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Always Buy Cake
An investment banker once told a young doctor with dollars to invest as they discussed the doctor’s buying some forestland on the side of a lake, “Don’t just buy property to buy property. Sure it will grow in value, but a wiser investment is to buy property that you and your family can use as it grows in value. This is like having your cake and eating it too.” According to Kerry Johnson of Mossy Oak Properties BioVenture Investments in Jackson, Missouri, “Currently, the tax laws are as friendly as they’ve ever been to real-estate investors. With the market trends moving upward for both farmlands and forest-recreation lands, investors are getting a good return on their money. We don’t see any downturns for the land market in the future. Most of our clients are wishing they could have bought the land we’re showing them today 10-years ago, and 10 years from now, the people who buy land they will be saying the same thing.”
One element that adds increased value to a piece of property is water. “I’ve never had a consumer who didn’t like having a lake, a river, a pond or a creek on the property he was looking at buying,” Johnson says. “Most investors have a checklist of the types of features they want on lands they buy, and generally high on that checklist is water.” Another high priority on an investor’s checklist is marketable timber. “Most people believe that if there’s marketable timber on the property they’re looking at purchasing, the timber represents money in the bank, if they ever need it,” Johnson explains. “I’ve never had anyone not purchase land because it had water on it or because it had a good stand of timber, with the only exception being individuals who are looking at a piece of property strictly for agricultural purposes. Water is an added amenity, even if the investor is looking at property strictly for agricultural purposes.”
In recent years, water has become even more important. Johnson reports that, “Before the spring and the summer, I had quite a few calls from ranchers in Texas who wanted to buy properties in Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois with water on them. They planned to move their cattle from Texas, which was going through a severe drought at the time, up here where they could graze and have plenty of water. When we talk to cattlemen, two high priorities on their list are pastures and water.” Of course now, Texas has had flooding this summer. Since the central part of the nation tends to receive and have more water than the extreme South, and since some areas of the South have had severe droughts the past 2 years, more farmers and ranchers may move to the Breadbasket of America where the weather is more stable, and the water more abundant.
To contact Kerry Johnson at Mossy Oak Properties BioVenture Investments, write 4012 E. Jackson Blvd., Jackson, MO 63755; call 573-388-2323; or email kjohnson@mossyoakproperties.com.
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