I am a relative newbie to real estate but recently had the opportunity to buy a $1 million farm for $500K - sounds great, but I need the cash flow to support the loan, and need to qualify for the loan. Any ideas are appreciated.
I’ve looked at a number of farm deal sand its really its own specialty market for real estate investing.
First and foremost I’m very skeptical of the claim of its worth $1M, but you can buy it for $500k. Valuing farm property is very diffuclt and requires a good bit of knowledge and experience with farming operations. Valuation are dependant on 1) Plantable acres (not total) 2) local leasing rates 3) mix of produce and aveage selling price, general land prices for the area.
I’m assuming you are planning to lease the property to a tenant farmer; thus knowing the leasing rates is key to understand cash flow. However, you need to be very familar with tenant farming agreements as they are a separate sub-species of leasing agreements. It not a question of getting check every month, but rather collecting in lump sums when crops are havested.
Finally, you need a lending that is experienced at farming loans. Not every Joe Mortgage Lender is going to be able to do a loan from that type of property.
If you go after this you need to be experienced in farm operations or have a partner who is.