My wife and I moved out "to the country" to get away from the craziness of the metropolitan area (neither one of us likes the city) and love it. That being said, the wife had big plans for our little 6 acres - milking goats, chickens for eggs, and a large garden. Already has a nice little 1/4 acre pond that we stocked with fish, too. Everyone (from the city, of course) told us "oh yea! you can get an ag exemption and pay less on taxes!" This sounded great but as we quickly learned, there's a 5 year gap between when you can claim your ag exemption and when you START doing agricultural activities on the property - and then, not all 6 acres would count since the house sits on the "homestead." We spoke to the folks at the county appraisal district and they said that they generally frown upon ag exemptions of less than 10 acres. However, they did say if you owned acreage elsewhere within the county, you could claim that as well and add what you have at your house in total. (Minus the homestead area of course.) I'm outside the city limits so I'm just in the "county" for tax purposes.
Thus began a slow process of formulating what/where we could obtain enough property within the county (lots of land out here at least) to total up to 10+ acres. This isn't something that'll happen overnight as we're still trying to get everything running here; garden is in the process of being converted over to raised beds, chicken coop is designed and the area is cleared out, and I've cleared the fenceline to start putting fence in.
That being said, I sat down and looked up the appraisal district the other day and was looking at the GIS map that shows all the property lines; found lots of nice properties but most were priced pretty high ($10k+ per acre) and understandably so - they were close to town. Otherwise they were too large of parcels and way too far out of my price range anyway. Then I scrolled in a different direction on the map and - oddly enough - found what appears by property lines to be a small town - but modern satellite photos show nothing but farmland. Even Google maps shows these same property lines, but satellite shows one large farmland area. We drive by the area often so I know for a fact it's just farmland. I zoom in and start clicking on some of the properties and many don't have any information at all; I suspect these are also owned by the surrounding property's owner. However, some of these properties had a different owner - parcels as big as 10-12 acres and as small as a lot barely big enough for an RV campsite. Mind you, these are all "land locked" with either no, or vague access to the property. Apparently I stumbled on a ghost town - I looked it up and it only existed between 1910-1917. Most (but not all) of the properties already had their 5-year ag exemption in place. I started looking at the property owners and many are out of state (Illinois, Missouri, etc.) or at least weren't anywhere near the area (Dallas, etc.) After going through many of the properties, the values were really low - like $8k for 10 acres - that's more my price range. One property was only appraised at $464 for 4.64 acres! The interesting part is that these properties all have deed dates of 1/1/1900. None of these properties appears to be for sale as - I mentioned before - they're all part of a large ricefield that someone is farming.
My interest is in purchasing just enough property so that I have at least 10+ acres between the 6 acres I have now (minus the acre or so for homestead) and whatever I purchase so that my taxes drop substantially on the property. This also enables me to start "the farm" and get a tax exemption for farm supplies, etc. I have already purchased quite a bit of equipment and supplies and paid taxes on it (tractor, fencing, etc.) Since the additional property would already have the ag exemption, I wouldn't pay much at all for taxes on it - just the purchase price. Since it's landlocked, and already being farmed (rice by the looks of it) I'd simply find who it is that's farming it, and let them know to continue on farming it but I'd look at getting a lawyer to help me write up a contract that basically says as long as you are farming it or using it for agricultural use, the lease is "free" - but as soon as the agricultural activity stops (i.e. development gets out that way, which I seriously doubt it would in my lifetime) then I'd need some sort of access to it. I don't care to deal with it, it simply adds to my total of ag-use land so I can get over that 10-acre hump (and ideally, very cheaply.)
Of course, as I mentioned above, these properties aren't apparently "for sale," the deed dates are 1/1/1900 and most of the owners are out of state or not anywhere near the local area. (The larger parcels are owned by someone local.) I'm only really able to look at the county appraisal values too, so I have no idea what their real value is to the people that supposedly own them. For grins, I looked up the addresses on Google maps and many of these people live in fairly nice areas so I suspect these are parcels of land that have been passed down through the generations. The area is nothing but farmland as far as you can see so it's not likely to be developed in my lifetime and probably not even my children's lifetime (and I don't even have children yet!) I would think any current owner would jump on the chance to get rid of that financial liability especially if they're out of state. It's not like it's a piece of land you can put an RV on and live off of - there is no access to it.
So... what do y'all think? Where should I start? Mail the current owners (according to the appraisal district) and ask if they'd be interested in selling, explain my situation so they don't get the idea that it's going to be developed and worth something and want a ton of money for it? Talk to the county appraisal district? Is it even worth pursuing? I'd ask if you think I'm nuts but I already know the answer to that. :laughing:
Thus began a slow process of formulating what/where we could obtain enough property within the county (lots of land out here at least) to total up to 10+ acres. This isn't something that'll happen overnight as we're still trying to get everything running here; garden is in the process of being converted over to raised beds, chicken coop is designed and the area is cleared out, and I've cleared the fenceline to start putting fence in.
That being said, I sat down and looked up the appraisal district the other day and was looking at the GIS map that shows all the property lines; found lots of nice properties but most were priced pretty high ($10k+ per acre) and understandably so - they were close to town. Otherwise they were too large of parcels and way too far out of my price range anyway. Then I scrolled in a different direction on the map and - oddly enough - found what appears by property lines to be a small town - but modern satellite photos show nothing but farmland. Even Google maps shows these same property lines, but satellite shows one large farmland area. We drive by the area often so I know for a fact it's just farmland. I zoom in and start clicking on some of the properties and many don't have any information at all; I suspect these are also owned by the surrounding property's owner. However, some of these properties had a different owner - parcels as big as 10-12 acres and as small as a lot barely big enough for an RV campsite. Mind you, these are all "land locked" with either no, or vague access to the property. Apparently I stumbled on a ghost town - I looked it up and it only existed between 1910-1917. Most (but not all) of the properties already had their 5-year ag exemption in place. I started looking at the property owners and many are out of state (Illinois, Missouri, etc.) or at least weren't anywhere near the area (Dallas, etc.) After going through many of the properties, the values were really low - like $8k for 10 acres - that's more my price range. One property was only appraised at $464 for 4.64 acres! The interesting part is that these properties all have deed dates of 1/1/1900. None of these properties appears to be for sale as - I mentioned before - they're all part of a large ricefield that someone is farming.
My interest is in purchasing just enough property so that I have at least 10+ acres between the 6 acres I have now (minus the acre or so for homestead) and whatever I purchase so that my taxes drop substantially on the property. This also enables me to start "the farm" and get a tax exemption for farm supplies, etc. I have already purchased quite a bit of equipment and supplies and paid taxes on it (tractor, fencing, etc.) Since the additional property would already have the ag exemption, I wouldn't pay much at all for taxes on it - just the purchase price. Since it's landlocked, and already being farmed (rice by the looks of it) I'd simply find who it is that's farming it, and let them know to continue on farming it but I'd look at getting a lawyer to help me write up a contract that basically says as long as you are farming it or using it for agricultural use, the lease is "free" - but as soon as the agricultural activity stops (i.e. development gets out that way, which I seriously doubt it would in my lifetime) then I'd need some sort of access to it. I don't care to deal with it, it simply adds to my total of ag-use land so I can get over that 10-acre hump (and ideally, very cheaply.)
Of course, as I mentioned above, these properties aren't apparently "for sale," the deed dates are 1/1/1900 and most of the owners are out of state or not anywhere near the local area. (The larger parcels are owned by someone local.) I'm only really able to look at the county appraisal values too, so I have no idea what their real value is to the people that supposedly own them. For grins, I looked up the addresses on Google maps and many of these people live in fairly nice areas so I suspect these are parcels of land that have been passed down through the generations. The area is nothing but farmland as far as you can see so it's not likely to be developed in my lifetime and probably not even my children's lifetime (and I don't even have children yet!) I would think any current owner would jump on the chance to get rid of that financial liability especially if they're out of state. It's not like it's a piece of land you can put an RV on and live off of - there is no access to it.
So... what do y'all think? Where should I start? Mail the current owners (according to the appraisal district) and ask if they'd be interested in selling, explain my situation so they don't get the idea that it's going to be developed and worth something and want a ton of money for it? Talk to the county appraisal district? Is it even worth pursuing? I'd ask if you think I'm nuts but I already know the answer to that. :laughing:
