My husband and I own some rental property in WV. One of the properties is a 6-unit trailer park, but there’s 12 acres of undeveloped land up behind the park. We own that, too. A friend’s father is interested in leasing this land, by the year, for hunting on. I know that deer, rabbits, squirrels and wild turkeys are plentiful up there.
Problem is, neither party has any clue what a fair lease price may be.
Any input?
I dunno. I’d guess to take your monthly payments for the land being leased and multiply it by 12. Add in reasonable cost of repairs/upgrades/maintanance (is it the property itself or the land behind it?). Multiply the subtotal by 1.1 and you have your yearly lease rate, which covers a monthly bank payment and a 10% profit to you.
You may also want to include in the lease something about how you’re not responsible for him shooting himself, his friends, random blimps or Harry Whittington.
No, they own the property, they’re not subletting it. Look into what other people in the area pay for a similar parcel.
Are they going to be able to hunt any of those things, as long as they have a license for it?
My buddy owns some land and the BLM (or some other state agency) gives him a certain amount of antelope permits, which he then sells. They’re pretty hard to get in this part of the state, so he transfers them for twice the price the permit usually goes for. He’s not leasing the land, per se, he’s just allowing the hunters to use his land while they hunt. I’m not sure if there’s a distinction.
They’ll need a hunting license, but will not be limited as to how many deer, rabbits, squirrels or turkeys they can shoot. Certain animals are limited around here (in fact, the county I live in, and the neighboring county, recently opened a season on black bears, because they were becoming a threat; over 5,000 would-be hunters applied for licenses, 250 licenses were awarded, lottery-style, and 70 of the bears were killed before the season closed again).
Basically, though, these guys are just looking to hunt deer.
Screw the whole “calculate the annual rent” thing. They’re not renting the property for a year, they’re not using it for any purpose but a couple of days of hunting.
Seriously, if I was looking at renting a 12 acre parcel next to housing, which might limit how I can use the property and in which directions I can shoot; and was just going to be hunting deer and small game…
There’s no way I’m paying more than about $200-300 tops. Hell, if we were to take two deer (questionable on a small plot) and a couple of small animals, that rental cost is adding at least a buck a pound to the cost of the meat.
Anything higher and it becomes cost-prohibitive to the hunter. No way I’d pay say, $1000 to hunt on that parcel.
But I suspect that in the end, it’s all going to come down to negotiations and even possible rent-in-trade (venison sausage).
I’ll second Chimera’s take on this. 12 acres next to a trailer park is not prime hunting land, you’ll still be able to hear (if not actually see) the residences from just about anywhere on that parcel, especially if you use a tree stand. And if there are any kids living in the trailer park, the area is going to be full of their bike trails / forts / hang-outs. I wouldn’t pay a dime to lease land like that for hunting unless it happened to grow acorns which contained high levels of deer-crack-cocaine. This also assumes that the someone living in the trailer park isn’t already hunting that land.
Feel lucky that anyone wants to give you a few bucks to use this land in a way that will probably never impact you in any way, and enjoy a movie and dinner out on the proceeds.
-rainy
This is the kind of input I’m looking for. I didn’t actually make the offer to lease him the land, he approached me about it. I was clear exactly what it was: 12 unused acres behind a small trailer park. In fact, when he first broached the subject of whether we had any land suitable for hunting on, I was expecting him to ask me if he could hunt on it and maybe throw a few pounds of venison my way. I was surprised when he actually started talking about money.
Some of the trailer park residents probably do already hunt on it, but there’s nothing in their lease that entitles them to do so (though admittedly, there’s also nothing that specifically prohibits it). If we did this, we’d be letting the residents know ahead of time, though they are used to hearing shooting around there (it’s a very, very rural area). We would also be careful to draw up a contract that holds us liable for nothing.
Frankly, the idea of getting enough out of it each year for a decent dinner and movie for me and my hubby sounds just fine.
12 acres seems really small for this. 1 acre is about 44000 sq ft so 12 is 528,000 which is a square 726 feet on a side or a bit over 2 football fields. Doesn’t seem like if I lived next to that I’d want people shooting guns there.
Well, like I said, lots of shooting goes on there anyway. For instance, my hubby and I frequently go out there for target practice with his .32. He enjoys shooting. I don’t, but hey, if there’s gonna be a gun in the house, I’d better damned well know how to use it, right?
The people in this trailer park are not the type that would object to the shooting. They are the stereotypical WV trailer-park inhabitants. We’ve got a regular little soap-opera-Jerry-Springer-episode going on there every day of the week.
ETA: the 12 acres in back of the trailer park belong to us, but it’s a lot more than 12 unused acres up there. Probably closer to 100. It’s not like these 12 acres are bordered on every side by inhabitants.
Just thought I’d make that clear.
My Dad owns a farm down in North Carolina. It has about 500 acres, and he leases it to a hunting club for around $12,000 a year (I think). So, the rental price per acre isn’t that high.
Yeah, trade for some meat; the deer will probably be shot on land that’s not technically yours, anyway.