Ranches in North Texas seem to be a tougher sale than they were in the previous two or three years.  The phone is still ringing on all sizes of properties, but the larger ranches are much harder to “close the deal” on than smaller tracts.  Since the downturn in the economy, buyers seem to be taking much more time to make a decision on a farm or ranch, with many “falling off the face of the earth.“  This can be very irritating when a lot of time has been spent doing research for them and not to mention lots of driving. Many prospective buyers seem to show up and be excited about looking at property, but later express they are waiting to see if prices are going to fall.

Recently there have been a lot of people believe that money will be pulled out of the stock market and put toward a land purchase.  I personally think this will only happen when the market makes a partial recovery.  There will be some people that do not want to go through the scare again, but currently the market is too low to withdraw from.  Financing for recreational land especially hunting land, has definitely tightened up with lenders still loaning money, but on a much stricter guideline.  Farms and cattle ranches are still selling fairly well as long as they are priced as a “farm or cattle ranch,“ and the price has not been ballooned from hunting value.  Appraisals also seemed to have tightened up, making a cash buyer much more valuable than before.  Although it is definitely a tougher market, we are surprisingly fairly busy and hopefully land will continue to sell during these tougher times.