RE: borrowing money to buy land
chief400, I'm looking into it too. I'm not in Parrot Head's boat having enough cash to buy $100k+ of land in cash (on a teacher's salary, no less) so I'll be having to find a loan like you.
The old lady works at a bank (here in the city) and the best they do is 30 year notes for "improved land". Pretty sure that is for lots to build houses, etc and _not_ for farm/timber land. I've got a hunting buddy who wants me to buy an 80 adjoining his land. The numbers he gave me was less than half of what the old lady came up with. The bank's 30yr # was like $900/month and his number was around $400. Assuming he's not flat out wrong, he's obviously working from very different loan paramaters. I'll find out for sure what it is this week, but I'm guessing the banks that do farm loans have longer terms and different rate structures. At least i'm hoping... b/c $900 a month isn't going to cut it.
And as far as Parrot Head saying it's hard to get money for land, that's just nonsense. If you've got the income to debt ratio any lender will be more than happy to go out of it's way to lend you money. They're not making money unless they're lending money. To his credit, he's right on about cash rent and crp program. Anything to defray cost of hunting land is a good thingl.
My 2 cents.