Owning Land Poll

[BrianL]

Owning a larger piece of land is probably better, since the larger it is the better it will be to lease out for grazing. In east Texas, you can't just let land set, or you will lose to being overgrown in just a couple of years. While land and peace and quiet are great, it takes a LOT of work and money. A LOT of work.... A LOT of money...

[labman]

A. If you have kids under 16. I've done both. The idyllic view of having a place in the country (mine is 89 miles door to gate) is fine. The reality is if you have kids, the weekends can get really busy with sports, activities etc, and you don't really enjoy it the amount of time you think you will.

I'm under contract to sell my place, its been a great 12 years. We hunted/fished/rode 4 wheelers and had a blast. However, we didn't use it near as much as I had hoped. All three of my sons played sports. One also shot competitive shotgun (made AA) in high school. Our weekends were busy.

In order to make the land purchase more palatable, I sold 6 acres with a great house, pond, barn to make a move to another great house on 1.5 acres. Great schools, neighbors, we're still in the house today.

However, not a day goes by that I don't regret selling the original place. Why? I enjoyed it every, single day. After work, being able to dink around the barn, fish for 30 minutes or two hours, ride 4 wheelers, raise two cows that were pets. Time is valuable, and if you have the opportunity to daily live in a great environment, do it.

There will always be a chance to get away, either via lease or vacation.

[stinkbelly]

I read the first few and I guess I am different. I would never live in a neighborhood again. I know never say never. I can't stand barking dogs. I don't want to hear your lawnmower. People, congestion, traffic, pollution, etc. There is now way I would stay. We moved out of the city 19 years ago and have loved it every second. I look back and wonder how I lived in the city for the first 20 years of my life.

[PYBUCK]

Buy bigger. That way when you do get to go you can work 20+ hours a day instead of only working 12 hrs a day on a smaller tract of land.

[gingib]

First off I would definitely stay under 1.5 hours max. I would choose option B only if you plan on keeping the place, building it up and retiring out there once the kids are gone

[systemnt]

I'm 31?
buy stock in apple, google, and yahoo.
buy whatever the hell i wanted in a few years.

[WItoTX]

Public land is nice, but nothing like owning your own. Just driving in the gates gives me a child on christmas day feeling. I'm sure it will wear off eventually and it's not fun writting the checks but it is a piece of dirt with my name on it. When I was a teenager we lived on a big ranch that someone else owned and I had 1,000s of other family friend land to roam on. But it wasn't ours, I always had to worry about what the landowner/boss would say if I made ruts or did something wrong. Same with a lease nowadays. On my land I do as i please and come and go as I please. No restrictions, and best of all if one of these days my girls have families of their own I can maybe take my grandkids out there to teach them the outdoors.

Owning land isn't for everyone and has different meanings for everyone. From where I came from as a kid I never really thought that I would own my own land, it's been a true blessing!

OP with all that said, I would still buy as big as you can afford where you can easily enjoy it. If you don't have children yet take that into consideration because they will def change things financially but especially time wise once they get active.
Good luck!

Absolutely agree with you. I wanted to give OP an option 3, because it's working for us. I grew up hunting 50 acres of private in WI that my parents own, that they live on as well. Nothing better then waking up 20 min before light and being in the stand 10 min before shooting light.

[Burntorange Bowhunter]

No brainer.

A.

screw a neighborhood and neighbors.

[Burntorange Bowhunter]

I'm 31?
buy stock in apple, google, and yahoo.
buy whatever the hell i wanted in a few years.

Do you even Ripple, bro?

[systemnt]

Do you even Ripple, bro?

I ripple. I ripple a lot.

[gmac]

In my opinion you need to do some serious soul searching about what’s going to make you happy. 4 years ago at age 33 I bought some land 30 minutes from my house. Very similar to your situation, we were happy with our neighbor hood and kids schools and didn’t want to leave that. Fast forward to now at age 37 we are building a barndo on that property and moving out there permanent. It turned into our happy place and changed our view on the neighborhood life. Can’t wait to get our house sold and live on my happy place.

[breederbuck33]

We're in the same boat. We're leaning towards B, but not that far away from town.

[gingib]

More and more people are moving out of the crazy city life....which doesn't help land prices

[Razrbk89]

There are certainly pros and cons to both. Living a decent clip from town comes with its pains, for sure.

Gravel tears up tires/vehicles, burn a lot more gas.
Takes forever to get to work, the store, school, practices, etc.
Kids don’t have any friends to play with
Utilities are expensive
You may not get mail, trash, & will have bad/no internet
Might have to have a well all the joys that accompany that

Trying to take care of a place over a dang hour from your house seems like it would be hard/impossible. I guess I’d go with A if I had to get out of the current situation & choose one.

Also, the people saying “land always goes up” are wrong.

[TeamAmerica]

i went option B. can't convince my wife to move out to the country permanently. we LOVE our neighbors in the city (and schools) - any weekend we aren't at the property (usually twice a month), we are in the front yards with the neighbors having drinks and a firepit while all the kids play. good thing is our place is 70 miles away.

some say why not enjoy the country everyday! truth is that is very hard when you work a full time job, then add in a possibly longer commute, homework, etc. most of the fun would be had on the weekends anyway.

i'm also not in the sports family group. i cannot imagine even spending half the time that some spend on sports - it simply isn't rewarding to me and my kids. if that was a priority for us, then the weekend property would lose tremendous value/reward in my mind....