equity out of something. So I think that's something to really look at, is it's still historically an inefficient market to get the whatever the max price is for a lot

of different parcels across the country. So hypothetically, if you do your homework, you do your due diligence, you find someone that is really familiar with an area and say, hey, this one is five percent below market, ten percent below market, but you can catch that up really fast. And then unlike the video, and you don't know if there's going to be a war in Taiwan, like that's out of all of our control. But you can put up a gate, you can improve a property, you can improve the access,

you can do all these different things. And to me, that's what I find a lot of freedom in is like you have control over your own destiny, and if you're confident with your own decision making. Then for those bad do you have no one else to play but yourself, unlike a stock market.

Everyone always says you should have bought it last year, You should have bought it yesterday. Like, if you keep on pushing it out into the future, you'll never do it. So what's your take on the situation right now in the foreseeable future.

was cheap. Land prices went up. And so for your friend that said for the last five years he was going to buy a farm, he's going to buy a farm, and he knows he wants to keep it for five years, six years, buy the farm if he buys it, and he's like, I think I'm going to turn this thing around and I'm going to do this, this, this, and I'm going to sell it tomorrow. Don't do that. I

don't think that's a great idea. And so that's kind of my general rule is a lot of people I asked them, how long do you think you'll have that piece? And if they say, I don't know, maybe hunt for a year and then sell it after that. I don't have the utmost conviction that's a great plan right now.

you could buy twice the size of the farm. So your buddy that should have bought a farm, he could have bought twice the size of the farm that he could buy today. That's how much purchasing power he has lost. And tell me it was crazy then, and you're locked

into that. And so I think the general market overview, I don't want to predict anything, but I can tell you this from here in ILLINOI quarter four of last year to quarter one today, class A tillable is down almost one thousand dollars an acre on average cross the entire state. And so like that, that commodity price corn is down about thirty percent from where it was last year. It's down almost fifty percent from when it was that it's

peaking in April of twenty two. Beans are down I want to say, like twenty percent or something like that too.

So it's like commodity prices have really like that. There's some people that view that ag Land is like the gold standard of land, right, and so like if AG struggles, and a lot of these pieces are mixed use properties where it's thirty percent tillable forty percent tillable, so like, if AG goes down, hypothetically, recreational land prices should go down to However, year to date, from quarter to four of last year, recreational land has actually continued to accelerate,

which is interesting, and so I don't know if there's a lagging period there, But those twenty to sixty acre properties, there's still a lot of people that can't afford those, and there's a lot of cash out there too, So it's like the average household is probably feeling the pinch of inflation, but there's a lot of people that haven't felt that, and they look at this as a buying opportunity. So it's really hard to say what will happen. It's really hard to say. We're supposed to have multiple rate

cuts this year. We haven't had a single one yet. We don't even know if one's going to come in September, and so there's this a lot of uncertainty in the market, which could be good if you're very confident in your plan if you are a newbie and you don't have someone in your corner and you don't really know what's going on, I would probably follow some level of uncertainty. But if you've been shopping, you've been waiting, you've been this has been your dream, don't let those outside forces

stop you from sticking to your plan. Like, it's your plan. It's not the averages, it's not it's your plan. It's what you want to buy, it's what you want to keep for five years, six years, seven years, then do it. So I think that's the best way to look at It's like, look at it is an investment, not a speculation. It's the best way to say it.

then one year, five year, ten year, twenty year. It's a similar thought process with land, and I think that's the easiest way to illustrate it because that's how people are familiar.

or credit unions. Call at least five explain what you're doing, find a bank that understands what understands land, understands what you're trying to do, and shop rates because they can be a lot different. I mean, the first farm I bought, I had to put thirty percent down. It was a high rate, and then I ended up finding a bank

just through work. And if I buy anything else, I'm going to go through you guys, because they're the most competitive, easiest to deal with a lower down payment, And so I think that's a very key important piece here to talk to multiple banks and find someone that understands what you're trying to do before you go find a piece, fall in love with it, and then you call your local bank that you've banked there since you were a kid, and got a you know, a ten hour to deposit

into it. Like call some more banks, all right, because that's just as important as getting a good deal arguably, Like if you can save a percent on a purchase of that size, it makes it makes it a huge difference. So yeah, you can definitely refinance. Something that's also interesting is land loans. A lot of times are arm loans, so suggestible rate mortgage, so sometimes that's a three year arm loan or a five year, ten year, seven fifty.

So that's something you have to this. When you call the bank, say tell me sound real smart, say this, tell me a little bit more about your products. They love when you say that, tell me a little bit more about your products. You guys just give me money, but tell me tell me about your loan products. Like, oh yeah, So that's something that I would just ask. And so thirty year fixed rates probably going to be higher.

But there's just so many different things that go on with what's happening to prime and how you know the bank is borrowing money from another bank in order to give you money, and so they have to get martgage on it. So call out of banks, be prepared to refinance if you need to, or keep saving money and keep looking because there's something's going to come along eventually.

And ask these people are here to help you. They're here to earn your business, right, they want you to do business with them, And say and ask them what advice do you have? What what are some things I should look at? And so because a lot of these bankers do they specialize in land, and they are familiar with the market, and a lot of times their opinion isn't probably my opinion, but you can get their opinion too. Is just another data point. So I think those are

the biggest things. Shop chopper, a lender understanding you have a down payment. The biggest thing debt to income ratio. You got a sixty seventy thousand dollars truck sitting in your park, in your garage, and you pay fifte hundred dollars a month on that. That's your first farm. It's sitting in your garage instead of on ther I think that's probably the hardest thing for a lot of people

to really realize. And I truly believe and that's part of the reason why I started a land podcast is I talked to so many people that, like the friend you mentioned, I would always love to own a piece of ground, and you start learning it's way more accessible than what you probably realized right here today. It's not going to happen by accident, but you can do some small things in your life to figure out how to get to that point. And it might not happen in

a year. It might take two or three years for you to get to where you're at, but you can definitely do it. I firmly believe everyone can own land if there make some microadjustments in their personal finance or in their life, if it's that big of a priority. I truly believe everyone can own a piece of ground

at some point in their lifetime. And so to me, that's liberating, right because a lot of people are just programmed, well, you know, I wish I was born into a farming family, or I wish I hit the lottery, or I wish I did this, or I wish I did that, but wishing and just put together a plan and get there, because you can do it. If I growing up, I just dreamed of owning a farm like that was like no matter five ac or ten acres, twenty whatever. It was like that was my goal and it was way

more accessible than I think everyone realizes. And so I just I just want to champion everyone of not to get discouraged and not to say, oh, I would be really cool to own a piece. If you want one, you can do it. I guarantee it.

government program, all that kind of stuff. There's options, but I'm curious, you know, if if the headline is like, hey, you can make money off your property through all these different things, and I think most people know like that's an option, But when you get into the nitty gritty of it. You know, how does someone go about assessing the potential, like before they buy and they're thinking, like, Okay,

can I can I afford this farm? I think I can maybe afford it, But but man if I could make some money off the timber, and if I could make some money, if I could get this in the quip, or if I could get this in CRP or something that I've heard about on this podcast, and all of a sudden it was bringing in another eight hundred bucks a month that might help a lot. Like how does

someone actually figure that out? Because there's a lot of like hypotheticals like yeah, do this, do this, But then when it comes down to the brass tacks, how realistic is that? How do you figure any of that out before you buy the place?

or two about it. Yeah, but just because something is in CRP and it's not going to be compliant or eligible for re enrollment, then like you need to call the NRCS office in the FSA office and say hey, you get an FSA release form from the sellers and say, hey, I need to know is this potentially eligible for re enrollment or so just to break down so like cash rent, if a piece that is recreational, usually there's not gonna be a bunch of farmers that are super excited at

farming in a lot of parts of the country. It's more of like they're doing you a favorite of farming. That's been my experience on multiple pieces. And so just because everyone has such yeah everyone has giant equipment, and you know there's just so many it's like, yeah, I will farm. It's kind of what it feels like a lot of times when you talk to pull my arm. Yeah. Yeah. Now that might be different if you're looking at a

different type of farm. But you know, for someone that's looking at a forty and there's ten acres of tollable on it, your highest income is probably going to come from CRP. Now you have to own that farm for one year before you enroll CRP. So if you buy it and you think, oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna get CRP payments right away, you need to own it for a year before you go into enrollment, and so that's really important. The other thing too, is asked to have

cropp in history. So let's say someone bought it and they put it it was in pasture before, and then they bought it, they put it into beans, and then they're selling it and you think, oh, I can put it in the CRP next year, you wouldn't because the wouldn't be enough cropping history. So that's where there's a lot of things that go into this to really get a full full idea and plan and utilize those free resources like the USDA office provides. That's their job, that's

they have that information for you. So I think that's probably one of the biggest things. And a lot of recreational farms you are lucky if you can get a quote unquote three percent return, like you'd be lucky now. Back in the day when land was a little bit cheaper and there was better CRP payments relative to the price of land, it was easier to get that. But most recreational farms are probably looking at one to two and a half percent in reality as a law of average.

So in reality, in my opinion, most of it's like it's gonna help pay for food plots, eater, It's gonna help pay for whatever I'm going to put onto it, and so it's hard. Now, there's different parts that like to me, like the best. If you're a guy that said I need to scratch my investment itch and my hunting itch, the best everyone wants a big block of timber. I know that for fact. Everyone everyone wants a big block of timber because I think that's the best. If

that is you. I would look at a marginal tillable type ground that could be enrolled in a CRP or a CRP farm, and I'm talking eighty acres and it's got two ditches in it or three ditches in it in a place to have a couple stands. It's gonna be an easy farm to probably burn out, but you're going to have the income from the CRP and that's going to help you, you know, maybe buy a little bit bigger farm. So I think that's something too, is whatever you have in your mind, you have to be

able to be flexible. If you want to have the investment type piece, then you're going to have to have something on there. And you brought op timber, and I think that's a great point. And this is just my opinion. I think a lot of people look at that as a land shortcut, and I don't think it's probably the best thing for the timber that's on it. So there's a study out of a University of Iowa and black

walnuts outpaced the S and P five hundred historically. So when you chop down that tree that has a you know, Steve Hansen and Skip have both given very similar independent opinions on this topic. I've spent time with both of them, and they both almost gave you the same concept of it's like shooting one hundred and sixty inch three year old,

like you know, cutting a young timber. So like people look at that and they're like, oh, man, I can you know my down payment's forty thousand, and I can you know, get however much money from a timber cut, when in reality, if you waited ten years, you could have got drastically more. So I think it's a good thing to have in your toolbox. It's something to consider. I think you really need to talk to a forester

and get a professional's opinion. Except I think that here I could walk fifteen farms and one of them is like, oh yeah, there's some timber value on this. Because everyone has the same concept of the short sided mind of like I'm gonna go in there and buy and I'm gonna get all the trees out of it, and I'm

going to get some money back. In reality, if you were truly trying to scratch that investment, it's you were going to actually do a crop release, let those trees continue to grow, take care of them, and let them grow and then that value doesn't leave, right, Like that tree is there barring a thunderstrike hits it or a tornado rips through it, but like that value is going to continue to grow. And to me, that's something that needs to be protected rather than exploited. And that's just

what my gut says. Like there's a million there's a lot of ways to find success to what you want to do. But that's just my public disclaimer of think twice before you just try to extract all the value out of the trees, because I think it's, in my opinion, being exploited. And is it?

different personalities, right. You can have some super relaxed sellars and then you can have some people that are really uptight and so I think that's probably dependent on the type of seller, and I think I'm not anything close to a forester, but I can at least give you a starting point or a springboard of like, yeah, you know, this is a really good example of one that has some value now but will be exponentially worth more in however many years, and when you go to sell that, right,

that value isn't gone. You can portray that value to the next guy. Sure, So I think that's just really important, but it is certainly a good option. Though. If you buy a piece and it's a that tree's gonna die because it's so old and big, then yeah, that makes sense, But don't kill the three year old one hundred and sixty inchier like you don't want you don't want to do that.

a year. That's something you could apply right away. Now there's application periods, but that's something you could start working on the day you buy it. And so there's there are so many different EQUIP projects that you can do. I've done and basis species remove, I've done tree planning, drug planning, and there's there is a lot of them. I mean, if you there is a pile, there's uh bird houses, there's brush piles, there's erosion control, there's there's

a lot of different things. Now you're not going to get rich from any of this, but it could help improve the parcel. And if you do the labor yourself, then you can put a little money into your pocket. And so I think that's really important. And then I mean some of the more obvious ones. If you don't like turkey hunting, you can lease the turkey hunting rights.

I think another thing is if you buy one with a house on it, you could parcel off the house and sell the house or rent the house or airbnb in the house and you know, block out those dates when you're going to be there hunting it. I think another one that is probably more advanced, but something to consider. There's no secret there's a lot of solar panels going up.

If you can find a farm that has three phase power running near near it with a substation with a capacity to add a solar panel system, that could be a home run. Now it's very, very very specific and you're gonna need to utilize some experts on that, but that's another more out of the box idea that you could at least consider. And so those are those are some of the biggest ones. But I think the biggest

thing is buying a farm for a fair price. I mean, that's that's really what it boils down to, and then just figuring out what you can afford. I mean, if you are if you're that tight, where twenty bucks an acre cash rent is going to make or break you. You're probably spending too much money. So I think that's probably the biggest thing too, is like, don't be so shortsighted that you have to exploit your land in order to pay for it. Like you bought it. You want

to be a good steward of it. You want to take care of it. You want to this is what you dreamed of, Right, do you want to go degrade it in order to pay for it? I wouldn't personally.

that ooh yes, green means go kind of feeling. And what are some of the top things, especially things that maybe people overlook that would be hey, red light, tap the brakes. This is concerning.

lot of farms that can truly produce that. If someone tells you that they're lying mean opinion, they're not hiding behind every tree in Illinois. No, I can tell you that.

I could tell you that for a fact. Now there's some farms that So I think just to establish the red light green light, Like if your goal you have a ten year old son and you want to go on the weekends and help with your son and have quality time in the summer and everything else, your green light and red lights are gonna be different than a guy that really really wants to kill butter. So we'll just talk to the average guy here, because I think

that's where most of us are. Access is huge. I think another green light is it within two hours of your primary residence where you plan on going to look at it, because I think a lot of people, depending on what part of the country, and man, this farm that's seven hours away is thirty percent cheaper than the farm that's an hour away, they buy the one that's seven hours away. Like, we didn't really go down as often as we wanted to, or the kids and wife

didn't want to go down there as often. So I think two hours is kind of the cap where I think you sure your radius should be. So that's another green light. Oh it's within two hours of my I think another thing too, is obviously greenlight. I can afford this based off of the income or based off of the price of it. And I think this is also dependent on what you're like, the type of buyer that you are. If you are young, energetic, you you know,

I hear this all the time. I want something that I can put my DNA on or put my fingerprint on, or I want to develop it. I want to I want to raw piece of land. So a green light could be not a really great listing, maybe a scanned image of the map of the property, and you're like, oh, man, okay, there's a chance that you know this is a family friend that's selling this for them. So I think that could be a green light. I think sometimes the crappier the listing, the more excited I get as a as

a shopper. There's some benefits of a really nice listing. I mean I would if there was an amazing farm that was marketed really well and I was in the market and checked off all my green lights, I would be excited. But I think that's something that that people can get excited about of like ooh, talking about inefficiencies in the market, right, this is an inefficiency of marketing

this property. And if I can go walk it and see that you know this this fallow field is actually recorded f s a acres and I can get back into production no problem, or all these different things. So those are some other green lights. Another one is I know that farm's in a great neighborhood based off of my own knowledge or my agent's own knowledge of yes, this isn't a good neighborhood. I think those are some

other other bigger green lights. I'm trying to think of anything more out of the box that would be a green.

be the best neighbors. I hate to say that, but they might be great people, but if your goals aren't align, they're probably not going to be your best friend, and so go ahead.

to pass on the deer I want to pass. But the upside might be that they're not very good at hunting or that they don't take as serious and I might have a better chance, you know, to kill the one big deer in the area because you know, I put a more time effort. YadA, YadA, YadA. Now the flip side is like, do you want to live in Mark Jury's neighborhood? Where might righte? Mark Jury and Jeff Lindsay and all these guys around there have got the

most incredibly managed farms. They're all managing for big deer and they're all really invested in it, right, But the same time, you're surrounded by people that really know what they're doing. What which is better? Like I've kind of done, I've had both. I would I haven't been neighbored with mark jury, but I've been neighbored for someone that is, uh, maybe as serious as that person. Yeah, and it is a little debilitating where you know, if you have a

big deer, your odds of killing that deer are very low. Now, the good thing is there's a lot of deer that they probably wouldn't want to shoot that or mature and still make me happy versus I've hunted farm. Further is it's heavily hunted, and I don't spend many time much time on those farms because there's not a deer to

the age class that I would like. So I think if you would ask that question in like the early two thousands or nineties, when we didn't have cell cameras, we didn't have all these different tools to make not so serious hunters more proficient to kill like a solid buck, and there's nothing wrong with that, But if your definition of what you want to shoot is, you know, slightly

above that solid bucker older than three years old. I think the three year olds have gotten easier to kill with all the tools that are available, so I think that has probably changed.

of what they have going on. Yeah, Versus opening day of gun season and you get cell camp pictures of the deer. You're hoping, oh man, I hope he makes it through, and then the exactly it's like, this is the last picture I ever get of that deer. That's the last picture I ever get of that deer. And to me, that's more frustrating than like, Hey, congratulates, since you shot a giant, you did all the work. I'm really really happy for you. So so to summarize, I'd rather have the super serious name.

be giants on there, and then there isn't. So I think that's something that like, as a if you're ate up enough to save up a bunch of money and you know the bloy capital to buy a farm, you probably have your own spidy sense of white tail hunting. Trust your gut. I think, like, don't trust the agent blindly, don't trust the seller blindly, follow your own gut. I think that's probably just another your own internal green light. But then we can we can talk about red flax.

There's quite a few, quite a few of those. Two.

Once I make that, once I flip that switch, I'm gonna want to fall in love with something and I'm gonna fall in love with it hard and fast, and I'm gonna be like, oh no, this is this is the right neighborhood, this is this is the thing. It's got that sweet little crp field the middle that I've

always wanted. Like, I'm sure there's certain buttons that a property could push that would have so much sex appeal to me that I would be willing to like gloss over certain other things because I do you know what I'm getting at, Like, I can see myself falling for that kind of situation. So what are those red lights that that I cannot overlook, that I can't gloss over that I can't you know, they can't put lipstick on this pig kind of situation.

that you're very limited. It's not a bad buy if if your only goal is deer hunting, but you're limited on what you can do yet if you get approval to put you to put in a food pot and all these different things. So that's something that I think is just a general beage flag. Like if something is priced extremely half of market, it's probably in WRP, or it's in CREP, which is an easement that you couldn't build on it, all these different things. So that's something

just to consider as a beige beige flag. I think some other red flags. If I walked by and there's fence. There's seventeen tree stands on the fence line. I with most people that are buying forty to eighty acres, you're not gonna win that battle. Man, Like you can do all the TSI, all the food plots in the world, You're gonna be You're gonna be frustrated, I think. And that's not what you want, right Like, you want to

buy this and be happy. There's gonna be ups and downs just like anything, but you're probably not gonna be happy. So that's a that's a pretty pretty big red flag. I think some other ones that are you kind of have to get a trained die, like if it has epa risk, like there's been a couple run ins there where it's like this is probably too good to be true, or there's probably more more to the story here, and that's something else to consider. So how would you know?

It's my gut feeling, what's one of them? I walked. I walked one farm, which I talked about on the Land podcast, but basically this farm came up and it was pretty close to me, and I went and walked it, and uh, it was really weird. This felt, Yeah, some some feels off, like on the some of the hillside there was really old growth, and up top it was all really younger growth, like thirty forty year old trees, the trees that are typically there when there's been disturbance.

This top knob was all switch grass, which is clearly okay. This was some sort of remediation. It ended up being an old area where the soil was contaminating, and so now granted you could have bought it and still would have been okay, but that was something I didn't want to do it. There was another, more recently, a really sweet farm, really sweet farm. Client text me about it. I'm like, oh, we need to go look at it. And it's next to a place where they used to

make explosives. And then you start doing some due dilts, you do some googling, and you're like, oh, there might be some EPA issues here, and so like that's something you don't want to mess with. I mean to me, like, there's a lot of upside reward if everything's good, but there's also if this is your first farm, probably suggests you to avoid that. There was one that I went

looked at it. It was an old it was an old landfill, and I was like, oh, sweet thousand bucks an acre and you go walk in and then you do some due diligence, you call the EPA off it's like, yeah, it's not in compliance, and there could be a million dollars of remediation. You get it up the code and

trying like okay, well that's not it. And then so like what people would do is they would just buy it in different LLCs and like do some sort of shell like it was someone bought it and they let it go to a tax sale and then someone else bought it and then they resold it. So those are like some really kind of more I would say advanced red flags. I think most people will be able to catch on to that, no problem. But I think another

thing is access for sure. I think one one red flag is a lot of farms sometimes gets split up and the tillable gets sold, and then you have one long, skinny access point all the way through there. So in the morning you're gonna scare deer walking in. In the evening, you're gonna scare deer walking out. And unless you have a really good plan for screening your access, that's a battle that I'm not sure if you can really win.

So I think that's that's another really big one. And I look, I love looking at farms like I geek out look at all the time online shopping. Yeah, for sure. And so I think another like more red flag is typically these are in all caps mature trees, giant bucks, turnkey and you know, okay, there's maybe mature trees, but are they cottonwoods or is there really giant bucks because what you might call giant buck and what I call giant buck might be two completely different things. Or turnkey

is another big one too. It's like, so what makes it truly turn key? Because they put in a clover plot in a box line, or because like there's a million things you can do to your farm, right like quite literally maybe a million, And so like if it's just two or three things, is it really turn key? And are you paying a premium for a non premium property?

And I think this is another potential red flag is like people talk about a fliphouse, or they talk about like the the landlord painting the outlets white, like everything is just white. Don't buy a farm that was this painted white completely everywhere with really bright lights to make it look awesome. So I think those are kind of they're red flags. But if the if it's price right, like I would buy anything or encourage you. I want

to buy anything if it's price right. So I think that's like what is the farm and how does it really fit into the market and is it fair? And so that's the easiest way to say that, But it's kind of dynamic. But those are some general some general red flags. Or in some parts of the country, if there's an oil rig on it in the heart of the farm and they got a drive in there every single day, in and out, like you canna be happy with that, right? So yeah, there's wind turbines, Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

I on a farm that had a wind turbine on it and it was just all day. Did you go to sleep and you still hear it? Yeah?

is this goes back to the investment versus hunting. What if you buy that and you get a letter from a windmill company and say, hey, we're gonna pay you fifteen thousand dollars a year, we're gonna put up a windmill. The if it's the investment version of you, you're going to say, yeah, put that thing up tomorrow. But if it's truly a hunting parcel, you're there to say, I don't think so, but it is a lot of money, and I you know, so that's why all this is

so personalized. It It truly is, and that's what makes it fun.

the listing. They've got trail camera pictures of the Big Bucks and they said they put food plots in their stands up there, and like usually those pieces like I'm just I don't even want to look at them because I'm just assuming like it's they've already marked it up

the way I would want to mark it up someday. Right, Like, if I were ever going to buy a property, it would be to start small, do the work, and then I can flip it and make money off of because I would do all that stuff myself and market it, YadA, YadA, YadA. When I've seen that somebody else does that, I'm assuming it's probably overpriced and I'm not going to have like that margin that I was hoping to gain myself by

buying it, improving it, and selling it. So my question is like, how do you how do you how do you go about figuring out what is a fair price? And if I'm trying to do what I just described, which is I want to buy something that has opportunity for investment growth by sweat equity and whatever, how do I pick the right property for that kind of thing? I mean, I'm assuming you're ideally looking for an undervalued property with a lot of potential, But how do you

how do you find that kind of thing? And is there anything unique in the search process compared to what you've been describing already.

That is potential value add right, Like there's if they did two of the two of the million things, well there's still nine hundred and ninety hit whatever things to do. So I think the biggest thing is like figuring out, okay, the average parcels are selling for this, and because everyone thinks that, there's a lot of assumptions in the world of land, right like you hear people like, oh he

bought it, he just doubled his money. That doesn't really happen, So I think for overall, so I think the biggest thing is seeing if okay, if the average price is four thousand and he's asking forty one hundred and he has ten thousand dollars worth of box blinds on there, well maybe that actually pencils out to a fair price for forty one hundred, and you could still like do value add I had Pat Porter on the Land podcast.

He's written books about real estate. I bought a bunch of them and they're very quick reads, and I like him a lot. And he said people don't have imagination. Take the imagination out like so do the work. And I think that is why a lot of those properties do go well because someone buys their first piece of ground, they maybe they never put in a food water, maybe

they've never put up a blind. And so I think if that was me and I'm trying to do this, yeah, it's to quote unquote turn key, But what could I do that I can see in my own eyeballs to take the imagination away for the next person and do those things that truly add value to the property. And so I think that's the best way to do. But in terms of like figuring out the best way to find a raw arm, it's patience. I mean, that's just

the reality of its patience. And I think going back to like the green lights and red lights, I think a potential red light would be a farm that's been on the market for a very long time, right, But it could be a potential green light if they have newfound motivation because it's sat on the market for a year and nothing happened to it. And so I think that's just the weird balance of all of that too. It's like, well, you know, you thought it was worth this.

If it was worth that, I would have sold. Would you consider this? And so that's the dynamic fun thing about real estate. So yeah, trust me because everyone wants to find a raw farm. They're becoming less and less like talking about the efficiencies of the market, like we are becoming very efficient. Like people are becoming so well educated when it comes to buying land, like the access, Like I've talked to a lot of people this year, like I only want this type of sided access on

this farm, and I won't look at anything else. And so back in the day, that wasn't even a thing. Did I have big deer and could I put in a food plot? Yes, yes, Okay, I want to buy it. And so I think that's just like we as hunters, we as consumers continue to evolve and change what something could be worth based off of what could be produced

on the ground. And that even includes solar panels. Like ten years ago, who cares it would have been a drawback if there was a big power line running nearby, right, Like, oh I don't like that. Now it's a potential huge value add So I think that's just that's the awesomeness of land is just it's it's like some people like shed hunting, right, people are eight up with shed hunting.

I like land hunting. That's that's what I like I like looking for that eighty inch side like hypothetically as a farm, because I think that's like, that's what makes me excited, Like going walking a farm that you have you looked at online and you're like, oh, I didn't see this, or oh this wasn't on the listing, or I didn't know there was a creak through here, or so that's just the best way to look at It's like, look at it with an inquisitive mind and ask yourself

as many questions until you think you have enough answers and vision.

what I'm trying to say here, Jake. Basically like knowing like, hey, I want to be able to flip this thing in a couple of years and make some money off of it.

How much under what everything else is going for? Do I need to look for to define this as like, okay, this is an undervalue properly that gives it Like if the going rates five thousand bucks an acre, would a forty five hundred dollars acre property be something that would be worth buying because I can bump it up and fix it up and then sell it for fifty five Or am I looking for something that's like two thousand

dollars less than everything else? Like what's Yeah, if you can find one that's two hundred dollars two thousand dollars an acre below market, then definitely buy that, no doubts

about it, because hardly exists anymore. I mean I think, yeah, I think the maybe something I think even like I said, at a fair price, because people don't have the vision, they can't see what you could do to it to get it to a five thousand dollars an acre piece to six thousand dollars an acre if you do this, this and this, So I think that's one way to

look at it. I think the other one is if you could find something that is I mean, honestly, like ten percent of market I think is pretty something to get a little bit excited about.

that's good too. I Mean there's clients that have helped that bought things at what felt like maybe a touch above fair, but time has been on their side and the market was on their favor and they did really

well with those. And so I truly believe that the biggest bottleneck to land ownership is paralysis by analysis, because like we've just been talking this whole time, and I feel like I probably haven't educated you anymore to get you excited to do it when we started, because it's it's like though it's people are their own people getting

their own way of success. I really believe that, like they'll it's not the farm isn't perfect enough, Like you're not gonna find a perfect farm, especially if it's your first one. By the farm, learn what you can make some mistakes, have comfort and making mistakes because that means you're growing. I think it's the same thing for a

deer hunter. They're like, I don't know he's on the farm, I don't know if I need to go in, or I don't know how to do this, versus like just go try and you're gonna learn something and get better next time. And I think land follows that same thing.

So one of the things that I feel like a lot of folks worry about is like if I sink my savings into this farm and it's not perfect, if the thing I was worried about ends up being the case and it's not as good as I thought it was going to be, or there's a bad neighbor, or there's not a bunch of big deer, whatever it is.

some pasture out back. So like that's the thing, Like we are so dear focused that we often forget the guy that wants honeybees and it's away from ag and he can have his honey bees out back. So those are just some different things. Or maybe it could be an orchard or you know, there's so many different land uses and potential there. So just because there's a bunch of neighbors there and you want to run cattle or

have horses and that's not going to impact them. So I think it's definitely a valid concern, right, But there's also people that is, I want a place to hunt. I got kicked off everywhere. I'm sick of paying for leases. I just want a place to hunt. I don't care if I see a deer, I'm gonna be so happy, Versus maybe what your goals were going into, Like I want to target five year old deer home and so

that's that's that whole bell curve of potential buyers. And so I don't think you every want to be deceitful, like, yeah, that neighbor's a jerk and you're not gonna like him. Like I think you probably say, hey, he's hasn't liked me that much, but maybe you guys will get along better.

And I think that's just like the easiest way to communicate, you know, like to never be deceitful, because like the world is tiny, whether people realize that or not, like, yeah, be honest, explain like, hey, these are the things that didn't work for me on this farm, but maybe you could fix them, or maybe maybe this doesn't bother you, but I do want to let you know these you know that this is going on, and I think that's really important. But to summarize though, yeah, I think you

probably sell it. And I've talked to a lot of people and I have not found many people that have lost money from selling a piece of crown historically, and I think that comes down to owning it long enough too, So I think that's really important. And like circling way back to like the investment versus land, this is one of my favorite conversation on the Land podcasts. It was a father and son and the father went bankrupt during the farming crisis in the eighties. It was like a

very powerful story that I really enjoyed. And then the son has been so like multi family investment, investment, investment, and then they bought a farm and they're like, yeah, this is pretty awesome, Like we did pretty well, and my son loved to go out and work on it. And so it's like we always we get in our own way of crunching the numbers and Okay, what is peace and quiet worth? What is running a tractor and

doing your food? But what is that worth? Because like at the end of the year, I always write down what are my five favorite days of the year. Three of the five are always a day like working with my wife or my family on a farm. Like that's that's me. So like what is that worth to me? It's worth a lot. And so I think that's the biggest thing is we get so caught up on like the numbers. We get in our own way. This farm doesn't have this, or this one could be better, or

did you hear about this other farm? It's like you got to give yourself permission to be happy and move forward with what you want. I really like I think it's more in our brain than anything else. I think it's a really good final thought to send this out. I think that's probably the message a lot of folks need to hear. But I want to give you an opportunity.

When I started a land podcast the goal of helping one hundred people by their first farm, and I'm getting really close to that, which is so cool to say, you know, like whether this is someone an email like hey, I'm in Wisconsin and you helped me have enough confidence to move forward. I bought a farmer. I love it, and so like that's why I started it, and so it's really cool to share kind of what I've been doing for the last one hundred and thirty some episodes

of the Land podcast comes out every Monday. And the other thing Exodus outdoor Gear, our YouTube channel and the website. Exodus outdoor Gear dot com manufacture trail cameras and arrows, and this may will be nine years of Exodus, which is crazy to say. And it's been a lot of fun. We have a lot of content beyond If you're a big woods guy, probably not your dude, but if you want to talk about land, I'm your guy. And so

we have a lot of different types of content. If you like whitetails, I guarantee we talk about wherever you're hunting in the country.

it now, right right now. Maybe I should do it now, right now, And so I'll periodically jump in and explore the archives. And you've been doing some good stuff lately, So thank you for helping so many people. You maybe are approaching one hundred people that you've helped that have told you and confirmed that they've been helped. But I'm sure there's many, many thousands who have benefited from what you're putting out there along the way.