buying land with others?
 

Looking into buying some hunting land with a few other guys. Has any one done this before. IF so what advice you would give? Do you set if up as a business/club with robert rules of order? How many guys is too many or not enough? How much acerage is enough for several guys to hunt. (located in nw pa mostly wooded land with few fields).
I currently own 49 acres in ny state. I could sell it and use the cash to buy my more acres in pa. I think i would rather keep it and buy more with a few other guys. Looking for some advice
One example of a guy i know that is involed in buying land with others has a buy back policy. IF at any time you want out of the deal the club/ business with buy you out with a 6% return on your investment (with 1 year advanced notice).

I was telling a story not long ago about a man who complained about his neighbors who were kind enough to let him hunt on their land and the story about the people my dad associated with who owned land bordering game lands that allowed them to drive up their hill to get to the top of the hill to make it easier to get into the game lands.
The ruts were very deep in the road and dad gave them a case or two of beer every year for letting him drive up the road.

Later they sold the land to a old steelworker from Leetsdale PA and that guy did not allow anyone to drive on his property.
Later we repaired his tractor for him so he could repair his road and plow his snow in the winter and in return he left us drive up his road one time before he sold his property.

The next family to buy the land was friends with my dad. We went to church together and the family was originally from Latrobe PA and the patriarch of the family was a boss at one time who worked for a company called Season All - that made replacement doors and windows. When he lost his job - himself and a couple of other bosses from Season All went into business for themselves and at one point I worked for this man for a year.

He was a good christian family man and wanted to provide for his family. So he took his savings and bought 90 acres of land and he set up a corporation where each family member owned part of the camp. The distant relatives were all able to buy into this idea of his.
They elected a president, which just happened to be his son, who was also the president of his window company - once he retired.

The son must have been a good carpenter at one time, except that he didn't know as much as he claimed to know and the employees could do a good enough job to please the customer - but not the employer.

Well he had bright idea's on how to rehabilitate the landowners farm house and in the end he spent too much money and the other owners were upset about him presenting them with a bill for the costs. On several occasions I went to their camp and helped for free - even though I was not working for them anymore and was not allowed to drive up their hill to get to the game lands.

Then the fighting started. Some nights it got so bad that they had to call the PA State Police.

I believe that it all started about the same time as when the rules started. Not all men are men, and not all wives can understand a man going to camp for a week and the wives not being allowed to go too - even though the camp charter said no women allowed.
I guess marriage is a 50/50 proposition where the women owns half of everything and it is hard to tell a woman that she has to contribute to a hunting camp that she cannot use in hunting season.
The next step was that the owners son told the members - who were all his family members that if they did not like the rules they made - that he would buy them out and they could leave.

Well they started out with 14 members and when they got down to less then 8 - they could no longer pay the taxes and the payments on the camp and they had to sell the camp.
I do not believe that the whole camp ownership thing lasted more then 8 years.
Its easy to get a bunch of guys together to buy land, it might even be easy to get enough money rounded up to buy the land, but when taxes are due and insurance is due, people will have 100 excuses why they cannot come up with their share of the money.
They still want to use the camp or the land, but they don't want to pay their fair share. It has happened in my own family - which had 100 acres of land - just across the road from this place.

So the land was sold again and this time the person that bought the land was a guy that I played football with in high school. His dad was the plant manager of the local factory in town where my dad worked. I'm not sure of the whole story, but I think he was married once and divorced and now is living with a woman.
His new girlfriend / wife - what ever loves horses and they bought the land so they could have someplace where he could hunt and she could keep her horses - so again - I do not have permission to drive across his land to get to the woods to go hunting.

Its not a big deal because Pennsylvania has 1 million acres of land that you can hunt all you want for free - all you have to do is abide by their rules. It's called Game Lands and anyone is welcome to hunt there as long as they buy a hunting license.

The PGC did us a big favor about 6 years ago and opened a new road - which was always there, but was not open for travel. They built a parking lot in a mud hole and put a gate across the road, not more then 1/2 a mile away from where I hunted from the very first time I hunted deer when I was 13 years old - some 33 years ago, when we had to walk several miles back in to get to our stands.

So asking someone if I can have permission to drive up his hill in the middle of winter so I can walk 1/2 a mile back into the woods to hunt deer isn't something I need to stick my head out to do anymore - because I can drive up the road anytime I want to as long as the gate into the game lands is not locked.
The road going back in is fairly flat and level and is a nice scenic drive.

So my advice to you is not to have any partners. If you can afford to buy land - buy it. If you have land in New York - enough to buy a resident hunting license and have good deer and turkey hunting up there - don't sell it. It won't be very long and everybody is either going to have to own a piece of land or hunt the game lands with all the posted signs in my area of the country.

Partner ships suck, someone will always get screwed. if you do do it I reccomen an attorney from day 1 and everything must be discused and resolved.

Agree with what some have said about a partnership being tough. Just look at the current state of the economy to see how many businesses/partnerships have gone under and most of these had the opportunity to generate revenue. Only way I would possibly do it is if everyone was in with cash money. No loans. I would also shy away from any "guaranteed" buyback as life and financial circumstances will put people in a place where they can't afford the buyback and the guy that needs out will either default or be soured to the whole deal.

I agree with this. Even if you are best friends from the time you could walk, cover everyone for every possible scenario. I have seen good friends go bad over something like this.


Not saying it is a bad idea though. If you can all agree on everything and get all of the legal things out of the way, do it and enjoy the land and each other.

It sounds good, but I wouldn't touch a partnership landownership deal with a 10 foot pole. Odds are it isn't going to work and it will be more expense when it is dissolved, probably with lost friendships.

Personally, I would hate to buy land with others. You get tied at the hip for better or worse. I was on a lease for a few years with some other guys and it didn't work so well. They lived down the road from the land and I lived 2 hrs away. They setup stands at the best spots and left them up year after year. My father-in-law and I were left with the less desirable areas. So we didn't hunt in their areas, but they had no problem hunting ours. I even had one of them setup a stand 15 yds from mine once!

Needless to say, they got the best deer every year and got upset with us for shooting smaller bucks. Well smaller bucks is all we ever saw since they had the best spots. We finally got out of the lease and I haven't regretted it for even a fraction of a second.

If you do it, even if it's family members, incorporate it. This will protect you from liability. If someone gets hurt on your land, they can sue you which will not only cost you that hunting land, but you could lose your personal property as well (e.g. savings, house, etc). Also, incorporation protects you in the event that someone gets a divorce and their ex-wife tries to get a piece of the property as part of the settlement.

Anyone have The Notes Of Cliff on this?

Yes.

There was fighting. No women allowed. He and his Dad know everybody in town. There is a new road that is a scenic drive. Dont buy ground with others.

The end.

Much better to lease with partners than to buy. Partnerships suck!
Been there done that.

Buying land with others.... One word of advice.....Don't
Live it up! Doug

My dad and I went 50/50 on some land. The original deal was I would pay off my half and then buy the other half off him. A couple years later, another small piece of land that joined us came up for sale with a trailer on it. My dad bought that himself. That's cool. I thought I would just buy that from him when I paid my original half off. It took me 5 years to pay my half off. Then dad decided he would just sign his half over to me and my brother and sister and it would be a place where the whole family could hunt and ride four wheelers and horses. No thanks. Luckily, some one made us an offer for the land that we couldn't refuse and we sold it.

I won't partner land with anyone ever again because, eventually, some one will have a different idea of what's best.

If you do it, make sure it is an equal ownership. Do NOT have one owner own more shares or value. Too many friendships have been ruined because of the majority owner. I myself would never own a partnership cause a certain few always end up doing all the work. As others have said, if you do this , have an attny. draw it up legal and right the first time.

Good Luck!!!!

If you read my post about the camp my X employer bought - they did just that and in the end, they probably broke even or made a couple of dollars, but you won't ever see then sitting across from each other at the Thanksgiving table any time in my lifetime.

One reason i would like to buy land with others is because i am already a landowner in another state (ny). I want the guys that have helped out over the last ten years on my property to be able to own some land as well and return the favor. Then they will have a reason to help out (other than just being a nice guy)and protect their investment. I would also like to own some property in pa and not have to sell the ny property located 20 min from home. Most land in pa would be about 1 hour from home. Which would mean no evening hunts on a whim. The main factor is the price. Pa land is about 1000-1500$ acre (more if not recently logged). There is no way just one of us could buy 100-200 acres alone. The cost of leasing is rapidly increasing was 6-9$ acre now 16-19$ per acre. If you don't lease or hunt game lands you won't have a place to hunt. Just some rough figures with 5 guys we would invest 7000$each . Then pay 1400 per year each for 15 years for mortage/ins.,taxes ect. Until the mortage is paid off then 300$.

Every situation is different, and I'm sorry that it didn't work out for you. I have a couple of family members that did this years ago and it's worked out just fine.

I wish I could find some land for that. Land near my house has been going for around $5000/acre. There are 318 acres being auctioned off tomorrow about 6 miles from my house. They owners said they won't take less than $5,500/acre. It's prime hunting.

Who has that kind of time to read that post ????????? Do you work in a library with an internet connection?? Close to 200 post in a month...most of which are, well........:hit:

Sorry I digressed:
As soon as someone gets in trouble financially, the agreements go out the window and so do the friendships.

Buy the land yourself and keep control of it. Too many people ruin it everytime.

Another worthless write-up by MDH that nobody cares about. Love it!

I've been thinking about buying some land with my father in-law and my brother in-law. We would be paying out of pocket equally with no loans. I've been hesitant for some time now because I don't want headaches down the road if one of us wanted out.

This thread has helped me out and given me a few laughs.

No one around here owns 300 acres of land except grape farmers along the lake. 1500$ acre is if it has just been clear cut. I did not say that finding the land would be easy. One of the largest i have found is 128 acres for $185,000. Half of it is field and that is a rare find.

Not trying to sound like a jerk to ya man but what the logical thing to do would be to split the land in half and you buy part and he buys the other part.

Example: You, bob, and steve want to buy 500 acres of land. Well instead chop that 500 acres into thirds. We did something similar to this years ago. My dad bought 240 acres all by himself with the intent of selling 110 to a friend. My dad and friend carved out his 110 and he owns it. But we hunt all 240. It's just in the end my dad owns half and his friend does too. This financially allowed for everything to work and no disputes on what to do in the end. We did this to avoid most of the responses found on this thread. Good luck

I thought about doing this with relatives but ended up getting in on a lease and it's worked just as well and is a whole lot cheaper.

haha this cracks me up!!!

I belong to a couple of "clubs" where the members own the land. One (same as RR) where appx 480 members own close to 12,000 acres. Another where 15 of us own 400 acres.

You have to determine what your goal is. To have permanent place to hunt or buy land for an investment and hunt it while you own it (with the intention of selling it all one day, perhaps).
To set it up correctly, you have to form a corporation with the corporation directly owning the land and members holding shares of "stock" in the corporation. Anything else and you are going to have problems (ESPECIALLY with a disgruntled "member" or two)..so do not let the deed be in the names of 12 different guys, for example.

you need to form by-laws, think about annual dues, ways to reduce property taxes (like perhaps using part of the land to farm, or for some federal/state wildlife program with correlating tax breaks, etc).

most importantly. In no way, shape or form, allow a mortgage on the place with members expected to make substantial payments over some term. What happens if a member or two can't come up with the money...perhaps for years?? you gonna cover it or lose your land?? I know you can say that you'd sell their share and all, but THAT may not work. Instead the land should be purchased outright, with each individual member coming up with their own individual financing (if neccesary).

It can work, but there are pitfalls to be avoided

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I would never buy land with anyone unless you buy it together then legally separate it into private sections. JMO

Buying land
 

Equal partnership, NEVER. Buy the property if you can do it and keep complete control with conditions they can use it if they contribute paying and labor to keep it going. Whether you own land or just have access to land you have to have complete control or it will be taken over by someone that decides they don't have to listen to anyone because it is now theirs. I have been through this and believe me it is not worth it. You will lose what you are trying to build and your property too.

Personal experience. I DO believe that partnerships can work. I still believe in ethics and that there is still good in people even when things come up. We owned land together with my FAMILY, for yeeeeeears. Family that we were best friends with and did literally EVERYthing with since before I was born...Well, lets just say, we no longer talk. The land dispute (among other factors) was the the final nail. We ended up having to sell our half off to them just to get out of the situation. It is very difficult. You never Really know someones true character until money is involved and its unfortunate that something material like money can break up lifes most important bonds. Anyways, I think id be a land partner again if the right friend/family situation arose but, it is Very tough