All Forum Posts by: Clifford Paul

 Scott, 

As a car guy and a rental property investor, although not popular on BP. I will tell you  my opinion... you are only going to live once. 

What good is money if you don't enjoy the things that make you happy.

 No I personally don't live on any of our ranch property.  On the ranch with our horse boarding my son and  daughter in law live there.  It's 258 acres and we also run a horse and dog rescue on site.  

My daughter in law oversees the operation and also does riding lessons and some horse care if an owner is on vacation.  I would have to ask what her rates are for that because it's separate charge for our boarding. My son also is a farrier and those fees are his to keep. 

We don't have the problem with grass like a 20 acre property would have but we don't use all 258 acres for  horse boarding so I know a 20 acre property could work if done right. 

 Matty, my bank is in a small Texas town with a population smaller than most peoples high school class.  I don't know all the banking rules and stuff. I just know what they do for me. My loans all go through their commercial loan department. 

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.  

Keep talking to lenders, you can find any terms you want if you have a truck load of cash for the down payment.  Most commercial lenders will require 25% down and 30% if it's your first deal.  Like Cris said it's more about your experience in the space and your cash than anything else. 

I'm able to get commercial loan with 5% down and 30 year term but I have been doing this for 36 years and have a 30 year relationship with my bank.  Plus they hold a large amount of my money in investment accounts. No one is just going to walk off the street and  get the terms I get. 

It really depends on the property and the location. Is it in the path of development? Inside the city limits or in the county.  Is it next to larger acreage (farm or ranch). Any new subdivision nearby? Does it have trees? 

There's a  lot of ways to make money  on vacant land.  We have 4 ranch properties bought specifically in the path of development that are now all cash flowing nicely through hunting and land leases. 

You go to your local small bank or credit union that does in house loans (portfolio lending).

My biggest blunder was letting my contractor build another fence. His guys are great at everything else but building fences. I will have to pay to have the fence redone but on a good note his bid on the fence was so cheap that there's no way it covered the material cost.  

 A better option is is to use zero percent credit cards.  That's one of strategies I used to built my first portfolio to 30 properties. 

You forgot a couple bro investor questions. 

Bro investor- buying my first property have no job and no money should I start an LLC for asset protection.

Bro investor- my first property and my tenant didn't pay first months rent what should I do?

Bro investor- I quit my job how do I buy my first property?

Bro investor- HELP! Got my first property under contract I only make $8 dollars an hour at a sandwich shop. No bank will finance me. 

I got a million more but I got to finish this $12 cigar.  LOL