Offset Property Taxes on Hunting Land

[PraiseDiana]

I'm considering buying the parcel adjacent to mine that has been up for sale for a while now. Today I have 35 acres of swampy woods and wetland and I pay about $1k annually for the privilege. If I buy the adjacent parcel I'm looking at $2.5k annually which I consider to be pretty expensive for recreation. I'd like some ideas on how I might offset the tax costs, without investing a huge amount of time and effort. Selective logging is about the only thing I've come up with, but I don't know the value of the trees - I expect it's pretty low. Probably worth getting a forester out there to take a look. Any other ideas?

[crappyice]

Any chance for farmer exemption? I think that's a thing but not sure how much of the property and what crops are acceptable. Pretty sure my buddy gets a break as his fields are hay-he has a neighbor plant and take it for his cattle and sell the extra 

[PraiseDiana]

All the property is wooded or wetland so no fields to plant unfortunately.

[crappyice]

Tap the trees for syrup and get bees for honey....I can't believe how expensive that stuff is at farmers market.

Cultivate wild mushrooms? 

[2BuckBizCT]

Lease a section for hunting? or lease a section for dirtbikes/atv's not during hunting season? 

[G-man]

Can try for a forestry exemption  they just changed requierments  but you have to stay in and do improvement according to the plan. 

Farm exempt .  You can also apply as tree / woodland products farm ( firewood) your suppose to sell so much $ per year . 

Combining thenproperty  also lowers taxes as the 1st  buildable acre  is  only accessed 1x vs each piece

[dbHunterNY]

1 hour ago, crappyice said:

Tap the trees for syrup and get bees for honey....I can't believe how expensive that stuff is at farmers market.

Cultivate wild mushrooms? 

it can draw income but that's opening up two brand new hobbies/adventures with their own expenses. stuff isn't cheap because it's a lot of work.

[Bucndoe]

1 hour ago, G-man said:

Can try for a forestry exemption  they just changed requierments  but you have to stay in and do improvement according to the plan. 

Farm exempt .  You can also apply as tree / woodland products farm ( firewood) your suppose to sell so much $ per year . 

Combining thenproperty  also lowers taxes as the 1st  buildable acre  is  only accessed 1x vs each piece

So for example if you own three lots that all touch each other you can combine them into 1 and lower the total taxes of the 3 combined ?

[nywaw]

3 minutes ago, Bucndoe said:

So for example if you own three lots that all touch each other you can combine them into 1 and lower the total taxes of the 3 combined ?

I think he's saying...

Lot 1 = Tax X acres + Tax 1 acre as buildable
Lot 2 = Tax Y acres + Tax 1 acre as buildable
Lot 3 = Tax Z acres + Tax 1 acre as buildable

vs

Lot Combined = Tax (X + Y + Z) acres + Tax 1 acre as buildable

So you'd save the taxes on the 1 buildable acre on 2 of the parcels.

[nywaw]

FWIW, maybe you can lease some of the land to a commercial bee keeper?

https://www.americanbeeproject.com/#:~:text=By leasing their vacant land,the health of their hives.

[dbHunterNY]

need to talk to Cornell Cooperative Extension and be on the look out for different habitat projects with federal grant money or putting the land into a program. some are waterfowl projects with one time payout, others are the "forever wild" deal.  sometime you need the equipment to make the project stuff worth it and cut costs. we have swamp on the family farm. dad found a wetland project through i think the county. it was to put duck ponds in the swamp. ponds were built to certain specs on plans. we used our own equipment to cut costs and put more in our pocket. engineer the does the plans comes and inspects it and everything.

woods have a forester come in to look at it. most likely pulp wood so you can get it certified as a pulp and paper industry resource property. now taking pine and lower value trees yields more money. the trees which wouldn't be worse the cost to take out are then possibly worth it. key is to have the forester line up a logger to come pull whatever can be cut. otherwise it'll be hard to get someone to come log it. 

Edited March 3, 2023 by dbHunterNY

[Spysar]

I have bees, and make maple syrup. You won't make any money on either sorry to say. But they are great hobbies.

I had a camping company contact me to ask if they could put a camping spot on my land. I wasn't interested so I never checked out what their deal was. I bet not much money in this either, but you can investigate.

Logs are your best bet, but that's a 1 shot deal. Might pay your tax for a year or two. It's not worth it too me to do that either. Everyone around me did it, including the WMA land (DEC)that borders my land. And it sure is ugly for a while, but it probably helps the deer after a while.

 

[Nomad]

3 hours ago, crappyice said:

Any chance for farmer exemption? I think that's a thing but not sure how much of the property and what crops are acceptable. Pretty sure my buddy gets a break as his fields are hay-he has a neighbor plant and take it for his cattle and sell the extra 

 He’d have to actually Farm it in some form ,you can’t just plant a few acres of Christmas trees and expect to get Ag rates on all of it .

You have to deal with a county guy who approves the Ag exception , that is then mailed to the county tax assessor it’s fairly straightforward but you’ll need documentation. It’s also,done annually. 
 

off the a Blues Festival downtown Sarasota !

Edited March 3, 2023 by Nomad

[PraiseDiana]

5 minutes ago, Spysar said:

Logs are your best bet, but that's a 1 shot deal. Might pay your tax for a year or two. It's not worth it too me to do that either. Everyone around me did it, including the WMA land (DEC)that borders my land. And it sure is ugly for a while, but it probably helps the deer after a while.

 

If logging only gets a couple years worth of taxes then it's not worth it I think. If it covered 10 years of taxes then that's a different story. Probably the successional growth after logging would provide some food and cover for the critters though, and getting logging roads put in could be nice.

[Spysar]

And to add, I wouldn't trust a logger as far as I can throw a piano.