Well, our experience with finding land was the same. Perhaps we were a bit more pragmatic than a love-struck teenager. But at least in the Kansas City area (Johnson County), you almost HAVE to be if you are not independently wealthy and enjoy overspending. What I learned quickly was that land prices varied substantially!
There appear to be 2 types of people that sell pasture-land:
- Those that actually want to sell and therefore will sell that a reasonable per-acreage price in line with other land in the area.
- Those that are passive sellers. Many people that list land have the attitude "well, if I get $XXX (crazy amount) for my land, then I'll sell." They have no interest in comparable land that actually sold.
I had a great friend who is a realtor in the area, so she created a couple search engines of list/sold prices in the area.
Love her! Essentially, she sent me land listing that looked similar to the following:
I ended up sorting this list and creating a table to track the per-acre value of various acreages that went for sale. First, while I think a shorter time period is appropriate when valuing houses, I would suggest considering sold values up to 10 months prior. The truth, in our area at least, is that there just aren't as many properties with land only that sell, so you don't have as many comps.
I clicked on the "S" at the top to sort the entire list by those properties that have "SOLD", those that were "PENDING", etc. Then I created a chart to help me quickly categorize and analyze the land that was for sale (see what I mean, more pragmatic than emotional) :)
This chart will become invaluable to you when you start considering what land is for sale, whether it is a reasonable price, and when you justify your low offer to a seller :) We were able to see that in Johnson County in the Blue Valley School District, recent properties sold between $11,500/acre and $30,000 per acre. The main factors that drove the spread were the amount of land sold (a large 100-acre tract typically had a lower per-acre than a smaller tract, the Costco effect!). Also, access to utilities and blacktop was a big driver in cost.
- Spring Hill properties - price per acre ranged from $8800 to $13,250
- Stilwell properties - price per acre ranged from $15,882 to $30,000
- Bucyrus properties - price per acre ranged from $7,000 to $11,650
One last thing on this small topic (I will write more posts on searching for land, researching land, etc.) is that charting list/sell price made us much more brave. If we had not tracked the disparity, we would have completely ruled out many acreages that were for sale due to their list price. Our experience was that often the list/sell price varied by 40%!!!!!! In other words, the sellers of land often did not drop the list price (like they do with homes typically) but rather just waited for someone to low-ball them and wait for a negotiated deal.
Equipped with this information, we were able to confidently approach sellers with actual documented sales in their area. This would, at a minimum, give our low offer more credibility than simply a young couple looking for a deal :)
Equipped with this information, we were able to confidently approach sellers with actual documented sales in their area. This would, at a minimum, give our low offer more credibility than simply a young couple looking for a deal :)
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