Enhance your recreational land to help it Say — SOLD!

Enhance your recreational land to help it Say

“What can I do to help me sell my land faster,” you ask?

This is a question that comes my way on a regular basis as an Iowa real estate broker specializing in recreational and hunting land sales.  (of course, sellers also want to know that they can do to help them sell their land for maximum price.   These two questions often go hand-in-hand.  If you can sell your land faster, for instance, then that usually means it’s in good demand.  And if it’s more in demand, then you have a better chance to get the highest price for it as well).  

Optimally, one can sell for the highest price and be able to sell it pretty quick.  That’s the goal, in general, of so many of my clients.  And I’m guessing that may be a goal of yours as well.

Getting this accomplished boils down to several factors.  A couple of real keys are curb appeal and having your land ready to show at all times when it’s on the market.

When we are speaking about land in more rural locations we are  often marketing toward hunters or wildlife enthusiasts, in general.  And why not?  Such land often harbors a variety of wildlife which are a valuable asset to the land.

 I live in the nation’s heartland — Iowa — and we have a lot of deer and turkeys.  Many of our potential buyers are looking for land that has or could harbor lots of deer – and in particular, at least a few, big deer!  Many of my clients are looking for trophy bucks in Iowa these days. And for good reason. Iowa is one of the best places to go in the world to observe,to  hunt, or just to photograph big wild whitetail bucks.

While Iowa may have some of the biggest bucks in the nation, it isn’t the only place where whitetails are the star attraction that’s for sure.  All across much of America, these days, whitetails are very much “in demand”.

There is no doubt that lots of buyers are looking for excellent “deer, and wildlife in general, properties”.   That is awesome!  I really enjoy seeing people enhance the wildlife habitat on their property to favor deer and all other wildlife as well.   (I think that we – as a people and as a nation in general – are becoming more urban dwellers and the amount of real “wild space” in our country continues to shrink. So I really like to see people add wildlife habitat to their properties). 

 I don’t think there will be a shortage of people looking for these sorts of properties in the near future.   These sorts of properties generally bring a premium price on the recreational market simply because more and more wildlife habitat is getting destroyed for various reasons these days.  Having a property that teems with wildlife is a Yeah factor when it comes to marketing your land!  It’s a good thing, that’s for sure!

So I then get asked part two of the what-can-I do-to-sell-my-land-faster-question – what can I do to make my land better for whitetails, in particular, so that it would be more attractive to a maximum amount of buyers and also command the highest price”?    Simply put one needs to start enhancing or creating wildlife habitat on the subject property.  

But – alas!  There are many, many things one can do to help enhance wildlife habitat, and deer habitat, on a property!   One fairly easy one though — and a fairly quick one to accomplish — is to put in a simple food plot — or three!   (Food plots could be directed to help many animals but in this article we will discuss food plots directed at helping the deer population.  Simply put, in most parts of the country, deer are the main large game animal of focus for land buyers)

(Above left — a plot of brassicas — rape, kale and turnips.  This is a great fall season plot and grows on a wide variety of soils.  Deer feed on it primarily during the late fall and winter periods).    (Above right — a young buck looking for some winter rye that had just been planted).

Creating some food source on your land – at the time you have it for sale, at least– will increase it’s attractiveness to deer and should help increase the amount of deer use and time spent by deer on the land.  And this precisely what you want your potential buyer’s to see — deer on your land!

I cannot count how many times that I’ve shown potential buyers – some of them with very deep pockets – very good properties that just did not catch their interest simply because we didn’t see any deer when we walked the land or we didn’t see much deer sign. I knew that many of these properties had ALLOT OF DEER ON THEM for much of the year.

Often we just walked those parcel at the wrong time of year, when there happened to be little deer food on them at the time (so most of the deer were 1/4-3/4 mile away using some other food source). As mentioned, there are many factors involving deer use of a property – but having favored food on it is a big one!

With whitetails, everything pretty much revolves around their stomach!

So in the next article, we’ll discuss some food plot options.