31 years old looking to buy my first property to hunt on. I'm out of DFW but don't mind driving 4-5 hours. Looking for something 150k or less with 10 acres or more.

Any suggestions or thoughts y'all would share when looking for property for the first time?

Prepare your anus for land prices.

You will want more than 10 acres for hunting, at 31 keep saving. When you want something done on land a starting budget is $10k+

Baseline, somewhat.

https://texags.com/forums/50/topics/3431017

Save more and add a 0 to the acreage.

Look for something that backs up to a no hunting area. Lots of lakes your direction that don't allow deer hunting.

No reason to wait. I wrote a letter to every property owner around lake Somerville with 10-20 acres that backed up to no hunting areas because that was all I could afford at the time. I got one answer. 15 acres. Bought it, hunted it for a year, sold it for a nice profit. Repeated again and bought a 13 acre place in a more secluded spot. Hunted it for a couple years, sold for a profit. Then bought the 72 acre place I have now.

Also, try to look for something that doesn't have a bunch of small properties around you. All of mine at Somerville were really close to each other but the 13 acres had and still has more mature bucks. Because it's sandwiched between no hunting and big properties. Where as my 72 acres is sandwiched between no hunting and smaller properties.

TheVarian said:

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Baseline, somewhat.

https://texags.com/forums/50/topics/3431017

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Listings like that are going to be top dollar for someone wanting to build their dream home on it.

OP, be looking for something that needs work. Preferably not on the MLS. Or if it is listed, make a low offer and be ready to go to the next one.

4-5 hours is too far IMO, you'll end up finding all kinds of reasons not to go. I've always been told that you want something within a 3 hour drive because that seems to be the consensus for a tolerable drive on a Friday after work. You don't want to get to your place at midnight becaus that makes Saturday rough and you want to be able to leave mid morning or afternoon on Sunday and make it back home at a reasonable time.

In your case, take a hard look at Oklahoma and east of you towards Paris or Texarkana. Pickings will be more plentiful those directions versus anything south or west.

10 acres is great for building a home on and living on, but not so much for trying to make it a hunting place. If that 10 acres backed up to a national forest it would be far more tolerable than a tract surrounded by other 10 acre tracts.

Great advice above. Start researching how to purchase acreage so you aren't overwhelmed when you find a place. You can get good guidance here. I do not agree with waiting. IMO land in the areas mentioned will not get cheaper or easier to come by and if you can swing it go for it. I waited and 5 years turned into 15. Sure I could afford more but the years I have left to enjoy it are fewer.

one mention…. Im not sure exactly how all counties work but my FIL bought a piece of land intending to go wildlife for Ag…… county told him they wouldnt do wildlife exemption on anything smaller than 25 acres (I believe)
He had to pivot to bees to gain Ag.

My pops has 40 acres and he's not enough for hunting. Have you thought about leasing? It's expensive, a few to several thousand a year, but you don't have to worry about a lot of things when the land isn't yours. Land up keep can be a full time job.

I've been looking at land all year and am probably going to go in with a friend and cousin for 100 acres or so in East Texas. I wish we could be closer to South Texas, where we are from, but two of us are in Dallas and one in Houston.

I wouldn't buy anything in a SFHA flood zone or a place with sketchy neighbors. That's about all the advice I can give that hasn't been given. I would also say anything over a 3 hour drive is going to feel too much like a chore than a pleasure.

Agree with the 3 hour limit. My current lease is 5 hours away around zepata and I can't wait to get off.

I'll probably eventually look at buying some land one day but we hunt 1,000 acres and have year round access on our lease. 150k can get you many years of hunting on a deer lease.

Is it safe to hunt on 10 acres?

jja79 said:

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Is it safe to hunt on 10 acres?

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The answe, like anything else is "it depends". I hunted on my 20 acre farm with a .30-06. But, I had an adjacent absentee landowner, so I faced my blind toward his side form my opposit fence line, I had an elevated blind so I was shooting into the dirt, and the brush was so thick you couldn't really even walk it. Then my other neighbor was a hunter and was all about it so we both were onboard with each others setups and it worked fine.

Yes, you can hunt on 10 acres but it's going to depend on setup.

I set up my feeder and it drew in pigs to his property and he shot his with thermal and then then the rest ended up at my feeder where I shot them. Hahah

I also lived on it so it was different. We had a 10,000 acre lease in bracketville through my company for a while and the drive was 6 hours. It sucked. I only wet out a few times a season and it always felt like forever so I can see how it wouldn't take much to not feel like going. If you're a hard core hunter and buy all the stuff and are really into it, you might it have a problem. I don't care about antlers or Boone and Crockett. I just need some meat for the freezer for the year and I'm doing it with my factory model 70 classic and a VXII scope. Get in, get out. Lol

I also agree that property isn't getting cheaper, so, I'd probably err on going further out for more land than closer for less. Get what you can afford and buy something you can maybe resell later.

tamu2017 said:

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31 years old looking to buy my first property to hunt on. I'm out of DFW but don't mind driving 4-5 hours. Looking for something 150k or less with 10 acres or more.

Any suggestions or thoughts y'all would share when looking for property for the first time?

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Oklahoma

As mentioned, drive time plays a big factor. Four to five hours may sound great now but a year or two in and all of a sudden the drive sucks.

Other things to consider include tax valuation of the property, access to water and electricity. Also, how far is the property off pavement? Driving 30 minutes or more down a a rough caliche road at 20 mph gets old too.

We owned 30 acres in Edwards (my parents had 40 in an adjoining tract) with all surrounding tracts being similar size. Could we get venison freezer meat every year? Yes. Did we shoot a buck every year? No. Did I get tired of hearing my neighbors driving quads, talking loud, running circular saws, etc. during deer season? Yes.

But it was a great place to visit and spend weekends, especially when the kids were young.

10 acres isn't hunting. That's shooting what comes onto your 10 acres

I'll add... if it's too few of acres for anybody to lease to you to hunt, it's not enough to call that your "own" hunting spot and is the reason people put up high fences

What are you looking to hunt? Have you looked around San Saba?

I just went through this process myself about 2 years ago. I am 10 years older than you (financially I am in a much better situation then I was back then).

As many have said land is expensive. Save and buy as much as you can. I would say for hunting you want at least 100 acres and preferably a square shaped property. The drive time is very important. I was previously on a lease and anything over 3 hours away sucks. My property is about an hour away from where I live which is great.

Land valuation and taxes are very important. It is best to have something that is under agricultural use. In Texas you can convert from Ag to Wildlife but if a land wasn't previously in Ag use you cannot start with Wildlife. There are also minimal acreage requirements to claim Wildlife so make yourself aware. When buying a property if it is in Ag and you convert to Wildlife you have the option of a 2 year rest period (out of a 7 year cycle) where you don't have to do anything actively to manage the property. This can buy you some time to decide what you want to do with your land.

Neighbors are important. The fewer the better. Also if you buy a smaller property if you have neighbors with larger tracts there is always the options of adding to your property later by buying from them.

Good luck. It is a great investment financially as well as for your mental well being.

Good luck in your search, as several have noted be prepared for some sticker shock when you look at prices.

I really agree with most of the advice already given: look for something more in the 2-3 hour drive range, the farther it is, the more excuses you'll start to find to not make that drive. Look for a place that doesnt have a ton of small tracts right beside it, last thing you want to do is to buy and then have the place next to you develop into a trailer park or similar.

I disagree with waiting, land isnt getting any cheaper, the more you wait, the higher it will be. See what a loan from a place like Capital Farm Credit or somewhere would run and if you could swing the mortgage on a property. I'd certainly try for something bigger than 10 acres, get as much as you can.

I always recommend this book as a great basic starting place, it was required reading for my land economics class back when I was at A&M getting my ag eco degree.

Buying Rural Land in Texas

Thank yall for each of y'all's input!

Don't wait. Get in the real estate market now if you can.
Let the land grow in value and then trade up for more acreage in the future.
You should be able to get a little more than 10 acres with $150k within 3 hours of DFW.
I would try to find something within 2 hours. Its just easier to make day trips.
You can hunt on 10 acres just fine. It just depends on geography, neighbors, etc.

I live south of Houston and my place is between Caldwell and Rockdale so it is 2.5 hrs with no traffic. There are times that I don't go because I don't feel like driving and times that I can't go for the weekend because the kids have stuff to do.

Any further than that would be a non starter. I wanted to be close to Aggieland, but I sure hate driving around Houston to get there.

Our land keeps getting farther away.
As we age and and traffic increases, we go less. What was once a 3 hour drive is now 3.5 to 4 hours. We go from BCS into the hill country and there is no way to avoid Austin traffic. Once we get there, the mood changes though.

We wouldn't sell, but if we did, we'd walk away with a ton of money...but for what? To buy less desirable land closer?

Good luck. It is worth the hassle.

If you are a bow hunter 10 acres is fine.

Personally I wouldn't rifle hunt on that small unless all neighbors are large ranches.

We bought 350 acres about 12 years ago… I think that's almost too small for hunting. I grew up on 4 tracks of land totaling about 4500 acres (grand father's property), we hunted all of it and even that got too small after a while, you get to where you know all the property and where there may or may not be animals like deer

I'm not sure i could even shoot a 410 shotgun on 10 acres and feel very safe ..a bow would probably work though

Save your money and get something bigger later or go way out west where land is much much cheaper and get a few hundred acres

A couple of posters have already mentioned the ag valuation for properties in Texas, including ag0207 who provided solid information. Make sure the property you get has an ag tax valuation. Don't take the seller or a realtor's word for it either. The county appraisal districts are the authority on this.
Also, technically there is NO minimum acreage required for wildlife management. I work for Plateau Land & Wildlife Management(with many other good Ags) and the service we are built on is helping landowners navigate through this process. I talk to landowners across the state and have heard all kinds of stories and unique situations. We have a lot of familiarity with the appraisal districts. If you want to double-check a property to see if it qualifies just visit our website, email, or call. You'll get connected with me or someone on my team. Happy to help!

for me personally, the thought of purchasing a place where I have to go and sit in the same spot and stare at the same trees every time would make me go insane. I used to dream of purchasing a place of my own but as I get older I've realized that access and not ownership is all that matters to me now.

I would go to SE oklahoma and buy a small cabin that borders one of the larger bowhunting only wmas or one of the other large public properties and use it as access to hunt hard to reach areas of those properties. I used to be afraid of hunting public land but I love it now. It's really so easy to get away from people and avoid the crowds if you're willing to work a little and flexible on when you can hunt. Or just lease a place to hunt and buy a small property to hang out and put a cabin.

I understand and can appreciate your point but ownership does have its benefits as well. You can mold things the way you want to without having to ask permission. The freedom to do as you please is one of the many perks to ownership.