Real talk from real landowners. Ask questions, share stories, learn from people who've been there.
Everyone told me to secure the water rights before closing. Good advice — but incomplete. What nobody mentioned was that a valid decree is only as useful as the physical infrastructure connecting you ...
Everyone told me to check the deed, check the water, check the soil. Nobody once said to call the county road department before closing. I nearly bought a 40-acre parcel in central Nevada with a beaut...
Three years into leasing five acres, I've completely reversed my thinking on the popular advice to 'buy as soon as you can afford anything.' I used to treat leasing as a consolation prize — something ...
I used to size up land almost entirely by acreage and road frontage. Embarrassing in hindsight. A few years back I passed on a 40-acre parcel because it seemed overpriced per acre compared to neighbor...
Every piece of land-buying advice I ever got focused on soil fertility — pH, organic matter, NPK levels. I spent months obsessing over those numbers on a parcel I nearly purchased outside Marshall. Cl...
I used to think due diligence stopped at the property line. Soil tests, well logs, title search — check every box and you're protected. Bought 80 acres in 2009 and did everything right on paper. What ...
I bought my six acres in West Virginia partly because FEMA's flood zone map showed it solidly outside any special hazard area. Felt confident. Skipped the elevation certificate. Biggest due diligence ...
I spent two years watching the timber company that owns land adjacent to my lease obliterate a ramp patch I had tended for a decade. Turns out there was a spray easement running along their access cor...
I almost bought a gorgeous twelve-acre parcel because I was seduced by the views and the price. The seller's agent kept steering me toward talk about the deer population and the mature oaks. What I ne...
When I was shopping for land before settling on my lease, I toured two parcels where sellers voluntarily handed me lease histories as a selling point. Both times, I treated those documents as somethin...
I know that's a hard line, but I've walked enough acres to say it plainly: if a seller can't tell you what's been done about autumn olive, bush honeysuckle, or multiflora rose on a property, walk away...
Everyone shopping for irrigated ground fixates on the acre-feet listed in the water rights summary. I used to do the same thing. Then I watched a neighbor with twice my paper-allocated water get compl...