Farmland prices?

[Jonh]

Anyone know what kind of price per manzana farm land is getting these days? Electricity, water, near a major town. It's been worked as a farm for probably 40 years or more.

[Mikeh]

Anyone know what kind of price per manzana farm land is getting these days? Electricity, water, near a major town. It's been worked as a farm for probably 40 years or more.

In Carazo and Masaya departments a manazana like that would sell for a rock-bottom minimum of $15,000 if the land is flat. $20,000 would be more like it if the seller was patient and prepapred to keep it on the market for a year. The closer you get to a city, the higher.

[Jonh]

What if it's more like 300+ manzanas?

[cookshow]

6 with 6 zeros, good luck on that.

Like everything, dozens of variables, frontage, water, buildings, trees, plants, livestock.......

I see some big farms for sale at small prices per acre, but when you get over a few hundred acres it is still substantial.

I never look at stuff up that way, so no idea, but I am sure you will be hatching the egg if you ask $15k a manzana on a 300 manzana parcel.

[FisherCigarman]

it depends buddy, my cousin just bought 120 manzanas 1.15 hrs from Esteli, close to Condega, old farm with corral and everything, 20 manzanas of pure cattle pasture.
he got it for 90K USD. house,well and quite fenced up.

Anyone know what kind of price per manzana farm land is getting these days? Electricity, water, near a major town. It's been worked as a farm for probably 40 years or more.

[Jonh]

it depends buddy, my cousin just bought 120 manzanas 1.15 hrs from Esteli, close to Condega, old farm with corral and everything, 20 manzanas of pure cattle pasture.
he got it for 90K USD. house,well and quite fenced up.

That's pretty close to what I'm told this one is worth per manzana.

[Mikeh]

6 with 6 zeros, good luck on that.

Like everything, dozens of variables, frontage, water, buildings, trees, plants, livestock.......

I see some big farms for sale at small prices per acre, but when you get over a few hundred acres it is still substantial.

I never look at stuff up that way, so no idea, but I am sure you will be hatching the egg if you ask $15k a manzana on a 300 manzana parcel.

That's true enough.

The smaller the parcel of land, the higher the price. $15,000+ per acre in Carazo or Masaya applies to parcels of 1 or 4 manzanas that are flat and cleared, not far from a city, with good electricity, daily water or a well, ok road access, soil that's good enough to grow something other than sugar cane, and without buildings or anything else left behind as part of the deal. On the other hand, I've seen a one-hundred manzana package languish on the market at a fraction of $15,000+ per acre.

On the other hand, if you have a one-hundred manzana package, it's bound to include tracts that are not flat, no road access, far away from the sources of water and electricity.

If you want to sell a large package of land, very generally and all other things being equal, you will probably make much more money in the long run by subdividing in into small tracts and selling them one by one.

As cookshow very astutely points out, the more things you throw into the deal, the higher the price. Put a building on it and the price goes up. Throw in livestock and the price goes up again. Leave behind your mint-condition Land Rover and kick it up a notch. Offer to pimp out your luscious 18-year-old sister-in-law to the buyer for a year and see the price rise by more.

[randude]

Mike makes some good points as well as some simple outrageous points...

All pimping aside, if you have a very large tract that is in one piece that does include the good, the bad and the ugly it should be cheaper because you are accepting the good, the bad and the ugly. You start dividing it up and you have to cull out all the bad bad stuff and you have to pay someone to do all that dividing. The seller is going to get stuck with the culls, or have to darn near give those away. To make up for that you get a premium price for the premium cuts. Having water, electricity and a road is something that most gringos would want. They have to pay for gringo luxuries much the way they do for everything else in the country. It gets down to the good stuff being worth almost as much there as it is in many parts of the USA. I bet I could find good flat land that you could grow on in the USA for less than 5k per acre. Start throwing in Land Rovers and Brick Homes and the price will quickly grow. I am getting to the point that I think that the only thing cheaper in Central America is medicine.

[Jonh]

Interesting twist. It appears the survey doesn't match what the seller claims. I said, "why not just look at the Escritura?" The answer is, because when land is officially recorded, it's common practice to under-size it so they don't have to pay as much tax. So the legal description recorded on paper is wrong and nearly useless.

I asked my wife how the surveyor is supposed to know where the boundaries are, and she said the owner, or someone who knows the boundaries, walks the property with the surveyor and tells him. I just don't see how that can possibly work, especially for property that's been owned by one person for several decades. No one can possibly remember where the boundaries of rural land are, unless they are very clearly and prominently marked. Fences, bodies of water, roads, ok. But they don't have all of those.

[acc724]

thats the way its done in waslala..the property line is that tree..to that big rock..the land has never been surveyed..its all a guess..thats nicaragua..where my farm is..about 500 a manzna..with nothing on it..put coffee or cacao..double the price

[Mikeh]

thats the way its done in waslala..the property line is that tree..to that big rock..the land has never been surveyed..its all a guess..thats nicaragua..where my farm is..about 500 a manzna..with nothing on it..put coffee or cacao..double the price

Well land in Waslala tends to be cheap for two reasons ... you can't hardly get there, and if you do get there, there's hardly nothing there.

Good cheese though.

[Mikeh]

Interesting twist. It appears the survey doesn't match what the seller claims. I said, "why not just look at the Escritura?" The answer is, because when land is officially recorded, it's common practice to under-size it so they don't have to pay as much tax. So the legal description recorded on paper is wrong and nearly useless.

I asked my wife how the surveyor is supposed to know where the boundaries are, and she said the owner, or someone who knows the boundaries, walks the property with the surveyor and tells him. I just don't see how that can possibly work, especially for property that's been owned by one person for several decades. No one can possibly remember where the boundaries of rural land are, unless they are very clearly and prominently marked. Fences, bodies of water, roads, ok. But they don't have all of those.

"The answer is, because when land is officially recorded, it's common practice to under-size it so they don't have to pay as much tax."

That sounds like bullsh!t to me. In this part of Nicaragua, the common practice to lower taxes is to slip the DGI assessor a few bucks to under-value the property without affecting the boundary lines.

Your wife is right about the common practice of an owner walking the boundaries with the surveyor instead of referring to the escritura, but the survey will be useless in a legal dispute over the land.

[acc724]

Well land in Waslala tends to be cheap for two reasons ... you can't hardly get there, and if you do get there, there's hardly nothing there.

Good cheese though.

yep there is not much there..waslala..but if u are on a budget..and u want to make a living down here..buy 10 manzanas of cacao..for about $10.000 ..and u should make about a $1000 a manzana../yr..