4 Ways to Turn Your Land into a Cash Machine

There are several ways to make money off of your land without having to sell it immediately. While land can be a long-term investment, you will have to pay property taxes and other expenditures, which lowers your return on investment. But land itself can be turned into a cash machine depending on your personal preference of what you do with the land.

Several of these recommendations will require initial funding, so they may not pertain to you. However, there will be a lot of different methods we discuss where you can turn your land into cash.

Lease the Land to Ranchers

This is a technique that a lot of people do in rural areas. In some cases, you may find land that is next to a farm. Ranchers, when they operate on a small scale basis, will need land for their animals to graze. If you have a lot of land, the rancher may pay you to allow their animals to graze on your land.

What this does is allows you to reduce your overall maintenance cost – no mowing the lawn – and make a profit in the process.

How much money can you make?

This depends on what your land entails. Rentals are based on a per acre basis with a roundabout price of 2% of the retail value of your land being the rental price. For example, if you rented 10 acres of land that had a market value of $10,000, you can rent this land for $200.

But, you may find that certain land is more valuable than others for grazing. A property that has a fence or different types of foliage may have higher value. Determining how much to lease this land for is difficult. A good way to determine the value of your land is to look at the statistics provided by the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

The service will provide you with information on how much ranchers are paying, in cash, for pasture rentals. For example, looking at the statistics from 2010, we can determine the following:

  • California ranchers paid $13 per acre.
  • Florida had a rental price of $14 per acre.
  • Texas has a rental price of $6.10 per acre.

When you look at areas that are hotter and more arid, such as Texas and New Mexico, the prices go down dramatically. New Mexico’s rental rate is just $2.20 per acre, which will not provide much of a return.

Grow Vegetables

Seed prices are very low, and growing vegetables will offer two different ways to make money:

  • You save money on your own produce costs.
  • You can sell the produce.

A lot of people want to make money by growing their own food. And, this is a very good way to make money, but there is a lot of work involved. If you’re not a farmer, you may not know just how much work is ahead of you.

A few of the ways to determine if it is going to be a profitable venture is to:

  • Determine what kind of crops you can grow on the land.
  • Determine what licenses or insurance you’ll need to sell these crops legally.
  • Based off of the crops that you can grow, determine the market value of the potential crops grown.
  • Determine what the cost will be in man hours to maintain the land.

For some people, this is just a side venture that will make them some money. You can grow a few apple trees or even kale, which don’t require much assistance or knowledge and growth. And, if you could find a farmer that will teach you how to plant herbs, organic vegetables and other items, you’ll make money off your land while also building equity in the property.

When you go to sell this land, you could also tell the buyer that they can potentially make money off the land, boosting the value of the property.

Sell Hunting Rights

You can sell hunting rights if you own a lot of acreage. There are some caveats to this because you’ll be held liable for any accidents that occur in the property. So, you’ll want to treat this is a business.

I’m not a lawyer, so you will want to consult with your lawyer to determine the appropriate actions to protect yourself from liability claims.

But, a few recommendations are as follows:

  • Open up an LLC under your name to limit your liability.
  • Transfer the land to the LLC.
  • Obtain the appropriate liability insurance.

Again, these are just some recommendations that will help protect you when selling hunting rights on your land. If you own land that has a lot of species or is a prime location for hunting, this can be a very profitable venture. 

Figures that we have been provided to us indicate that hunting land is sought by 982,000 hunters per year. This information is very old (from 2001), but it does show a great demand for land. Data also shows that 229 acres was the average acreage leased with a price of $2.27 an acre.

And it’s not unrealistic to think that these figures have risen in the last decade.

If the land is on a big body of water, you may also be able to sell a fishing package which allows fishers to enter your property and fish on the water.

Rental Opportunities

There’s always the option of building a structure on the property and renting the structure. This is how a lot of people will use land to their advantage. Investors will buy land, build a small structure and rent the structure to pay property taxes and the mortgage of the new structure, and earn a little profit on the side.

There are some people who choose to use the new structure as a storage center.

Storage facilities are normally cheaper to develop, and you could even offer a small facility. If you have just 10 people renting a storage unit for $30 a month, you will make $300 per month. It’s not unrealistic to open up a small self-storage company and rent out units to other people.

Any rental is a great opportunity to make recurring money every month, and it will add to the value of your property at the same time.


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