Sounds Good: 40 Acres for $40K

They’ve been pushing land sale opportunities at Eagles Springs Ranch pretty hard here in Seattle lately. Radio ads for the high desert development 20 minutes from Moses Lake in Central Washington have been coming in loud and clear during our morning commutes.

We put a call into the developers to ask if they were having a tough time selling the lots, given the $1,000 an acre price and hearty sales pitch, but we’re told 117 parcels in 170-parcel first phase of the development have been sold, so scratch that theory.

There’s still plenty of land to go around out there in Eastern Washington, but there’s also no doubt that with places like Bend, Oregon becoming boom towns for Californians and others in search of the NEXT GREAT escape, central Washington is becoming an attractive alternative. Moses Lake ain’t no Bend, but, the location does put you in the middle of a giant outdoor playground, right there on the Columbia River; with alpine terrain about two hours north and Spokane/northern Idaho about three hours east.

Texas Two-Steps On Land Sale

Good article in The New York Times today about a mountain wilderness tract that was, and probably will be again shortly, on the block. The delay of the sale will give Texans a better chance to debate the destiny of this 9,700 acres of wilderness.

“This is a fortunate mistake,” said the land commissioner, Jerry Patterson, “because it will give Texans an opportunity to become more informed about why this land should be conveyed to a good steward.”

Here’s a link to a KeyeTV news video on the issue.

Wind Farms: Fair or Foul?

Count central Washington as a battle ground between environmentalists clammering for renewable energy and local landowners who think their environs will be compromised by the sound and sight of the giant wind machines.

Washington state governor Christine Gregoire said she will over-rule local officials and permit a wind farm near Ellensburg.

As much as LandCrazed would like to see the U.S. get off our oil addiction (yeah, G.W. Bush, you really invented THAT thought) the idea that rural residents should take a hit with the landscape-altering addition of wind farms seems, well, a little unfair. Rural residents don’t have the numbers or the clout to beat back speculators, developers, engineers and politicians on these kinds of issues, and, frankly, they’re being asked to take one for the Green Team.

Wind energy sounds good, unless you live next to one of the noisy farms. Look at these stats from the National Energy Education Department:

In 2005, wind machines in the United States generated a total of 17.8 billion kWh per year of electricity, enough to serve more than 1.6 million households. This is enough electricity to power a city the size of Chicago, but it is only a small fraction of the nation’s total electricity production, about 0.4 percent. The amount of electricity generated from wind has been growing fast in recent years, tripling since 1998.

This is not as easy as it sounds, finding the right balance between the needs for renewable energy sources and the rights of rural landowners, who can’t effectively fight the companies out there speculating on rural real estate and new energy technologies. The Sierra Club itself has danced around the touchy issue, calling the choices involved “complex.”

Online Land Inquiry Nets Credit Offer

As we drove through Seattle the other morning, a radio ad for land near Moses Lake, Washington caught our attention. The announcer seemed to be signaling a distress sale at Eagles Springs Ranch, considering the urgency conveyed in the 30-second spot blaring in the middle of the morning commute.

Basically, 40-acre parcels were being advertised, hard and loud, for $39,999 — which by our poor math skills calculates to less than $1K an acre.

So, naturally, being a fan of the high desert — and understanding that raw land on the west and wet side of the Cascades Mountains is a limited resources — we thought we’d check out the development. We clicked around online and, yes, sent off an e-mail inquiry about the land.

Oddly, we did NOT get back an e-mail from Eagles Springs Ranch, but we did hear from Northwest Farm Credit Services. Here’s what they had to say:

Finding financing for rural properties can often be difficult. Larger acreages, irrigation, growing crops, agricultural zoning and other common features of rural properties can present challenges for many lenders. Start with a lender that understands the uniqueness of rural properties……at Northwest Farm Credit Services, we specialize in financing rural properties and have unique loan programs to meet your needs. We offer competitive financing for…

• Country homes
• Future home sites
• Farms and ranches
• Timber and woodland tracts
• Equestrian, vineyard, orchard, and much more….

The only downside is that, well, we were NEVER interested in buying the land, let alone financing it. But, we guess it’s good to know that one innocent e-mail can spur a potential land lending spree.

Chickening Out on Buildable Lots!

It is a long story, but after much deliberation, LandCrazed (the blogger) has decided to PASS on acquiring (at minimal cost) 6 lots in Hampshire County, West Virginia. The lots would have been a lovely gift, but … and here’s the part that’s embarrassing to admit … too much of a liability — at this time. The lots were all 3-5 acres in a subdivision called the Cabin @ Capon Bridge. It is about 45 minutes west of Winchester, Virginia, which puts the land about 2 hours drive from D.C. and Baltimore. It all sounded good, but then there’s this fact: Not a lot of lots have sold in that subdivision in the past year. And LandCrazed needed to liquidate at least one or two lots in order to support taxes and HOA fees for the remainder.

Oh well. Maybe next time. Or, maybe this was foolish conservatism on the part of this (maybe not so) landcrazed land lover.

Not that we didn’t get some gentle nudging from a local broker (Steve) affiliated with United Country. Here’s the message that, naturally, made us wonder if we were too conservative with this decision.

“I’ve actually gotten two contracts in the past week for building lots one a 3-acre lot and the other a litle over 9 acres so there are buyers looking for buildable lots out there. Let me tell you a little about United Country.You’ve been on our website and this is where we get most of our leads. www.UnitedCountry.com gets upwards of 28,000 web hits daily all of which get transferred to the local office in whose ares the inquires were made. In addition our company website which is www.homeplaceproperties.com has all our listings,location,prices and pics. This is the difference between U-C and other real estate companies. When myself or my agents come to work every day we have leads we are able to work. Other companies will tell you to go “farm” for customers or ask your friends or relatives if they may know someone who may be interested in your property.I personally wouldn’t work for another company.Like our motto says “No one knows the country like we do!”

Hey. Good sales pitch there!

Pretty site for pretty land

An interesting site has cropped up and grabbed our attention.

Idealdestinations.com is a search site that aggregates all kinds of land/housing/retirement “opportunities.” It’s an offshoot enterprise of RPI Media, which publishes Ideal Destinations Magazine and others, like Live South.

Look, Ma! The web is really growing up! In the next few years, some of these new search sites will win the traffic wars being waged right now for user hits and become standard-bearers in the brave new world of online media sites.

Where The Hell Have You Been?

Wow. Major embarrassment here in the land of LandCrazed. The only explanation: We weren’t particularly LandCrazed for the ENTIRE SUMMER OF 2007. But, alas, that would be a little white lie. We were, even in absentia from the blog-o sphere, land obsessed.

Let’s get down to business, which is the specter of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and its impact on rural land values.

I’m saying the mess made by unscrupulous and predatory lenders IS hurting, or shall we say, depressing land values in most areas of the U.S. I’m not saying it’s not a great time to invest in land, (they ain’t making any more of it) but the average Joe/Jo out trolling for that special lot or rural parcel MAY be hesitating, since the availability of loans for jumbo loans and land (already higher than housing mortgages) is, well, tight.

It’s going to take a little longer than everyone is ready for (my guess) for the current state of (bad) affairs to turn around. Which is why it is probably a good time to buy … if the land is a long-term play. Let’s go hunting.