How EXPENSIVE Is It To Maintain LARGE Acreage?

Troy, you missed down trees in the fields that are open... Every year I have down trees in my field..... Very common here in the Appalachians for fields to be surrounded by trees... Good job on analysis...

Pretty short sighted comment. I'm guessing he was equating the thousands of dollars spent on taxes and keeping everything pretty to keep the city off your back to country living. Trees need trimming or felling. Grass needs to be cut. Ridiculous taxes. Potentially HOA fees. Need licensed contractors to do anything, at 300 bucks an hour. I've even been cited by the city for an overgrown vine, so you gotta stay on top of it all.

I spend about 6-8k yearly on a quarter acre and a 1400 square foot house. Much more than you!

In rural TN my family owned the same 200 acres for over 200 years now. It's been split a few times to where we have 40 acres remaining. I'm wanting to buy back a portion from another family member but land prices are booming. My family member is asking us for $450,000 for our old portion with about 60 acres. Land is good if you have it but it's so expensive. Anyone in our county has been priced out of it. Only outsiders can afford to buy. Sad to see it go to some asshole from California or up north.

Your wealth of experience and expertise on this subject is evident in this in-depth look into this subject. You brought to light many things I had not thought of.

They are making land expensive on purpose so black rock or gates can buy it all and reinstate feudalism. A nation of renters, like brazil post communism.

Hey Troy, that guy that made that comment about it costing a ton of $$? Maybe he was talking about downtown Dallas..... LOL

Many states have an agricultural exemption on land used for farming, including timber tracts. I live in Florida and pay very little in property tax on 70 acres of timber land.

I don't know about West Virginia but the value of the land has increased much more than any costs associated with "maintaining" it.

Great points! In doing genealogy research on my family, I found that family members that farmed in the 1800's, per the Agriculture Census - which is separate from the regular census, would only farm part of the land. So if they owned 80 acres then they would only farm 40 acres. I would like to add that treating your farm as a business can help with offsetting taxes since equipment is a business expense and can be deducted. As the equipment depreciates with age it can help with reducing future years taxes as well. So, don't forget to scan equipment receipts into your computer as they will often fade.

One of the best solutions for what to do as a landowner on land that you won’t use for an extended period of time is enrolling into a NRCS Conservation Reserve Program. CRPs are great ways to help wildlife be provided with adequate resources and be paid for doing that (more or less to pay off the land taxes so two birds with one stone!)

If you're worried about property taxes, don't move to a blue state. The taxpayers have to pay for all the progressive BS programs and hand money over to lay-a-abouts. In my state, they even started putting tampon machines in all the public school boys' rooms!

I have no clue if this is nationwide or just in GA, but anything over 12 acres, in GA at least, can qualify for a CUVA exemption. It has to either be farm or conservation or both to qualify. Takes about 60% off of our taxes each year. Just something to look into if it's offered in other states.

That is why I got my 40ac in Blue Ridge Mtns of Va and only 3.5 are in fields, rest is wooded and in land management conservation with county with reduced taxes. If I ever select cut timber all I have to do is inform them. I didnt want the upkeep of 40ac of fields. Its all in what you want, need and can afford to do I guess. Love your channel.

I bought 246 acres of WV land in 2014. The property was raw land that was select timbered in 2011. Since then, I would say I have spent $50,000 in clearing and grading 10 acres, putting in three culvert crossings (one is concreted with 3 culverts) and graveling 1500 feet of right of way. Yearly maintenance on all that after spending that amount is around $2000-$3000 a year. However, I bought land when it was cheap. Now my land with the improvements since then has tripled in value and my property tax is very low compared to my house in Florida. If fact, I'm astonished how much land prices in WV has increased in 10 years. I really believe there is a quiet land boom in WV nobody is talking about especially in southern WV around the newly made national park.

Texas has agriculture exemption on taxes land. I pay 78.00 dollars for 38 acres. If I build a house they automatically square off one acre and house value and tax me separately. Don't build a mansion in the country or you'll attract the tax man and piss off your neighbors.

People like that have a control compulsion that motivates them to mow and weed it all

Thank you for sharing these videos!

We have 80 acres in North Alabama. 60 clear & 20 in trees. I have cows on the open land and bush hog it yearly. I am using a chainsaw to open up the remainly land as silvopasture. Not a huge cost.

Ideally you have an acre or two next to blm or forest service land. You pay tax for your property and use the entire public lands...

Great recap, the retreat sounds like a great time!

We have our 1,200 acres in Greenbelt, which greatly reduces property taxes.

Troy I like you show what you said about not cutting fields or grazing them was spot on my father bought his Uncle's property when I was 5 yrs. old and never did anything to maintain the property or the house for 50+ years used it for hunting camp and hunting land, today the house is falling down the fields are so thick you can not walk though them to get into the woods to hunt the dirt road is almost impassable do to mud holes even when dry...
He passed away in 2020 and today his wife wants a fortune for the 68 M/L acres that he never had surveyed...

Troy I have 74acres in Clay, WV, my Great Uncles timbered some of it about 60 years ago so far I can not find a buyer for my timber 16' up...
The local mill [Pierson's] is not interested yet they came in twice in 2 years to clear cut the neighbors next to mine...

Depends if you picture a house in the woods, or the gardens at Versailles.

On the spot on property management cost. Only thing missing is gravel costs to keep up the road.

Theft! Slavery! Real estate and property/vehicle taxes are "wealth taxes" on market value and, sometimes, unrealized capital gains. Title holder forced to generate revenue to cover or have it seized! If you have a mortgage/note, this means government taxes your debt on top of the interest expense you pay on the note.

A tractor for a 40+ acre spread is a hefty chunk of change if you're gonna keep a portion of your land cleared. Not gonna lie. But, if you're just planning on letting your land grow back to forest, you're just looking at property tax + driveway/access road maintenance.

🎉🎉🎉 you are absolutely right. I have 27 acres agricultural that is mainly wooded with about 10 acres cleared. It has a creek and a couple of Wells. My property taxes are $45 a year. I’ve made about $300,000 in increased value since we acquired the property. My first piece of advice is don’t take financial advice from broke people.🎉😂 besides maintaining the fence and gates at the front of the property I have no maintenance costs annually except mowing or brush hogging every other year. I can do that in trade for hunting rights in the fall.

Wherever I see comments like this I assume the perspective is biased. For example if you where to take this same 100acres and move to California it would hundreds of millions to maintain, even if someone where to take my 5 acres with the lakefront it would be tens of millions. Personally I think these are examples of people that are stuck in their own bubble.

I just let the part i dont use grow up. Im never selling so i don't care about resell

10 acres of cleared land is a lot of work. 40 acres of forest is not a big deal

Grew up on 76 acres of timberland in Oregon. You are 100% correct. We had to mow the front lawn just like everyone else, but the forest was just a forest. We had some access roads we would mow once a year and walk over with a shovel after a big rainstorm to refresh the water bars, but there was no real hassle because it didn't need anything. The problem comes when people think they need to keep the entire property in "front yard condition.".

I'd add insurance as another mandatory minimum expense

Wow I can't believe how little you're taxes are for your home and land!! Wow!!

"2 𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘧𝘦𝘸 𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘧𝘦𝘸 𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴"

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!! The commenter must be living in a McMansion with a hedge maze and marble walkways that need to be cleaned all the time. I'm currently on 1.5 completely landscaped rural acres and spend an average 2 hours a week on maintenance(mowing/weed-whacking/raking driveway stone) plus another 1 hour per day taking care of the hens and garden. The only piece of equipment I own is a 47 year old Bolens HT-20. My grandfather maintained the same sized area surrounding their home, with that same Bolens, well into his 70's and left the other 23-ish acres to nature other than harvesting a few downed trees for firewood.

I've also got a significantly larger tract of land in east TN and haven't spent a dime to 'maintain' it. I've spent money cutting in a road and leveling a home site, but also made money off timber in the process. Property taxes now, before the house gets built, are under $300/year.

Returned to WV a couple of years ago…within the first year they reassessed our property. Our taxes more than tripled. We could have our taxes reduced by filing as a homestead. We were advised by locals that they will come out and inspect the property and count our critters if we do.

Went to renew our vehicle registration and they said in order to renew they needed to see our receipt verifying we paid our property taxes.

Had a conversation similar to this with my wife not that long ago so I'm understanding both the comment and your commentary in this video.

To my way of thinking the maintenance costs/concepts on a large rural property next to other large rural property owners is quite different than maintaining a few acres in semi-rural suburban sprawl. Since with the latter situation (which is how we're living now) the entire property may need to be treated like zone 0/1 to keep the neighbors from making a fuss (rightly or wrongly so), but with a larger rural property and with neighbors that are also on large-ish rural properties there's not as likely to be as much fuss -- assuming everyone stays neighborly and respects property boundaries.

If a person starts getting in large undeveloped properties closer to urban areas then there can start to be other issues (something my parents have seen on the property where I grew up) that drive up costs ..... namely dealing with trespassing and/or illegal dumping.

Glad to hear that my thinking & experience isn't unique or entirely unfounded.

That comment was hilarious. Must be spoiled rotten.

Excellent explanations! Useful info, thank you.

Great analysis! Having purchased 40 acres of pretty much wild land, the biggest cost has been time going out to clear the old logging roads and knocking down the undergrowth. It's been a lot of fun AND work, but it has been very rewarding that I can now go and wander at my leisure, enjoying The Creator's gift. Thanks for taking the time to share!

very good

I maintain 57 acres in Ny with a cabin on it keeping the logging roads open and mowed are the biggest jobs. Every 12-15 years we have it logged and the loggers refresh the roads. Not that difficult . The taxes on the other hand are ridiculous.

For a topic, I'd like to hear your opinion of how to go about making money off hunters. Often enough you hear vague suggestions of adding hunting or farm tourism but examples or analysis are rare enough.

Some electric net fencing and some goats would work perfect for this land….

Great discussion.

Troy you are a romantic. That's not a bad thing but it does influence your decisions. You've picked sole ownership instead of creating a corporation or having your church buy and you lease from them. You live on your land so you have the extra upkeep of a house and yard. If you are paying six percent interest on a mortgage you sure want to get some income from the land. What you see as maintenance I see as capital costs, you only buy your tractor once. I like the idea of homesteading lifestyle and what you're doing. So I'll keep watching.

thanks for this informative video im interested in buying land

Good luck to the chances of your families survival if you have less than 5 acres.
Peak oil is here
Global warming is here
inflation is here
Soil loss is projected at 90% in the next 25 years
Starvation is coming
If you haven't purchased land and started building those soils then you better soon

How do you go about finding someone who wants to graze their cows or raise hay on your property...I have 8.5 acres in florida I'd like to do one of these with