Interesting things going on in cash rent!!!

There have been a few posts lately about cash rents. Here is another one to add to the pile. LOL

My sons picked up some land we had farmed for years but where out bid on rent 4-5 years ago. This was back in the early winter.

They just came over a few hours ago to talk to me about some additional land that they where just offered this afternoon. It seems like a couple of the larger high rent paying fellows got shut down by their banks already. They are having to drop any land over a certain price per acre or the banks will not lend them operating money.

The rental terms are similar to what we where paying the last time. They will work IF we lock in some prices right now and do not speculate on them rising. Which I think is not going to happen in the short term.

A comment to one of the other posters about how the tenant was under paying His Mother on cash rents. I had several rented farms that we have/had rented for long periods of time. If you looked at just the price per acre you could say we where under paying for the ground. Here is what I pointed out to some of the heirs of these places.

1) We maintain all the land just like we do our own. Meaning the soil is kept on the farm and the fertility is as good or better than when we started there.

2) Things are kept mowed and sprayed. Any fences are kept in repair. Any buildings are kept in general repair. Sometime a major repair will require the land owner to buy the material but we usually will provide the labor to complete the work.

3) This also includes keeping the drives clear in the winter if the owner is unable to do so. We keep a plow on one of the pickups and when it snows we clear them all out.

So if your a NEW heir/land owner make sure you are looking at the whole picture not just the payment per acre.

The one farm I talked about getting back this last spring took over $50K in fence and land repairs to get it back in the shape is was when we last farmed it. Then add in a few years of not the best crops until we can get the fertility back up. So watch out for seemly higher rental rates. You could be losing out in other ways.

I do agree that there are guys that will take advantage too. Just make sure that is the case.

I agree that it is important for the owner(s) to look at the package deal. I used to rent a farm for 23 years...longer than the owner farmed it. It was a frog farm. 120 acres, over 30 potholes on 86 tillable acres. Many times offered to buy it with a lifetime estate provision for him to stay, but he wouldn"t budge. But we shared many a snort after I blew the snow from his driveway and visited with him. He and my Dad born in the same year, 1905.

Mid 80s I picked up another farm after being patient for a couple of years...waiting for owner to work through a couple other renters, one shyster, one relative. Then he came to me. Over the years I found out his parents rented my Dad"s home place back in the 30s...but he was farmed out to a neighbor....when older kids worked for neighbors during the Depression, just to have a place to stay over winter. Imagine that now?

Gotta tell this...mid 80s farm owner....Ed...WWII Pacific Veteran.....Army Engineers, like my slot on mid 60s A-Team Demo Sgt....Ed said he was home on leave, had to get back, hitched a ride with a trucker headed south from MN. Trucker said, can you drive? Somewhere in northern Iowa. Ed says sure....(trucker was NOT headed to where Ed needed to go! So Ed heads toward his camp while the trucker is asleep, parks it, walks away.....trucker wakes up with WTF no idea which Iowa town he is in....classic Ed...gotta love it, the ingenuity! Yeah, our greatest generation.

You are right again JD Seller. I rent some land from a neighbor and he tells me he gets offers from others who will pay more. He rents to me because he knows that if he needs help I am right there.

If you do all those things in my area you'd get the land for free.

All very true JD !

Heard all those same things just a few years back from my Grandpa. Late 1950's and early 60's to be exact. Wait, that's several years back not just a few.

Of course those were share crop days but the point he was making you take care of rented land as if it were yours and you always worked to leave it in better shape than when you rented it.

Funny how those original ways of doing things still make perfect sense today.

Bill

What rented land I have, I am paying under the going rate for this area. The owners came to me to rent it. I treat it like I own it. If some areas are prone to erosion, I sow them in hay and cut the hay. I fertilize it and lime it. They have told me that i can have it as long as I want it.