Is Investing in Land Really This Easy?

More and more financial gurus are coming out in favor something we’ve known for years: rural land, especially in the current economic climate, is one of the best investments anyone can make.

Let’s start with this blog post I came across recently that extols the virtues of purchasing rural land. The post makes a basic but blunt point about rural land’s erosion-proof value:

I’m talking about rural land that is subject to agricultural or livestock tax exemption. Throughout the country, there are millions of acres of land that have such a low tax rate that it can be paid with pocket money. I personally own several parcels of this type of land where the taxes on a 40 acre parcel are under $20/year.

Can it be that simple? Maybe, maybe not.

There are several safe havens that investors are eyeing presently. One investment Web site I came across extols the virtues of buying foreclosed houses while a magazine I was reading advocated buying precious metals.

If you read the blog post I mention there are several simple points it makes about rural land. A plot, whether it be 10 or 1,000 miles away, takes very little to maintain provided it is truly rural. With the right exemptions your tax burden might be no more than the cost of dinner out on the town, and even the fiercest act of God might do little more than rearrange the trees on the property. The dirt, which is what you’re investing in, will always be there.

The second article I found was from Invest Magazine (flip over to page 14 in the e-book).

What struck me as shocking was this line: “… investors … are preparing to buy more than one-half of the usable land in the United States in the next ten years … approximately 1.6 billion acres.”

The article in Invest cites sources you’ve seen on this site before – The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Bloomberg – and all proclaim our mantra: Buy land, they’re not making any more of it.

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