Buying land in Minnesota?

[EZduzIT]

Has anyone ever purchased or thought about purchasing land in Minnesota to do some whitetail, bear, or upland hunting? My wife and I are always looking and considering she is from Minnesota we thought it could be a cool opportunity. It seems that every so often a decent chunk of land comes up for a decent price considering what has been going on with the market. I’m not sure if it would even be worth it for us being that we are Colorado residents. At least we could see family I guess. If anyone has done so, do you have a way that you made some cash flow from the land- timber, crops, leasing, renting a home, etc.?? I’m becoming very interested in stewarding a piece of land. Thanks!

 

[yfarm]

Have in the last year had conversations with 2 farmers, one Kansas, one Iowa about their returns on cropland. The Kansas farmer is a large corporate wheat and milo farmer, 12,000 acres. The Iowa 1500 acres most in corn,soybeans some in crp. Both netted 2.5-3% after all expenses. Neither has much land debt, if debt were present returns would be non existent. Compared this with our Iowa farm, 600 acres, corn and soybeans 200 acres of crp. No land debt. 2.5% return. Compared with a value based investment philosophy with dividends and conservative stock appreciation why would anyone buy farmland particularly at todays prices. Cant offer any opinion about timber except we have had old walnut trees cut and hauled off in the middle of the night by unknown timber thieves on remote property. Both farmers said you make your money in farming when you sell your land presuming the market is up when you sell.

 

[Silveroddo]

Depends on your goal and the part of the state your in. Anything with Timber in the northern 1/3rd of the state is getting so over run with wolves that the hunting is becoming non existent. Down south you’ll pay the piper for anything that’s remotely decent crop land.
I definitely wouldn’t buy until the market corrects, and I think it’s starting to happen finally.
Finding a parcel with marketable timber that the previous owner wasn’t smart enough to cut is unlikely. The vast majority of people know what they have, most of our timber is low value high volume, it’s usually just been logged and the listing prices reflect standing timber.

 

[EZduzIT]

Have in the last year had conversations with 2 farmers, one Kansas, one Iowa about their returns on cropland. The Kansas farmer is a large corporate wheat and milo farmer, 12,000 acres. The Iowa 1500 acres most in corn,soybeans some in crp. Both netted 2.5-3% after all expenses. Neither has much land debt, if debt were present returns would be non existent. Compared this with our Iowa farm, 600 acres, corn and soybeans 200 acres of crp. No land debt. 2.5% return. Compared with a value based investment philosophy with dividends and conservative stock appreciation why would anyone buy farmland particularly at todays prices. Cant offer any opinion about timber except we have had old walnut trees cut and hauled off in the middle of the night by unknown timber thieves on remote property. Both farmers said you make your money in farming when you sell your land presuming the market is up when you sell.

That’s truly saddening to hear the struggle for farmers. Sounds like it’s going to be saving for a property that could be worth a darn and just making it work for myself and my hunting goals. Thank you for the reply!

 

[bowhuntrben]

We have land in SE MN. There are certainly ways to make money with the land you would purchase, but I can't see any way that the income would exceed the expense of purchasing and owning the property. If you do purchase, I would recommend renting the tillable out to a farmer. You should be able to make more than you would by having it in CRP. Additionally, and probably more importantly, the farmer would be helping take care of those tillable acres. In CRP, you'd have to find a way to meet the requirements of the contract which could mean a lot of upkeep. We have ours in CRP but it is very tempting to switch to renting it out in the future for more income and less maintenance on our end.

Timber could certainly help produce an income, but I imagine it wouldn't be a regular income...more of something that you could potentially use to offset the cost of purchasing the property. We haven't done this on ours yet. Supposedly it can be good for creating cover for the deer as well.

We rent out the house on our property too. It has been a good deal for us. We don't charge them much, but they help us in lots of ways, so it's worth it. We haven't had any real issues with our renters wandering the property.

Since we don't live on the land, our income does little more than cover the property taxes.

Being that you're from CO, I personally wouldn't make the purchase unless you were planning on moving here or are able to spend a fair amount of time here working on the property and enjoying it.

That said, you can have some of the best whitetail hunting in the world if you find the right piece of property in MN.

If you do decide to move ahead with purchasing a property, be sure you look at who owns the property around the piece you're looking at. Our property is bordered by other folks with large chunks of land. This is much preferable to being surrounded by people that own 5-40 acre parcels and everybody on those parcels wants to shoot a buck or two.

You might want to check out some of the videos Bill Winke has on youtube with High Point Land Company. They have been putting some videos out recently on purchasing a property, and his experience is in the general area.

 

[EZduzIT]

Depends on your goal and the part of the state your in. Anything with Timber in the northern 1/3rd of the state is getting so over run with wolves that the hunting is becoming non existent. Down south you’ll pay the piper for anything that’s remotely decent crop land.
I definitely wouldn’t buy until the market corrects, and I think it’s starting to happen finally.
Finding a parcel with marketable timber that the previous owner wasn’t smart enough to cut is unlikely. The vast majority of people know what they have, most of our timber is low value high volume, it’s usually just been logged and the listing prices reflect standing timber.

Wow, interesting regarding the wolves. I’ve asked family about that but they never seemed to go far enough north to run into that problem. It makes sense the vast majority know what they have especially after scrolling through listings and seeing the prices. I definitely love seeing that the market may be on its way to a correction. What are water usage rights like in Minnesota? I think having water on your land might become a very good thing to have soon.

 

[bowhuntrben]

Note that there are no bears in SE MN if you are interested in that area. There are tons and tons of deer and turkeys.

 

[EZduzIT]

We have land in SE MN. There are certainly ways to make money with the land you would purchase, but I can't see any way that the income would exceed the expense of purchasing and owning the property. If you do purchase, I would recommend renting the tillable out to a farmer. You should be able to make more than you would by having it in CRP. Additionally, and probably more importantly, the farmer would be helping take care of those tillable acres. In CRP, you'd have to find a way to meet the requirements of the contract which could mean a lot of upkeep. We have ours in CRP but it is very tempting to switch to renting it out in the future for more income and less maintenance on our end.

Timber could certainly help produce an income, but I imagine it wouldn't be a regular income...more of something that you could potentially use to offset the cost of purchasing the property. We haven't done this on ours yet. Supposedly it can be good for creating cover for the deer as well.

We rent out the house on our property too. It has been a good deal for us. We don't charge them much, but they help us in lots of ways, so it's worth it. We haven't had any real issues with our renters wandering the property.

Since we don't live on the land, our income does little more than cover the property taxes.

Being that you're from CO, I personally wouldn't make the purchase unless you were planning on moving here or are able to spend a fair amount of time here working on the property and enjoying it.

That said, you can have some of the best whitetail hunting in the world if you find the right piece of property in MN.

If you do decide to move ahead with purchasing a property, be sure you look at who owns the property around the piece you're looking at. Our property is bordered by other folks with large chunks of land. This is much preferable to being surrounded by people that own 5-40 acre parcels and everybody on those parcels wants to shoot a buck or two.

You might want to check out some of the videos Bill Winke has on youtube with High Point Land Company. They have been putting some videos out recently on purchasing a property, and his experience is in the general area.

It sounds like you’re doing exactly what I would picture trying for ourselves. Paying the property taxes at the least seems like a win to me to have a nice whitetail property. I definitely don’t foresee us moving there but I have a ton of time off that allows us to travel to and fro. The tillable land rent makes a lot of sense to do. In your experience is there a good marketing tool to get that tillable land rented easily? The whole thing that sparked this was watching those Bill Winke videos from High Point Land. Of course the YouTube videos get me all pumped up but then there’s the question of how doable this actually is for me. Thanks for the reply!

 

[03mossy]

Depends on your goal and the part of the state your in. Anything with Timber in the northern 1/3rd of the state is getting so over run with wolves that the hunting is becoming non existent. Down south you’ll pay the piper for anything that’s remotely decent crop land.
I definitely wouldn’t buy until the market corrects, and I think it’s starting to happen finally.
Finding a parcel with marketable timber that the previous owner wasn’t smart enough to cut is unlikely. The vast majority of people know what they have, most of our timber is low value high volume, it’s usually just been logged and the listing prices reflect standing timber.

Exactly this!

 

[bowhuntrben]

It sounds like you’re doing exactly what I would picture trying for ourselves. Paying the property taxes at the least seems like a win to me to have a nice whitetail property. I definitely don’t foresee us moving there but I have a ton of time off that allows us to travel to and fro. The tillable land rent makes a lot of sense to do. In your experience is there a good marketing tool to get that tillable land rented easily? The whole thing that sparked this was watching those Bill Winke videos from High Point Land. Of course the YouTube videos get me all pumped up but then there’s the question of how doable this actually is for me. Thanks for the reply!

I would think it would be very easy to get the tillable land rented. The person who rents our neighbor's property offered to sign a contract as long as we wanted at a rate much higher than we're getting from the CRP without even thinking about it...so I would start by talking with the neighboring property owners if theirs is planted and see who is planting theirs. I'm sure they would jump on the opportunity to plant your tillable too since they are already right there planting other stuff. There's a good chance whatever you buy might already be getting rented out and it could just continue with that person.
Other than that, maybe check a local coop/grainery? I haven't had to do it, but that's probably where I would start if the neighbors didn't work out.

 

[Silveroddo]

Is there a part of the state you’re considering specifically? I can think of 2-3 general areas that might still hold potential, but there are a lot of areas I would steer clear of.

 

[EZduzIT]

Is there a part of the state you’re considering specifically? I can think of 2-3 general areas that might still hold potential, but there are a lot of areas I would steer clear of.

We’ve looked from Fergus Falls up to Bemidji, and Grand Rapids up to the boundary waters.

 

[Silveroddo]

Fergus falls to the Perham area is probably your most promising for hunting and actual land value.
Bemidji to Duluth is in that area I’d lose interest in, unless you know for a fact there is some kind of hunting,there are a lot of dead zones.
The further North and East you get the worse the wolf issue is becoming. I’m an hour south of Bemidji and the changes in the last 2 years I’m seeing are pretty disheartening.
My step brothers bought 80 acres around Effie about 10 years ago because it was cheap, and to this point I don’t think they have literally killed a deer on it.
The Fringe areas between the real agriculture in the state and lake country probably hold the most promise for what you’re trying tp do.

 

[FarleyMcJohnson]

I'm from central MN, I have a cabin up in Voyagers (International Falls) and spend a lot of time in the North Shore\Arrowhead area. Land in central MN (decent hunting) is going for 8-10k and acre.

The wolf thing is prob legit (I dont do much hunting up there) but that wouldnt stop me personally from buying property. They have just as many if not more wolves in wisconsin and they seem to shoot plenty of deer. But again I dont live or hunt deer in the northern part of the state so take that whith a grain of salt. I personally would look to the Iron Range (Between Bemidji and Duluth) because thats one of the cheapest area to buy land in the state. I would just be more of a fisherman than a whitetail hunter (plenty of great lakes to fish in the whole state). You can still hunt bears and do all the same outdoor stuff, and it's not like theres NO deer, just not great deer hunting, and eventually we'll prob be able to shoot wolves again? I dont know, thats just my opinion.

 

[EZduzIT]

I'm from central MN, I have a cabin up in Voyagers (International Falls) and spend a lot of time in the North Shore\Arrowhead area. Land in central MN (decent hunting) is going for 8-10k and acre.

The wolf thing is prob legit (I dont do much hunting up there) but that wouldnt stop me personally from buying property. They have just as many if not more wolves in wisconsin and they seem to shoot plenty of deer. But again I dont live or hunt deer in the northern part of the state so take that whith a grain of salt. I personally would look to the Iron Range (Between Bemidji and Duluth) because thats one of the cheapest area to buy land in the state. I would just be more of a fisherman than a whitetail hunter (plenty of great lakes to fish in the whole state). You can still hunt bears and do all the same outdoor stuff, and it's not like theres NO deer, just not great deer hunting, and eventually we'll prob be able to shoot wolves again? I dont know, thats just my opinion.

Definitely sounds like a place to get a good amount of an acreage. I definitely am not looking for trophy deer necessarily. Just a place to call my own and put a few stands on and steward the land the best I can. Thank you for the information. The fishing sounds great. Considering we own a fly fishing business this is up our alley

 

[Bowhunting WI]

"Hunting property" prices in SE MN are averaging anywhere from $5000-6500/acre. I know this as I spent much of 2022 trying to buy my own property in SE MN (around Winona) or SW WI (Buffalo or Trempealeau counties).

I have a few buddies that hunt SE MN, from Winona down to Caledonia and they're killing some big bucks every year.

I ended up buying 65 acres on the Buffalo/Trempealeau county line in SW WI and could not be happier!

 

[wind gypsy]

Parents have 170 acres north of grand rapids, I have a 40 in Kanabec county. I have a couple different MLS land searches running at all times and keep a pretty close tab on stuff from about Alexandria area and east to WI and south to the cities. Market sure doesn't seem like it's going down much. Any decent tillable is bonkers cost wise. Best whitetail properties in general are going to follow the forest to Ag/Prairie transition from southeast MN to the northwest. It'll generally be priced accordingly. Most affordable stuff will be in east central part of the state and north - Kanabec and Pine counties and north. I'll say my parents place in itasca county is an effort in futility/frustration trying to manage habitat for deer in wolf country.

With all of the info and desire for recreational land out there these days, I think a guy would be hard pressed to do great $ wise on it vs investing their efforts elsewhere. Especially in areas they aren't that familiar with. However, its also a pretty safe place to have your money parked as long as it's easily afforded.

I was a MN resident for years while working on the road. In most of those years i didn't bother buying a MN hunting license and usually hunted in 2 or 3 other states instead. I damn sure wouldn't travel there from CO for hunting on a regular basis. Since ive settled down and become a dad (cant spend 3+ weeks hunting out west anymore) I bought some land and started to immerse myself in the local deer hunting and habitat manipulation game and I really enjoy it, but it wouldn't cross my mind if I lived out west.

 

[cnelk]

I damn sure wouldn't travel there from CO for hunting on a regular basis.

No truer words spoken. I grew up in Lake of the Woods County. Lived there for 25 years. Moved to Colorado in 1988.
I sold my last 40 acres over 10 years ago.

You want wolves? Go there.
Mosquitoes? Horrendous
Water? Cant get rid of it
Fishing? 'Okay' at best
Cold? Witch's tit cold

You couldnt kick me back to that state.

 

[Silveroddo]

No truer words spoken. I grew up in Lake of the Woods County. Lived there for 25 years. Moved to Colorado in 1988.
I sold my last 40 acres over 10 years ago.

You want wolves? Go there.
Mosquitoes? Horrendous
Water? Cant get rid of it
Fishing? 'Okay' at best
Cold? Witch's tit cold

You couldnt kick me back to that state.

You forgot the politics and the taxes, lol

 

[cnelk]

You forgot the politics and the taxes, lol

Well.... Colorado aint much different now