For Sale: Colorado’s Dallenbach Ranch

A disappointing number of sports stars plow their money into poor investments. Not Wally Dallenbach. In the early 1970s, the legendary Indy car racer took his winnings from the California 500 and bought an absolutely stunning piece of property along the banks of Colorado’s Frying Pan River just outside Basalt. In the 35 years since then, Wally and his wife, Peppy, not only raised a family but they also bettered the lives of thousands of Coloradoans through their own amazing race, the Colorado 500.

Learn their story and take a tour of this one-of-a-kind property HERE.

On the Block: Aubrey McClendon’s 271 Ranch

Aubrey McClendon’s 271 Ranch goes on the block Thursday, August 5. The National Auction Group is handling the sale, which is scheduled for 11 a.m. (CST) at the ranch headquarters. Bidders can register beginning at nine o’clock. The 4,391-acre cattle ranch will be offered in five tracts and as a whole. Approximately 1,100 acres will be sold with no reserve.

The CEO of Chesapeake Energy, McClendon ranked No. 96 on the 2009 Land Report 100 with 98,106 acres. Of his Oklahoma properties, the 271 Ranch is farthest from his Oklahoma City base of operations. As the property he visits least frequently, he decided to liquidate the holding.

Located just two hours north of Dallas in prime whitetail country, the 271 Ranch includes the following:

• Pastures with Wells and Ponds
• Center Pivot Irrigation System with Well Powered by 3 Phase Electric
• Ground Water Rights
• 8 Cattle Working Locations with Catch Pens & Working Alleys
• 3 Locations with Loading Chutes for Semi Trucks & Trailers
• Stocker Receiving Facility with Capacity of 400 Head
• 6 Guest Homes
• Office/Shop Building Constructed in 2007
• 9-Stall Horse Barn
• 9 Additional Barns for Equipment or Hay Storage
• Pastures of Bermuda, Fescue, & Some Native Grasses
• 3± Miles of Frontage on U.S. Hwy. 271
• 7± Miles of County Road Frontage
• 15± Miles of New Fence Constructed in Last 3 Years
• Cattle Guard Access to Most Pastures

In addition to world-class whitetail hunting, the 271 Ranch is minutes from lakes of Sardis, McGee Creek, Pine Creek, Clayton, and Hugo. Stretching three miles along U.S. Highway 271, the property has seven miles of county road frontage with 15± miles of fencing.

The property will be open for inspection through Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call (800) 579-1174 or (256) 547-3434 to schedule an appointment.

Land Report Newsletter July 2010

Dear Reader,

Summertime is high season for transactions as investors and landowners make the most of the best access to every corner of a piece of property. This month’s newsletter highlights a few of the many sales – and auctions and conservation easements and court decisions – that have taken place in recent weeks.

Feel free to forward the July edition of The Land Report’s monthly newsletter to colleagues as well as those interested in investing in land. I promise you there is much more already brewing in the coming days and weeks.

Buy Land!

Eric O’Keefe
Editor, The Land Report
The Magazine of the American Landowner

P.S. Our award-winning quarterly magazine is available in a print version by subscription.

Texas Land Values Drop Just 7% in 2009

The Texas land market saw bargain hunters staring down unmotivated sellers throughout 2009. The end result, according to Charles Gilliland and Abhijeet Gunadekar at the Texas Real Estate Center, was a dearth of property sales of more than $1 million and the lowest total number of transactions since 1995:

“Most Texas acreage is grazing land with a strong recreational usage element. Markets for that kind of property weakened in 2009 while cropland markets generally continued to prosper. Because pasture and rangeland make up more than 80 percent of the land in Texas, overall market indicators largely reflect conditions in the market for those property types.”

The researchers tabulated 4,138 transactions in 2009, the lowest number since 1995. The average price per acre of $2,086 was off just 7 percent from the record high of $2,247 per acre in 2008.

The Texas Real Estate Center is the nation’s largest publicly funded organization devoted to real estate research. The Center’s staff conducts research on financial, socioeconomic, public policy, trade, legal, land use, and local market analysis issues related to Texas real estate.

Read the complete story, which was originally published in Tierra Grande, HERE.

Land Report Newsletter June 2010

Dear Reader,

The lessons of the global financial crisis of 2008-09 are many and diverse; one of the immutable ones is the value of tangible assets. I for one am taking this to heart, and your readership of this newsletter shows you to be of a similar mind.

I hope you are as encouraged by the June edition of The Land Report’s monthly newsletter as we are here at the Magazine. Despite stock market fluctuations, the European debt crisis, and tensions in the Middle East,  there is a lot of good news to report: rising land values, increased investment in land-based assets, and of course noteworthy transactions.

Our award-winning quarterly magazine is available in a print version by subscription.

Enjoy!

Eric O’Keefe
Editor, The Land Report
The Magazine of the American Landowner

For Sale: Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams for $5.4 Million

By all accounts, it’s the typical sort of listing you see advertised in The Land Report:

FOR SALE. 193-acre corn farm for sale in eastern Iowa for $5.4 million. Owned and farmed by same family for over a century. Includes two-bedroom house, barn built in the mid-1800s, and baseball diamond built by Universal Studios.

OK, maybe the Lansing family’s farm is not so ordinary. Twenty years ago it got a serious upgrade courtesy of Kevin Costner, Ray Liotta, James Earl Jones, and a blockbuster movie called Field of Dreams.

“If you build it, they will come.” – The Voice, Field of Dreams

Located outside Dyersville, much of the land in the listing has been in the Lansing family for over a century, but for Don and Becky Lansing it’s time to retire. As Becky Lansing told the Associated Press, “We really would just love to become spectators. We want to sit in the bleachers. We want to look forward to all that the Field of Dreams will become in the future.”

Asking price on the 193 acres is $5.4 million, including a total of seven structures and two websites. Additional acreage is available. Ken Sanders is representing the Lansings. Further information is available HERE.

Land Report Newsletter May 2010

Dear Reader,

As you scan the May edition of The Land Report’s monthly newsletter, springtime allusions to new growth are particularly apropos. The ever increasing number of transactions at all price points, including top-tier properties, clearly demonstrates that rural land markets are finally escaping the doldrums.

A long list of brokered transactions and auction results supports this development; some of the most notable ones are highlighted in this month’s newsletter. You’ll learn about all of these and more courtesy of The Land Report Newsletter, published by the Editors of The Land Report.

Our award-winning quarterly magazine is also available in a print version by subscription.

Enjoy!
The Editors
www.LandReport.com
The Magazine of the American Landowner

Sold! Boot Jack Ranch Goes for $47 Million

One of the country’s premier listings, Colorado’s Boot Jack Ranch, sold earlier this month for $47 million. Originally listed at $88 million more than two years ago, the price had been subsequently lowered to $68 million. The Pagosa Sun reports a sales price of $47 million, a reduction of almost 50 percent off the original asking price.

David and Carol Brown were the sellers. According to listing broker Bill Fandel of Peaks Real Estate Sotheby’s International Realty in Telluride, the buyer is a Colorado L.L.C. owned by a high net worth individual who plans to keep the Boot Jack intact and not develop it. “We hoped that the buyer would be an end user who would really want to preserve that valley. That’s definitely the case,” says Fandel.

Set at a base elevation of almost 8,000 feet about sea level, the Boot Jack features unmatched views of the San Juan Mountains, world class fly-fishing, and numerous improvements. The 3,151-acre tract is surrounded on three sides by the San Juan National Forest and Weminuche Wilderness and includes seven miles of the West Fork of the San Juan River and Wolf Creek. Two existing conservation easements total 1,322± acres. Six lakes and several ponds all connect to the San Juan. The main residence is a four-bedroom 13,825-square-foot sanctuary with countless amenities, including a library, two private offices, seven fireplaces, and a 1,500-bottle wine cellar. Four additional log cabins accommodate up to 18 guests. Structures on the ranch total 77,200 square feet.

One of the most important assets of the Boot Jack are its senior water rights of 103± CFS, which would yield approximately 70 million gallons per day when fully utilized. At present, 1,162 acres of pasture are irrigated. The ranch enjoys 200 inches of snowfall annually and is situated in close proximity to Wolf Creek Ski Area via U.S 160. Plentiful wildlife roam the ranch, including bear, elk, deer, and turkey; approximately 800 head cattle are pastured each summer.

“There’s a lot of listings out there but only a few truly remarkable pieces of property come on the market,” says Fandel. “The Boot Jack was one of them.”

Read the Pagosa Sun report HERE.

Turner Renewable Energy Acquires Solar Power Project

America’s largest landowner is full speed ahead on his renewable energy venture. Turner Renewable Energy and Southern Co. acquired a 30 megawatt (AC) photovoltaic solar power project that is being developed by First Solar (FSLR) adjacent to Ted Turner’s Vermejo Park Ranch in northern New Mexico. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The Cimarron I Solar Project will supply power to approximately 9,000 homes, or 18,000 residents, and displace over 45,000 tons of CO₂ per year. Electricity generated by the plant will serve a 25-year power purchase agreement with the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, a not-for-profit wholesale power supplier to 44 electric cooperatives serving 1.4 million customers across New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming. First Solar will also provide operation and maintenance services under a 25-year contract.

Construction of Cimarron I will began this month. Commercial operation is expected to commence by year end 2010. The solar project will employ approximately 500,000 photovoltaic modules manufactured by First Solar using its advanced thin film technology and will create more than 200 jobs during peak construction.

$500 Million Everglades Deal Postponed Again

Florida Gov. Charlie Christ is getting a lesson that real estate brokers know all too well: big deals take time.

It’s been almost two years since Christ announced the $1.75 billion purchase of 187,000 acres in the Florida Everglades from United States Sugar. Since then the economy has tanked and the purchase price has been lowered twice: to $1.34 billion and now $536 million. In each instance, the number of acres has also fallen: first, to 180,000, and, in the most recent iteration, to 72,500. Faced with a March 30 deadline, the governing board of the South Florida Water Management District voted 9-0 to extend the closing for another six months.

An added element to the high-profile transaction was an in-depth front-page story in The New York Times last week that questioned many deal points, including the cost per acre, which The Times suggested is much too high, the tracts themselves, which The Times suggested include some of the least valuable belonging to U.S. Sugar, and the purpose of buying six separate tracts without reaching out to Florida Crystals, United States Sugar’s chief competitor and the owner of key blocks of adjacent land.

But the principle focus of the article was how Gov. Christ’s plan to save the Everglades will instead rescue United States Sugar. Since its publication, supporters and detractors have descended upon the media with their own interpretations of the deal.

Read more from a gubernatorial candidate who opposes the purchase HERE.

Read more about environmentalists who support the purchase HERE.

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