O.K. so now you purchased that ideal piece of land that you always dreamed about. Perhaps you’re planning to build your retirement home there or maybe to take the family camping. Now what? The tax bills are going to start coming in and that could be a drain on your wallet. It’s not like rental property where you have an opportunity to generate some positive cash flow, or is it?
If you give it some thought and you are willing to be creative, there are many ways to generate income from vacant land before you even sell it. Below I have listed several methods for generating excess income from your property depending on its size, location and topology.
1) Billboard Advertising – If your property has good road access on a fairly well traveled road and local zoning law permit, you can contact a Billboard company and offer your land to allow them to erect a billboard. Such arraignments can generate monthly income while not taking up much of your property. Generally, you must commit to a certain amount of time for them to erect a new billboard. Google ‘billboard advertising’ in your zip code to get the particulars.
2) Logging – If your property is wooded, you could allow a logging company to thin out some of the trees on your property and sell them for timber. There are usually restrictions on how large a tree must be before they will cut it for timber so you need not worry about your property being cleared of all of its trees. Generally, the logger does all of the work and splits the proceeds with you in the area of 60/40 with them getting 60%. Negotiate the best deal that you can before signing any contracts.
3) Leasing your property to hunters – If you have a large enough parcel of land, hunters will pay you to allow them to use your property for hunting. This is usually restricted to certain time of the year so you will need to check local ordinances. You can go on the Internet and Google ‘gun clubs’ and hunter websites in your area and post an announcement on their site offering your land for hunting.
4) Leasing your property to campers and/or ATV riders – Many free-spirited individual love the greater outdoors but do not have any property to enjoy. Consider putting a free advertisement on Craigslist or BackPage offering your property to campers, ATV riders, etc. I once found a local movie production company that had advertised on Craigslist that they wanted to lease some property to film a short movie outdoors. The duration was about three weeks and they were offering about $1000 for use of the land. I also found another ad where some former college buddies got together once a year to do some camping, drink some beer and play waffle ball. They didn’t really care for regular campgrounds and were willing to spend a couple of hundred dollars to for the use of some property just to get away from it all.
5) Get paid to have a company remove your stone walls – There are companies out there that will pay you to come in and remove the stone walls from your property. Me, personally, I like stone walls, I think that they have character and I would never have mine removed but it’s an option.
6) Lease some land to local farmers – Consider leasing some of your property to local farmers to allow them to grow vegetables in season. Or if you have enough property you might even consider allow them to grow a Christmas tree farm on your property. You can find local growers through your Chamber of Commerce or by search the Internet. There are usually groups that farmers join in local areas. You can also go to the local Farmer’s Market and discuss such arraignments in person.
7) Leasing your property to raise livestock – Similar to leasing your property to local farmers to grow vegetables, you can lease your property to livestock farmers to allow them to raise livestock on your parcel. There are also agricultural tax exemptions for raising livestock on your property, check with your local government for more details
8) Lease your property for windmills or cell towers – Leasing your property to a company to allow them to place windmills or cell towers on your land can be quite profitable. They take care of all of the details of building these structures and you end up getting paid a monthly rent for the privilege.
9) Sub-divide your property – Depending on local laws, you may be able to sub-divide your property and sell off some smaller sections. This can allow you to still keep the bulk of your property while generating some cash and also reducing your tax bill.
10) Storage Rental or parking – Place an advertisement in the local Penny Savers offering be allow someone to place a storage contain on your property for them to store their ATVs, boats etc. Quite often people from the city and suburbs enjoy coming out to the country for all that it has to offer but they don’t like having to haul their ‘toys’ back and forth every time. Allow them to place one of those Pod units on your property to storage theirs vehicles for their weekend outings and charge them a monthly fee for the privilege.
11) Lease highway frontage to businesses -If your property is located on a busy roadway, the location might be desirable for a business to lease a portion of your parcel. Properties with good road exposure might lend themselves well for a gallery or studio, a farm stand or even a food truck.
These are but a few of the many ways that one might generate income from land that they own. You are only limited by your own imagination so take some time and think outside of the box and I’m sure that you can come up with many more way to profit from your property. Good luck and shoot me an email me at bruce@cheapusland.com and let me know what unique ways you’ve come up with. For more ideas, visit us at http://www.CheapUSLand.com