Pros and Cons of Acreage or Can One Have too Much?

[mundamanu]

My wife and I will be moving shortly and plan on purchasing a place with some acreage that we will turn into a horse lesson/training/boarding facility. I will eventually manage a small herd of dairy goats as well. As we are doing research online, we are discovering that it is conceivable that we could get a place with a hundred or more acres (because some properties in the area we are looking [Albany, NY] at that size are within our price range)

I think 20 acres would be plenty. So, my question is, can one have too many acres? What are the pros and cons of having 100 acres if you are only actively putting to use 20 of them?

If any of you out there have a lot of acreage but wish you had less, please tell me why. If any of you have a lot of acreage but only "use" a portion of it but are happy that you have the rest, please tell me why.

Thanks.

 

[riptides]

They don't make land anymore.

How can you wrong getting all you can get?

-Mike Z. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[BB_TX]

I think you need to consider what your goals are. Do you want 100 acres of pasture that you will have to maintain. Do you want 100 acres of woods that require little to no effort, but you can just enjoy being in. Or some combination of each. If you have pasture, you will need to keep it mowed several times a year to maintain it. Not a particular problem if you have the time. That is unless you run enough livestock to maintain it for you.
I have 24 acres, mostly pasture, about 5-6 acres of wooded area. I would love to have more, especially wooded. I don't live on it yet. I mow about 6-8 acres of the pasture. My neighbor runs cows and hays the rest. That means that I don't have to spend a lot of time on it. But when I retire and we move there in maybe 5 years, I will have plenty of time. I intend on raising some livestock, building a pond, and having a place for the grandkids to come spend time on the "farm". I have fond memories of that as a kid. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[MossRoad]

<font color="blue"> I think 20 acres would be plenty. So, my question is, can one have too many acres? What are the pros and cons of having 100 acres if you are only actively putting to use 20 of them?

If any of you out there have a lot of acreage but wish you had less, please tell me why. If any of you have a lot of acreage but only "use" a portion of it but are happy that you have the rest, please tell me why.

</font>

In 1989 my wife and I bought +-20 acres for $30,000.00. Five years later the realtor that sold it to us called and said he had someone who would give us $60,000.00 for it. Last offer we got was considerably more than that(we ain't sellin'! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif)

Of course, the value of land in any area is different from the next, but as someone said, they aren't making any more of it.

Buy as much as you can afford, which means, buy as much as you can afford and still afford other things like house, food, good schools, good working car and machinery, etc. Don't put all of your eggs in the land basket.

If you buy more than you can manage there is a simply way to deal with it... don't manage it. Have it re-forested. You will have to side spray weeds once a year, or mow two or three times a year, for about 5 years. Then the trees will be higher than the weeds and will need little maintenance for 15 years after that.

There are some excellent government programs that you can take advantage of, where you still own the trees and can do anything you want to them after 5 years. The only exception is Christmas trees. They are dealt with differently than forest and require management. See your local extension agent for information and get a soil map from them so that you can see exactly what types of soil are on the property. We found sand, gravel and black dirt pockets on ours with a soil map. Very nice.

I wish we could have afforded more at the time. We had some leads on 40 acre parcels for under $30,000 at the time, but people jumped on them so fast we rarely got a bid in before it was already sold. And the one thing we learned was don't dicker on price for vacant land. Somone will always offer the asking price and your bid will be rejected.

Every time I visit our propery, it seems smaller and takes less time to walk around. That 20 acres just seems like a big yard to me now. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif Get more land, use it in manageable sizes and put the rest to nature until you need it. It will cost less to clear it when you need it than it will to buy more later.

Good luck in your decision. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[slowzuki]

We just got 30 or 35 acres or so. 12 field the rest woods.

The cons are property tax. The pros are hay to sell, wood to use, place to walk, and spare time gobbler-upper! Have fun!
Ken

 

[gone]

New hampshire and Maine have a current use law for farm and forest land, since land is large and profit small the taxes are a lot lower,i think in N.H. it requires at least 15 acers. you may want to check into somthing like that. horse farm would qulifiy for that here. may help make up your mind.

 

[shvl73]

Actually it's only 10 acres that's needed for current use designation. It's a huge difference on your tax bill. I was told at the town offices that the land cannot be "improved" with any buildings. You can cut trees however. In Manchester my duplex on a 50'x100' lot is $3200 in taxes, in Dunbarton our house on 12 acres is $3100. We're hoping to put up a 6 stall barn this year, so the taxes will go up. I have to remove some property from current use to build on.

 

[gone]

Dunbarton nice small town,i go up 13 often to knoxland. thats the type of town my wife and i want to end up in to live the rest of our lives, only probly a lot further north,away from our southern cusions if you know what i'm saying

 

[shvl73]

I know exactly what you're saying. If we ever move it might be north, it might be west, or it might be north-east, but it won't be south! She really likes the Rangely Maine area, I really like the Keene area. She has relatives in taxachusets, they have a nice house on 2 acres & pay about $4000 in property taxes! With the added benefit of a sales tax & income tax! It keeps creeping north & their crime rate comes with it.

 

[MossRoad]

<font color="blue">The cons are property tax </font>

Yep. Our taxes on the 20 acres just went up 33%!!! Now we have to pay $135.00 a year /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Here, it depends how the land is zoned(our is agricultural/residantial) which means as long as we don't put a livable building on it, the taxes will be assessed as agricutural. So I can put a barn on it with electicity and the taxes shouldn't be affected too much. Once we build a house, look out! The property taxes will skyrocket, unless... we can designate all but one acre around the house as classified forest, classified wildlife habitat, wetland, cropland, etc... there are many ways do things so that you only pay the high residential tax on the area right around the house and keep the rest of the land at a lower tax rate.

It's best to know all this stuff before you purchase, or you could end up paying residential property taxes for a 100 acre estate /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif All areas of the country, state, county, township, village, city, etc... have different taxation methods and rates. Go to the courthouse and start reading! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif