Land Development Texas

[Fahim Siddiqui]

Dear fellow BPers,

Fairly new to the real estate investing world, I have 20 Acres down south San Antonio which is agricultural land. My question is should I sell the land as is or should I go through and sub divide it and either sell as smaller lot sizes or even build SFH or add mobile homes. The property does have water well and electric.

Thank you!

[Clifford Paul]

You can get anywhere from $22 to $28 per acre per a year for non irrigation cropland and around $112 per acre for  irrigated cropland.  How good is your well? Do you know the  condition and the gpm?

Because you only have 20 acres I don't recommend grass land lease because you will only get about $7 to  $10 an acre and a rancher could only run 11 cows on 20 acres. 

A better investment is starting  a horse boarding business.  Most people would be surprised how many people own horses but no land of their own. You would need to invest in  stables. They sell prefab stables that are very affordable. You don't have to do full boarding you can simply provide the stables and water. You leave the care to the the owners. Cross fence your 20 acres into 5. 4 acre tracks.  You put your  stables on one 4 acre track with a gate to each of the other  4 acre  tracks.  This is so they can turn their horse out. You will have to put restrictions on how many days they can turn their house out.  Because if not they will kill all the grass. You can get anywhere from $250 to  $800 a month per horse. The general rule is 4 acre per horse but that's for  horses turned out 24/7. I would be very  comfortable boarding  20 horse  on 20 acres. Insurance will run you about $250 a year  plus  $25 to  $50 dollars a horse for  $500k in coverage. We have  horse boarding on one of our  properties and we are getting  $600 a horse for  self care and currently have  16 horses. 

If your property is on a major road you can lease to a billboard company. You can get on average $1,200 to  $1,500 a year.  We have  2 on one property.  

Quail and  Dove season you can  get  $2 an acre times  6 to  8 hunters.