All Forum Posts by: Mason Moreland

Tagging so I can reply later when I get a few more minutes! Love this and have some ideas for you to think on. In the TX wine business up here in the High Plains on the grape growing side so I know how crazy Fredericksburg is ha!

What @Brittany Warner said. @Keeley Hubbard 's group also recently made an acquisition and post about a property there as well.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

“Flexible” is right! Good grief. Glad y’all rolled with the punches and got it done, it’s in a great location. 

What kind of feedback do you want, what the value might be based on the income...? Not clear on what you're looking for from your post.

Is it irrigated? Dryland? Location? Those are the three most important factors in determining market value in farmland... Where the cap rate meets the market price will depend heavily on your location/state.

Also, if it is irrigated, don't assumed $0 maintenance forever. You may have well/pump repairs, piping repairs, pivot repairs (if you own the pivot and don't write the lease so that the farmer to be responsible for that), electrical updates or repairs, etc.

@Travis Hanson I agree with all of that. Lubbock has a low barrier to entry and has several backup economic drivers by being the primary hub (agriculture, financial, healthcare, material goods, transportation, entertainment) for an area the size of most states east of the Mississippi. Only nearby city that rivals it is Amarillo (2.5hr drive north) and it does not have anywhere near the education infrastructure or $$$ inflow Lubbock has (at least not yet) with Texas Tech and associated schools, SPCC, LCU. Growth is generally to the southwest into/towards Wolfforth and some to west towards Levelland (yes, it is named for how flat the area is).

@Matt Moreland and his team at KW are better versed in the analytics in LBB than me though. I'm just an investor in SFR/small MF and the vineyard/wine industry near there.

I agree with others, our STR had a record year even in a non-tourist college town in a year football was basically cancelled. We did have lots of travelling medical professionals as well (this area is a regional medical center).

Yeah those desert lots are a scam unless you know what you're getting into. I'd love to buy up some land in the Christmas or Santiago Mountains, but I love hunting for and photographing rare snakes so that's sort of a niche use haha.

The Chihuahuan desert and western mountains of Texas are no joke, it is some of the most remote, unpopulated, water-starved, but breathtakingly beautiful country in the entire US.

Just FYI it's not that west Texans dislike solar or wind farms... we love money! There are just so many existing pipeline right-of-ways that you cannot physically find an undisturbed site big enough to be worth it near Midland proper. When you get into the remote Chihuahuan desert (Culberson, Brewster, Jeff Davis, Presidio, Hudspeth, and the south ends of Pecos and Terrell counties) where there has been almost zero oil and gas development can you get a patch without pipelines that's big enough to make it worthwhile. Just worked on six solar farm sites in fact.

Woof, you opened up a little can of worms, eh @Erik Sherburne?

-putting on my biologist hat- Ask a question about investment and slip in your moral reasoning and all the armchair biologists and ethicists pop out of the woodwork! If you ever want some professional wildlife/biology/ecological management advice, DM me and I'm happy to assist you. If I don't know the answer to your question I'll find you someone who is a professional in it. No politics from me, haha!

-putting on my investor hat- As an investment, I think you need to be crystal clear on what you're trying to do here. Not that profit and ecologically sound practices are mutually exclusive, but you need to decide in advance what priority #1 is and reverse engineer things and make decisions to achieve that goal and integrate the lesser goals as you are able. 

Timber land is a very long play, easy to screw up without professional help on the front end planning, and easy to get hosed by a depressed market in the future. The positives are that is can potentially be lucrative, especially if your sale is timed well with the market prices, it can be a legacy asset, has extreme tax benefits in most jurisdictions due to agricultural status if planned correctly, and as a bonus can provide habitat for wildlife if planned well. 

I wouldn't count on it offsetting your personal carbon footprint unless you are meaning to use it as wood-fired heat/power. You are going to use directly or indirectly a wildly significant amount more carbon in the long time it takes to grow your timber up there in the great white north. Not saying it isn't a good sentiment, but you will probably make more impact on the moral front by designing any property (whether timberland, prairie, or other type) for wildlife habitat and/or restoration of historical ecology instead of carbon sequestration. Don't miss the forest for the (carbon sequestering) trees (see what I did there?!).

 My most recent assessment of the retail sales market: prices are flat-to-depressed, but time on market and sales volume are up.

 Healthcare, TTU/education, agriculture (row crop and vineyards), and manufacturing are big job drivers. Don't forget, Lubbock is the healthcare hub for an enormous area of Texas and eastern New Mexico. Most of the small towns out here have little or nothing for healthcare, even in Midland you get sent to Lubbock if it is serious. Huge amount of retail and food service jobs as well.

Crime is bad geographically (East of University/Ave Q, north of 4th St, Tech Terrace. Even there, the vast majority is petty crime (burglary, auto theft, vandalism, etc). If it isn't bolted or chained down and it's in your front yard, don't expect it to stay there! Other than that, not much violence or "scary" stuff outside of the areas with C-class or D-class properties.

Schools are good in certain areas, bad in others. Easy research to do. Frenship ISD is considered excellent.

Population growth is mostly driven as a factor of growth in the healthcare industry and TTU. If enrollment and healthcare jobs are going up, expect population to continue to boom. The general physical direction of growth is southwest, merging into Wolfforth being part of the "metro".