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Newsletter from Montana
June 2005
Our dance fest in June was a heap of fun! I am used to cowboy boots and the high heels were slowly killing me off, I wound up going home barefoot :-) The Bob Olson Swing Band played in the loft, Bridge Creek, our favorite restaurant, did the catering and a friend of ours brought in his Stearman stagger wing, giving rides in the open cockpit. My husband keeps the hangar floor white and shiny, so it was perfect for dancing. Sue and Mark O'Brien made a special trip from Chicago (they bought a lot here at the golf course)to teach Samba, Tango, Rumba and other ballroom dances during the short breaks, so everybody had a blast, even if they never danced before. We are contemplating to have another event like this in August, we'll see. My husband is still on the fence about that one.
I listed a beautiful cattle ranch adjacent to 500,000 acres of public lands next to the Pryor Mountains with views of the Big Horn, Beartooth and Meeteetse Ranges. The ranch is in Northern Wyoming (NO state income tax!), just 48 miles from Red Lodge, 50 miles from Cody and 70 miles from Billings. The whole ranch could support up to 300 AU if worked just right. There are 3,330 acres all together for just $ 1,130,000
661 acres are flood irrigated, mostly with gated pipe and 1,900 acres are deeded.
There are no fancy structures on the property, just little farm houses. The ranch can be bought in two different sections for about half the amount, each ranch would support 150 head of cattle. Ranch manager is for hire.
Ranching is somewhat easier on dry land, you send the cattle out to pasture, fix the fences and spray for weeds every couple of years. But then many ranchers lost their herds or had to sell them off at bargain prices during the drought, because they depended on the rain. Here in the semi-arid West you are better off having water rights, old ones at that. The older the water right, the better the chance that you will have water when you need it. This particular ranch has one of the oldest water rights in the county and had plenty of water during the drought years. The water comes all the way from the Cody reservoir and the water rights pre-date the reservoir!
To get the most of the land on any ranch, you need to water and fertilize according to soil test recommendations, reseed, control weeds and develop an efficient irrigation method. For successful grazing you need to eliminate continuous season-long grazing and instead divide large pastures into smaller pastures and develop a pasture-rotation grazing system, providing a common area for these pastures with stock water. You might have to corral livestock or turn them out on some leased or dry land and feed them hay until the pasture grasses are 6" to 8" high. Move livestock when 50% of the grass plant has been eaten (3" to 4" height remains). Do not regraze until grasses are at least 6" high which might take 1 to 3 months. During winter months, continue your rotation to distribute manure and feed wastes evenly across your pastures or hold animals in a corral. Irrigate each pasture immediately after grazing to get plants growing again. Do not graze on wet soils. Horses do not need 24-hour access to feed or forage. Their nutrition needs can be met with just a few hours of grazing on good pasture each day. Coral the horses for the remainder of the day to prevent overgrazing of plants, and extend the forage available in your pastures. Overgrazing occurs when more than 50% percent of the grass plant is removed all at once. Overgrazing stops root growth and reduces grass production drastically. Even if you just try to sneak in another 10% "harvest" - 50% of the roots stop growing!
How is land valued? Location of course, if it is closer to a nice town and services, has views, trees and water or has access to the National Forest, a river front or river access, all of this affects the price; but quite often the only value a piece of land has is the fact that you can build a home on it and that can hold true for a one acre or a 160 acre parcel, if the covenants or zoning will not allow you to further subdivide. Therefore a one acre parcel can be priced at $ 50,000 but a 160 acres parcel in the same area is not priced at 160 x $50,000. An appraiser will also mostly look at the structure of the home and give the land a minimal value. Appraisers do not look at the potential of a piece of land, just at the present use. You might want to take note of that fact for the paragraphs to follow below. Most lenders will only lend you money on a home and 20 acres. Any parcel larger than that requires an agricultural loan program from a local bank or a farm-credit union. Quite often homesites are clustered together in subdivisions, because they are maintenance intensive for the county regarding road maintenance, garbage collection, fire protection, etc. It is very rare to find a single homesite among ranches without much in the way of restrictions, such as
my listing on 40 acres or the
home on 52 acres which is the ranch house for a small ranch.
In these two cases the land has the additional value of being subdividable. When you have a parcel that is larger than 20 acres and is zoned agricultural like the parcels above, you will also have a substantial property tax break for the land.
Land can be subdivided if the parcel can pass a percolation test, which means it can handle sewage. If it cannot handle sewage, the ground might also not be stable enough to handle a foundation for a home. Things to think about. The second requirement of course is access. There must be a road where the fire truck can get in and out.
In 1862 Congress had passed the Homestead Act and families could claim a 160 acres parcel provided they would settle there and farm it for five years. Many ranchers today profit greatly from the hardship their ancestors endured, because to improve 160 acres enough to provide for a family within five years was a challenging endeavor and many failed. Another way to lay claim to land was a patented mining claim, which would allow the settler to build a home on the land where he was mining. Such are the
410 acres which comes with patented mining claims for gold which I have for sale in the Lolo National Forest. The original miner's home is still on the property along with some other mining cabins and the new log home that was built there recently. I flew over there last week and took some fresh photos of the lush vegetation and the creeks. Gold can still be found there and the parcel is just thick with wild life, such as moose, elk, deer, an occasional bear and birds.
In 1976 homesteading was abolished by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act which also made it a national policy for the federal government to retain and manage the remaining public federal lands, about 250+ million acres, and that does not even include land owned by the states. Twenty years after that, congress imposed a moratorium on patented mining claims, which is renewed annually.
The government has now decided to let go of comprised 3 million or so acres of Federal
Land in the states of AZ, CO, ID, MT, NB, NV, NM, OR, UT and WY. To find the website for each of these BLM (Bureau of Land Management) offices replace the "mt" (for Montana) in the address below with the name of the state you are interested in:
http://www.mt.blm.gov or check this site
BLM Offices
The government will sell the land at "market value" at which point you might want to remember that appraisers only look at land as how it is used at the present time, and they do not look at the potential.... In other words, which parcels are for sale and who to contact
there are bargains to be had
This .pdf file tells you
which parcels are for sale and who to contact
Also the
highly unpopular IRS offers great deals on land it had seized.
They take closed bids
Small Business Administration offers land, homes and commercial property bargains as well:
US Customs Service sells real estate at public auctions
US Marshals hold public sales
Alaska sells State Lands at sealed auctions and over the counter
There are also
cabin sites to be had. Here you stake a parcel of land in a designated remote area for recreational use. They lease the parcel to you for a certain time during which it will be surveyed and appraised (see above..) and then you can buy it for an apple and an egg, or similar monetary value :-)
Once you own your land, I just met a great contractor with nothing to do... (he relocated here from North Carolina to be with his son) David Simpson, Signature Homes, 406/656 8143 or cell 406/855 9933, toll free 888/656 8143, dscc@bresnan.net
He will give you a discount for building, just so he can get something started here. He specializes in custom homes and
has excellent references.
And if all of this is way too serious for you, take a look at this page on a
server in Switzerland - turn on the loudspeakers and sing along
"....keep on moving! ....keep on smiling!
...and believe in LOVE, LIFE and YOURSELF!"
...until my next newsletter at the end of July.
:-)
Best Regards,
Dorothea Lowe, Broker
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