Hunting land, timber land, does it fit?

I could go into debt to buy a tract I’m very familiar with, with managed timber for the last 50 years. Best I can figure, hardwood timber harvests every 10 years or so would come out to about 3-4% ROR at today’s prices. Feels weird to consider financing it while I still have a mortgage.

The land I own has timber but on soils that aren’t quite as productive. It’s in a decent area of SW MS but land prices haven’t done too much since I bought it 5 yrs ago. Timber is growing.

Be careful what you wish for.I started buying bits and pieces of the family estate from relatives,I have 142 acres total,.about 80 in pine timber that I was hoping to get some retirement income.I enjoyed having it for just a place to hunt and fool around out in the woods.I never wanted to live on it but my wife hounded me to build a house until I gave in.The first 10 years were fairly enjoyable with pretty good deer hunting.
Then the wild hogs moved in and ruined the hunting and rooting up all my food plots and wood roads.I spent more time than I wanted hunting,trapping and snaring hogs over about 5 years without making much progress.For whatever reason they have pretty much stayed away for the last year.The deer have returned some but not like it used to be.
Then for some reason erosion issues started popping up.I’ve tried different things but what has worked best is filling sandbags with pit run ,I have filled and placed hundreds.
Then hurricane Laura hit and took down hundreds of trees,some parts of the property looks like it has been bombed.I’ve been putting in a lot of work just trying to get all my wood roads open.I didn’t lose many pine trees,mostly just oaks and pecan trees.
As far as the timber,prices have been in the toilet for a good many years.I need a 2’nd thinning but it’s impossible to get a logger unless one has hundred or thousands of acres.

I’m just short of 70,what I wanted to do in retirement is some traveling,and fishing,both locally and trips to the gulf and out of state.I have a nice Ranger boat that hasn’t seen the water in about 8 years.I have been to Alaska a couple of times,but there are several other states I would like to go fishing.
Long story short,this property takes so much time,energyand money to keep up I’ll never get to do the things I wanted to do.
Forgot to mention I have been recruited to do do a good bit of babysitting grandchildren,picking them up from school,baseball and T-ball,etc.That’s ok,to a point.
I have neighbors around,some with more land than me,cows to take care of,etc.They are perfectly happy working around their place and don’t really want to go anywhere.That’s not what I wanted.I have just resigned myself to the fact that is what it’s going to be.
I’m not saying don’t buy property.just be aware of what you’re getting into.It’s a lot more work and money to keep up than you might think.If you have enough money to hire everything done,that’s the ideal situation.

This would be a good question to post on the OB. Them boys know land and timber management. Having seen some similar threads, I believe their advice will likely be not to do it for the money. Too much work for too little return.

If you’re actually wanting to make $$ versus just have a place to go spend time outdoors I think the thing to do is flip properties. Buy unimproved neglected property, do some dozer work, plant food plots, put up feeders and get pictures of deer, then sell as hunting property in 3-5 years after you buy it. To do this, you’ll make your money when you buy the property. You can’t do this with property already listed for sale, those properties are sky high. That’s the price you want to sell the property for down the road. I think smaller tracts (40-150 acres) would be easier to turn, and you have to be willing to sell the place once it’s “fixed up”.

If you don’t have the relationships to buy the land or just want a place to get away then go for it but I don’t think you can look at it as much more than a safe place for your money to be. Barring oil/gas revenue, the biggest increase will probably be land appreciation depending on the area. Timber will provide some revenue but the market ranges from not very good to very poor lately and isn’t looking up. Add in taxes, a tractor with implements, seed for planting, etc and I don’t see much room for the investment to grow. But you can’t put a price on memories and a lot of my best memories are from doing stuff like this with my dad.

Regardless, I would advise you to be patient and wait for the right deal. I almost reached on a property this summer but decided not to and a month later a great opportunity dropped in my lap that I wouldn’t have been able to afford if I bit on the previous one.

As an investment, I hate it. Over the long term rural land appreciates, but slower than most other far more liquid investments.

Timberland must still be managed, which requires overhead. But it takes years of putting time and money into it before you can take cash out by selling the timber. Hunting leases must still be managed, insurance paid, property inspected, etc. All of that takes time....your time. Or pay someone to do it.

You say learning and researching it is your passion, but you don't know how to make money from it? I'm a little confused by that.

If you want some hunting land, find the right piece and hunt it. Sure you can make a little cash on the side with it but it won't be much and it won't be very liquid. The land will appreciate over time a little, and that will help.

Fed programs CRP and WRP are also popular; really good if you want a little income and want to convert land to hunting land.

I do know of land companies that have owners who own 1,000s of acres and that is their income. But they have owned the land for decades (cheap) and would cost millions today to start a company like that.

As a general rule, land is not a good investment right now.

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You say learning and researching it is your passion, but you don't know how to make money from it? I'm a little confused by that.

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I see the OP made me sound greener than I am. I’m aware of how land can produce income. Was mostly interested in opinions from the sub about how this fits into someone’s portfolio.

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Was mostly interested in opinions from the sub about how this fits into someone’s portfolio.

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As someone in your 30s looking to add a lot of growth, honestly probably 10% of your portfolio would make sense.

If you could get some reliable income and are closer to retirement I could see 20-30%.

The real kicker is if you use it as a true diversification so you’re place more in equities and less in bonds/ other fixed income outside of the land.

Owning rural land is expensive unless you just let it go completely wild.