My grandparents have about 40 acres near Andice, Tx. They have an offer for a 5-year lease but it seems pretty low. The land has two stock ponds, and is mostly open with some trees. What is "in the ball park" for what they should be asking?

Also, is it common for owners to retain hunting rights?

Deer? Duck? Dove? Year round?

We need more info but don't expect anyone to drop a shipload of cash to hunt anything on 40 acres.

That's more like a Air BnB rental with deer out the back door... The bath tub doesn't count as a pond.

On edit: that's a small place to be offering any "big" money to be leasing so I'm curious what a low offer is for 40 acres. I wouldn't ever have more than 1 deer blind on 40 acres.

Brennan01 said:

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My grandparents have about 40 acres near Andice, Tx. They have an offer for a 5-year lease but it seems pretty low. The land has two stock ponds, and is mostly open with some trees. What is "in the ball park" for what they should be asking?

Also, is it common for owners to retain hunting rights?

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If you are leasing for hay or grazing then hunting rights are usually separated, if you are leasing 40 acres for hunting you will have a hard time finding a leasee if you intend to hunt as well.

What was the offer?

$10-$15 / acre i would imagine be top dollar for that area

I wouldn't want to share 40 acres hunting with the landowner. That's too small a place if you ask me. I'd be interested to see what this goes for. I'd like to find a place with some fishing near Georgetown and that sounds close enough.

I have a friend that is looking to purchase land right now. Would their be an interest in a sale instead of a lease?

40 acres mostly open land shouldn't fetch much to ge honest for deer hunting...unless it borders some special land thst adds value. 15 an acre is going rate for a good lease. A lease like this ... 10 an acre maybe. Need way more details...5 years seems like the guys would be more management minded and ensure better conservation efforts

Have they thought about day leasing the property? You could hunt it yourself on days that it is not leased.

They were offered $10,000 for 5 years to hunt deer, duck, anything that moves year-round. The people interested mostly bow hunt. Everyone involved understands it's not a huge chunk of land, but if I'm doing the math correctly it comes out to about $170 a month which seems low. I could be completely off on that and maybe you really only count the months with good hunting?

sorry, its not for sale

ghollow said:

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Have they thought about day leasing the property? You could hunt it yourself on days that it is not leased.

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That's a good idea but at this point in their life, they like everything to be as simple as possible. Rental houses keep them busy enough as it is.

How many people are going to hunt it? How good is the duck hunting?

If you think about it this way, I could get 3 buddies to go in on a good duck lease and probably wouldn't blink at $500/year that also allows us to shoot some deer, pigs, etc. But I couldn't and wouldn't get 3 buddies to go in on a 40 acre deer lease at $500/person.

$2000 a year sounds like a good deal if you trust the people leasing it.

$2k a year for 40 acres? Take it before they change their mind.

That's a damn good deal

I'd make darn sure you have language that specifies how many hunters / lease members are allowed and what qualifies as a guest. My concern would be that offer sounds too good to be true and they plan to over hunt it to make a profit or run day hunts.

AgLA06 said:

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I'd make darn sure you have language that specifies how many hunters / lease members are allowed and what qualifies as a guest. My concern would be that offer sounds too good to be true and they plan to over hunt it to make a profit or run day hunts.

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This was my first thought. I have dove hunted in that area for $200/gun for a lease.

I would make sure of the number of hunters and exactly who is allowed to hunt.

Yes you should be able to reserve a hunt or two as a property owner, but my leasing to them you should be giving them priority.

With it close to Austin, $2k is reasonable if there's a good supply of deer. Depending on the duck hunting, it could be worth more than that. I'm sure some would disagree but try finding another spot to shoot ducks and deer for less than that.

CS78 said:

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With it close to Austin, $2k is reasonable if there's a good supply of deer. Depending on the duck hunting, it could be worth more than that. I'm sure some would disagree but try finding another spot to shoot ducks and deer for less than that.

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It's 40 acres. There's a very small amount of hunting before it's unsafe and/ or over hunting the property.

The price of the average lease or number of hunters is not a fair comparison. Most animals will only be passing through a property that small. One gun hunter or 2 bow hunters is probably the max for the place.

yeah it's pretty small, but the area is loaded with deer, and like CS78 said, being close to Austin is also a bonus. I mainly wanted to ask the OB just so I was confident they weren't getting screwed on the deal so thank you everyone for the insight!

AgLA06 said:

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It's 40 acres. There's a very small amount of hunting before it's unsafe and/ or over hunting the property.

The price of the average lease or number of hunters is not a fair comparison. Most animals will only be passing through a property that small. One gun hunter or 2 bow hunters is probably the max for the place.

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Right. But find another place where you can shoot deer and ducks within 45 minutes of Austin. You can't. Great spot for one hunter.

Possibly surrounded by a larger place those guys are hunting, guys with money to burn, and locking up that 40 acres ensures some yahoo's aren't coming in and shooting their deer from the bigger surrounding property they manage diligently?

We used to hunt 100 acres from a friend of my dads from work that was completely surrounded by a big commercially hunted ranch. It wasn't 'deer country' per se, but they raised some big deer on that place, and we got some opportunities on their deer that crossed onto our place. It wasn't a big property, but it was close, cheap, and we bow hunted so size wasn't as big of an issue, and we had free rein to do what we wanted year round.

If I had a large spread surrounding a small property and I had spent a ton of money and effort raising a good deer herd, I wouldn't want the little neighboring property to shoot my deer. And paying $10k for the peace of mind may be more economical and neighborly than wrapping their place in a game fence. My FIL has a place innGeorge West, low fence, and 170" and 180" deer killed every year. Next door there was a small cow pasture property. The guy was day leasing it and they were definitely shooting his deer that crossed the fence, so he want and had a fame fence put up just inside his property line down the adjoining part of those properties. Probably a helluva lot more cost than $10k over 5 years

It's worth whatever they can get someone to pay for it..

That's a good theory, but very unlikely. This guy is not that big of a player and the land has not been hunted on in at least 40+ years since my grandparents bought it