You can say that again!! Once you get that 100ac. you'll want 200! I went from 9 ac. to 130ac. to 711ac. Now, I'd really like to round it up to 1000 acres!
Only a couple of miles down the road. It one of the reasons I like it-conveniently located to work on.
It is mostly flat but there is a 20ft or so rise at the end to get up to where the homesite would be. There was a dirt road there 25 or so years ago, I have learned. Maybe the tractor will need a skidding winch. Hmmm...
You know what? I'd consider putting a real road for that short stretch, especially if it is much of a rise. If you have a garage attached to the house, you are going to use that a lot, and it will get messy Spring and Fall. And I'd get it done well, so I only had to do it once. If you don't, I'd put plenty of gravel or rock on it, and get it compacted well.
If you buy this place and get started on site prep... I hope you've got a GoPro attached to yer forehead, or sumthin reasonable like that... ... really looking forward to pics ...
Don't discount that old road if it's in the right place. Them "old timer's" might have many years of rocks & gravel thrown in it. You'll love it, the 21 acre's that is. And what's wrong with a good reason to get a tractor winch, right!
You are right in NY it is $10,000.00 per year of gross income before you can qualify for Ag. Exempt. I am right on the edge of qualifying at selling 33 plus cord per year. My taxes because of my home, restaurant and 3 commercial garage rentals are just over $23,600.00 per year. With my water bill it costs me just about $480.00 per week I guess that is the price of living in the state of New York. So this year I am pushing for 40 cord at $275.00 picked up. I can spend the money I save much better then New York State, for that fact any idiot can.
Think about it this way. In a semi-mature forest setting you will have about 110 trees per acre growing. That assumes a 20x20 foot spacing which is fairly tight but does not slow tree growth much. If you never take a tree less than 30 years old you can harvest about 3 trees. The number of cords you get from those 3 trees varies depending on species since a 30 year old ash might be 30 inches dbh and a 30 year old hard maple will only be about a foot dbh. I would guess a typical wood lot mix would yield an average 18 inch dbh at that 30 years. At 18 inches and say 40 feet tall you will be lucky to get much more than a 1/3 cord of wood from the trunk and less than half that much from the larger branches. Note there won't be many large branches with the trees growing that close to each other. Sunlight will be the limiting factor. What I come up with is 1 cord per acre if you are not starting from scratch and are careful that you always replace any tree you cut. You need not plant a new tree but need to make sure you leave a seedling behind to replace it. In a mature woods seedlings are everywhere so just be sure not to trim everything to the ground when you harvest that 1 tree. I have a 22 acre woods and will soon be harvesting wood from it. My harvest will be mostly from dead and down trees which should give me about 4 cords per year from things like wind blown trees. Trees do not grow until we take them. Many are lost every year to weather and other impacts. My own woods are at least 40 years old and have not been harvested since I got them 25 years ago. It looks to me like the former owner planted lots of shag bark hickory and black walnut but I do have a variety of other trees in smaller numbers. I doubt there is even one acre without a downed tree and some have more than one down. In addition to my 22 acres of old planting trees, I have another 16 acres that I planted 15 years ago instead of planting corn that year. They are coming along nicely but no way can I count that as a part of my harvest plan for at least another 15 years. As far as property taxes, in Illinois you can sign up wooded acres for special rates if you have at least 10 acres and a forestry plan. The rate is only 1/6 what it would otherwise be for crop land and compared to residential or commercial land forget about it. There is no comparison possible. In my case the land part of my property tax for my 40 acres is just about $120 per year. The garage and machine shed cost me a lot more than that. I dread seeing the bill once I am done building my new home but it won't be cheap.
I thought that only 2k of the 10k can come from firewood products? I could be wrong though. I'm thinking of doing xmas trees. You have 5 years of them growing before they need to start producing income for your ag exemption and throw in some maple syrup to qualify the rest of the land. Taxes on this 21 acre lot is 7500 a year but I hope I can lower that as I would be buying it for about half the assessed value. Plus, land over 10 acres is considered commercial around here until you put a residential house on it.
Oldman47, you have impressively low taxes for woodlot. I thought Iw as doing really well here. Managed forest rates are 1/4 residential rates, and the land in my instance gets assessed way down because I go from residential WATERFRONT to managed forest. Cut my taxes to 1/12th previous rate, but I am still paying 6x per acre what you are paying. As a delightful byproduct, my residence with it's one acre deemed not part of the managed forest is now far enough back from the lake that I am no longer waterfront, and my assessment on my home upon entering the managed forest program went down slightly as well.
Going from forest land to a building lot can be quite expensive. Our land in VT is taxed at the same $3.00 per acre as you and is about 1/133rd of the prevailing rate. (Ski area town=astronomical taxes). As I recall the three dollars is derived from the same cord/acre/year calculation that you came up with. The two acres that the camp is on are taxed at the full rate which amounts to $800. That $800 is a little more than half our tax bill. The camp isn't taxed at all as it is a one room unimproved shack.
Good trick pulling your homestead lot off the lakefront like that. We get a reduced rate for our camp because there is no electricity in front. The power line end just before the 2 acres. The rest of the property has power in front of it. It wasn't done intentionally but it worked out in our favor.
Well done Sherwood. I wish I could find some way to reduce the tax rate on the home I am building on my land. The county is likely to assess it at the price it would have cost me to have someone else build it although I am building it myself. That means it will likely come in assessed as if it cost me well over 1/3 million dollars to build it. In reality it will end up costing me maybe half that much but the assessor won't care about the actual cost. The tax on the land itself will get lost as a trivial amount in the total tax I need to pay.
I was going to hit the like button, Oldman, but the truth is I DON'T like what will happen to you, but do like your post....
I also sell compost and compost tea. I am in the process of selling this property so I am not leaning towards Ag. exempt. Just an idea for any of you gentlemen if you make compost. There is a niche market out there in selling the compost tea (I get $1.50 a gal. 5 gal. min.) to growers of indoor plants and house plants with little cost. I sell it in used Fryer oil containers from my deep fryers. A 275 gal. tote you can buy on Craigslist for under $100.00 to hold the finish product, a 55 gal. barrel to make it, a couple of aerators from Walmarts for around $20.00, and a pump (I had) to transfer it to the holding and dispensing tote. I am sure we all know someone who grows indoors.
have issues, we have similar issues, I got 22 acres 3 miles from interstate a quarter mile drive. I had a about 14 wooded til a tornado went thru the back and I had it clear cut of softwood and left only undamaged hard woods. too dangerous for me to do it then and was worried a broken top might come down and hurt kids. taxes here in VT similar to ny. I bought my house and land because I have neighbors on road quarter mile away in back I have 2 farmers with 600 and 800 acres respectively. good news farmers let me take storm damage off hedge rows for wood. I also had/have option to put 3 building lots on road which would gross enough for me to be completely debt free but the cost would be privacy. still pondering that debt free at 40 is is soo tempting.. if I could just convince farmer to sell me farm... remember to put down fabric under road if you have any clay cause frost kills my drive and since frost is over 6 feet deep this year nit could be fun.. in short privacy is great.. more land means more options.. once you get it all friends and family will show up and visit to get away to the peace and quiet trust me and good luck
