Real talk from real landowners. Ask questions, share stories, learn from people who've been there.
Everyone told me to verify that water rights transferred with the land. I did. What nobody told me was to check the priority dates on each individual right relative to the upstream neighbors on the sa...
When I bought my first 80 acres back in the late 90s, I was fixated on price per acre and overlooked a single paragraph buried in the chain of title — a timber deed reservation from 1961 that gave a p...
I passed on a 40-acre parcel years ago because the canopy looked thin from the road. Walked away thinking the timber was degraded. Bought a different place instead — one with a gorgeous closed canopy ...
I made this exact mistake on my Hill Country lease-to-own negotiation and it nearly wrecked my first year budget. Everyone told me the ag exemption was established on the land, so I'd inherit the lowe...
I used to think stream access was straightforward — if it's a navigable waterway, you've got rights, end of story. Then I spent two years trying to access a gorgeous spring creek that cuts through a p...
Every piece of buying advice I ever got said to negotiate price first, then do due diligence during the option period. I followed that exactly on my Hill Country acres and nearly got burned. I paid f...
I used to think floodplain status was mainly a lender's headache — flood insurance costs, maybe some restrictions on building. I was completely wrong, and it cost me serious time and goodwill with a l...
Everybody warns you about water rights and easements, but nobody warned me about solar access when I was advising a buddy shopping for off-grid acreage in southern Utah. He found a gorgeous parcel wit...
I see buyers fixate on whether a parcel has adjudicated water rights, and then completely ignore whether those rights come with active, in-good-standing membership in the ditch company that delivers t...
I used to focus almost entirely on timber when evaluating wooded tracts. Soil type, species composition, age class — I had a checklist. What I completely ignored on one purchase was the grazing histor...
I paid full asking price on my twelve acres because I trusted the seller's soil assessment. Big mistake. That report was done in one wet spring, cherry-picked the best corner of the property, and said...
When I was helping a friend evaluate a 40-acre piece in the Ozarks two years ago, we both made the same mistake: we looked at the canopy and thought the land looked healthy. Mature oaks, good creek fr...