The headlines in the big newspapers have concentrated on the boom in urban real estate prices, but there’s also been a big rise in rural land values all across the United States, and in many parts of Canada. There are several factors driving this trend. Of course agricultural land has grown in price as the value of some crops has skyrocketed. Unlike decades past, rural farmland is not being converted to single family housing in substantial amounts, and exurban house building is rarely the reason for increases in raw land sales. It’s the boom in recreational land for sale that’s really driving the trend, and the desire for hunting land is one of the primary reasons.
Hunting requires a lot of area. Unless you’re on very good terms with a lot of neighbors, you’ll have to purchase very large parcels in order to have an inexhaustible supply of game. Recreational land for sale for hunters can’t consist of a patchwork of very small lots unless it’s adjacent to enormous sanctuaries, or you can trust all your neighbors not to hunt all the desirable game until it’s too scarce to serve any of the adjacent neighbors.
Large Lots Are Preferred for Hunting
Luckily for hunters, recreational land for sale is still available on real estate databases like Landzilla.com in very large lots, and it makes a great investment for current use and future sale. There is a great deal of rough land for sale that isn’t appropriate for cultivation. Tillable land prices rise and fall with the price of the underlying crop that can be grown in that location. For instance, in the Midwest, soybeans might be grown as a commodity crop, and the current yield per acre can be easily calculated, multiplied by the number of acres, and the total used to put a price on the farmland. While the price for the land will fluctuate as commodity prices change, the methods for determining the price of parcels will not.
The price for recreational land for sale for hunting can be driven by other factors. Because large parcels are necessary for a stable supply of animals, the value of every available parcel doesn’t necessarily rise as land is bought up. Smaller parcels might even see as drop in prices per acre as larger parcels around them sell for more per acre. As parcels become landlocked, they become less valuable even if they are of the right size for hunting.
Metropolitan Wages Drive Nearby Rural Land Prices
In many places that are within easy driving distance of metropolitan areas, recreational land for sale for hunting is selling for more per acre than tillable land is, which has rarely been the case in the history of the United States. There is no particular reason for farmland to be in close proximity to urban centers, but if prime outdoor recreational land is located near a desirable urban area, a hunter that resides in the urban area can afford to pay higher prices for large parcels of raw land simply to make sure of access to wild game within a few hours drive of home.
