For those of you that own/rent your own land ..

[GypsyGirl]

Hello everyone.

Just a quick one,
How did you find your land to rent?
How much does it cost you a month?
Or how much it cost you to buy etc,
whats the pros and cons?

Im not thinking now as im only young but later on I would like to maybe buy/rent my own land but have no idea how to get to find it etc.

If anyone can add any information it would be great lol on generally how u all started getting you land etc.

Thanks xx

 

[Holly831]

We bought a house ( 1970's not modernised...YET!!) and 16 acres of land with just 2 stables 2 years ago for £750,000 (OUCH)... we have added 8 more stables (6 12'x12' + 2 12'x16'). A large timber barn and a 30mx60m all weather manege.
We spent around £500 on having fields sprayed/rolled/harrowed etc last year and have spent around £3000 replacing some fencing with lots more to do.

When we finish all the horses accomodation we will start on ours - although I have to admit we gave in after last winter and now have the luxury of central heating

 

[MurphysMinder]

I had been mithering the farmer to rent me(or sell a small amount) the field adjoining mine for years. He wouldn't split it and at 20 acres was far too much. However some other neighbours were also interested and between us we wore him down. We are renting the land between us, I have about 6 acres they have the rest, and we pay £100 per acre per year.

I took hay of some of mine last year, total cost for harrowing, spraying, cutting baling etc worked out at less than £1 per bale.
The pros are at long last I have enough grass ( was managing on acre and a half for years) and as it is next door have opened up our fence so they can still use field shelter in my paddock etc. Cons, part of the field could do with drainage and I do not want to spend money on someone elses land, I really would like to buy it as there is always the chance he may decide not to rent it to us for future years.

 

[Natalie_H]

Mum & dad bought a 50% share in 4.2 acres over 20 years ago. Their horsie friends bought the other 50% (I was about 12 at the time). Friend moved to france a couple of years ago - so I bought her share. We have a stable block encompassing 4 stables, barn & tack room. We have 2 horses on it - my Mum's horse & my horse. Land was valued at £130k.

Cons:
No floodlit all weather surface to school in all year round.
More difficult to get someone to feed if Mum & I aren't there.
One horse gets a bit anxious if the other goes out without him.
My mortgage on the land is more than if my horse was on livery.
Land maintenance can be expensive (fencing/grass management etc.)

Pros:
Horses turned out all year round.
Nobody interfering with what we do / yard politics.
No rules except our own.
Freedom to do what we want, when we want.
Money on mortgage is actually an investment.

All in all - I love it!

 

[ladyt25]

Actually I have no idea - my nan did about 20 odd years ago and, as a result my mum was left some money and at the time some land in the village was split into lots and sold off for farm land etc. Parents bought a 12 acre plot with woodland at one end.

I do not have an idea how much it cost but it is probably worth about 2 or 3 times more now so was a good investment!

Certainly if we didn't have the land i don't think we'd be able to afford to have horses as there's no way i could afford livery charges.

The pros are of course the costs are less and yiu can do what you want when you want etc etc.

Cons I guess are facilities - you can only have those you can afford to put in/get planning for and, if you are the only horse owner/rider then it'd just be you doing everything and riding alone etc etc. Great if you like that but, if you like company then it could be frustrating I guess.

I still would opt for own land as opposed to livery though I have to say.

 

[loz9]

parents bought a farmhouse with 13acres, not super flat pasture land but the horses have adapted well to the bumps (think this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridge_and_furrow)
& it cost £475,000 last may.
The house is 1800s farmhouse that needs a lot of work (was living in a touring caravan for 4mths while all floors/windows/walls were ripped out & rooms made semi liveable! we have only just started decorating & havent had an oven since we moved in!) its a 4bedroom house, & has a milking parlour attached to the house that we plan to extend into. Also has a 2storey barn to be converted (my future house

) & a random building that used to be a 1bed cottage that we dont no what to do with! has no floors/internal walls & a leaky roof!
no stables when arrived, but we have 2 huge barns, one 80x80ft already concreted, other 80x60 dirt floor which we plan to use for hay/bedding/trailer storage. Now have 5-12x12 & 1-15x15 in one which will be extended to either 11 or 15 this year. And in the process of constructing a 45x25m arena. All fencing is in the process of being redone.
We also have rights to the village green (3acres) which we can either graze or hay. Lasy year we hayed & took 340bales off it which should just see us through the winter!
Oh & a large pond complete with breeding ducks

PROS:can do what we want with our horses, have loads of grass as we arent overhorses, no livery costs
CONS: no one to hack out with (not good with a youngster) cant ask others to help out, can be rather restricting from gettin away point.
At the mo for me the pros far outway the cons, but may change my mind when i fetch my youngster back into work & need a safe cob to hack out with!

 

[Dubsie]

We were looking for a property at which we could keep OH's 1955 lorry. This property happened to be for sale at the time (14 years ago, price probably not relevant now but equivalent to double the average house price - only a bungalow) and was about the only non estate property with more than 10ft of drive, a car port, and not right next to another house that was on the market at the time. As it had 3 acres of field that suited OH who subsequently has acquired tractors, plough, topper, cutter, baler, hay rake, tedder and last week a roller mostly from eBay (not many folk have 4 figure feedback without having sold a thing!).
We have sold our hay for the past 2 years, having cut hay and improved it for 2 before that.

Daughter's ponies only arrived 3 months ago.

We asked and have been given permission to maintain and
take hay off an elderly neighbours 2 acre unfenced (so can't use for grazing) front paddock which is a win/win situation for all - has just been left for at least 15 years+ with just the odd cut and was in need of maintaining, so will cost us only time as we have the equipment. That could be a useful avenue to consider if you see anything poorly maintained locally? However beware of spending too much in terms of ££ without a contract or sufficient time of lease such that you'd get benefit from your investment.

We are also looking to rent/buy some extra acreage locally for use as additional grazing as half our land is really going to remain far too wet as we go into spring, but there isn't much available as we're a bit suburban. We will just ask the landowners. Failing that we would like a little extra land which could be a little further afield (say 5-20 acres) for hay, so we can sell some as well as have enough for ourselves. Again we will ask the landowners - helps OH's family were farmers, so know many of the right people, or they are known of.

I can't comment too much on the pros and cons as we're new to this really, but I think the biggest advantage must be the fact we can do what we want on our land in terms of facilities and fencing to suit ourselves and our needs eg OH has added water supply and self-filling water trough (eBay again), and the fact OH has the equipment (and enjoys it as a hobby) to do our own maintenance, haymaking etc. I can see if you don't it could get quite expensive and is certainly a cost to take account of in your calculations - Sashpip's £500 for maintaining 16 acres covers the cost of buying both OH's roller and harrows and probably all the sprays + fertiliser he's ever used (paid about £6 for 2 1/2 tons fertiliser by accident at a farm auction one year - thought he was bidding for a small amount and auctioneer lumped several lots together!!)

I do think the biggest disadvantage/disappointment has been the weather coupled with the lack of a school, it's pained my daughter she's hardly had any opportunity to ride as weather has been far too wet (slippery paddock), too dark after school to ride on the road, poor local hacking, no one to ride with, snow on the ground/icy. We will struggle to get planning for a school (too suburban). So I can see the attraction of DIY livery in that respect, but do like the fact I can nip down in my PJs to feed them in the morning! Doesn't bother me there's no-one to cover as we've chickens and a dog so don't 'do' holidays anyway. If necessary there are always freelance grooms or local horsey people we've helped before (had 2 stay for a few days while owner away previously)

 

[itsme123]

I rent land from a lovely family in a village close to where we live. I pay £10 a week for it. Have access to a stable if I need it, a shelter, water to field and it's secluded away from the road.
I found it via asking around, found a lady who rents out land in the area, asked her, and she gave me this lady's number, I called, they weren't looking to rent their field but agreed to do so as long as I maintained it.
Pros as above.
cons, we have to traipse through the field owner's personal back yard to get to the field which can sometimes feel like we're invading a bit, no electric unless i use their personal household electric, and it's a bit further from home than I would have liked as I;m used to having them close by. I have no storage facilities, not even for hay, so have to keep hay in my back garden.

I'd love to buy, but we're not even sure HOW to get a mortgage /loan for land.

managing it is hard, constantly being soley responsible for the state of it, getting people in to top/roll it, and not having a YO to rely on if I'm ill or go away. Getting farrier etc to the field can be tricky as I can't just say "Oh park in the owners driveway" so they often have to park on the road and walk up the drive/through the back yard and to the field. we've no menage and the roads aren't that quiet.

That said, it's nice to know there's someone around 24/7, and that the field owners are FAB at getting stuck in if they notice the trough's frozen or something. They ask lots of questions about the boys and seem very keen to learn things.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

[ QUOTE ]
We bought a house ( 1970's not modernised...YET!!) and 16 acres of land with just 2 stables 2 years ago for £750,000 (OUCH)... we have added 8 more stables (6 12'x12' + 2 12'x16'). A large timber barn and a 30mx60m all weather manege.
We spent around £500 on having fields sprayed/rolled/harrowed etc last year and have spent around £3000 replacing some fencing with lots more to do.

When we finish all the horses accomodation we will start on ours - although I have to admit we gave in after last winter and now have the luxury of central heating

[/ QUOTE ]

That sounds like us, we'd been here for 12 years before we managed to replace roof/windows/electrics and complete all the related work. The stables had been re-roofed 3 times by then! And goodness knows how much field/fence maintenance had been done.

We still laugh about a house we saw near to the Great Yorks Show site, in the '90's The stables were beautiful right down to the hanging baskets full of flowers, the house was in a real state of disrepair, with the roof off and scaffolding up. Those horse owners had definitely got their priorities right.

Pros and cons as other posters for us, except that several of our neighbours have horses, so it is almost always possible to arrange to ride in company,(there are 2 of us anyway) or ask some-one to help out. Even our non-horsey neighbours are great. There is a real community spirit in our hamlet.

I wouldn't go back to livery yard if THEY paid me. But I do think it works best where there is more than 1 rider involved in owning own land.

 

[_daisy_]

We rented 6 acres for a good few years from a local farmer but he wouldnt sell it to us so my parents decided to put our house up for sale and to look for a place with land. Whilst talking to the estate agent he told my parents of some land for sale - we went along and bought a 10acre field @ £12k per acre.

The land was completely trashed from being overstock. We paid approx £500 for spraying, rolling,harrowing and then a further approx £700 for the farmer cutting/baling the haylage.
We got plans passed for 3 stables, 1 store & 25mx50m arena. luckily we havent had to pay out for the stable/store block as we already had 4 mobile stables so have transported these to our new land. Weve spent approx £4k on fencing and still more to do, £1k on new saplings to put in the hedgerow, approx £6k on groundwork and that hasnt put our arena in yet (Will be starting a week on Monday)

The only problem with our land is our neighbours as they intentionally do things to damage our property (namely the boundary fencing etc) but we just have to ignore they stupid behaviour and ensure that our land is safe for my horses. Apart from that I love having my own place and wouldnt go back to livery.

 

[MurphysMinder]

Wow, £12,000, thats quite high. To give a rough idea of price to buy round here, there is a 13 acre piece (split into 2 paddocks and with a pond) just come on the market near me for £65,000.

 

[PrettyPiaffe]

How did you find your land to rent?
Word of mouth
How much does it cost you a month?
£600 a year for 4 acres, we had to do all fencing ourselves and put field shelter in. Then £60 a month for the 3 stables.
whats the pros and cons?
Pros are that its nice to be your own boss! Although it can get lonely, i have the best of both worlds as we have a horse on livery as well as having 3 on our own place. It can also be difficult to keep everything spic and span...especially if you are lazy like me! Unfortounatley we have very poor drainage on our land and when the rain gets very heavy most of our fields are literally underwater, our horses spend about 5 months of the year with just a few hours turnout a day in a small paddock but i dont think they mind too much...they are precious dressage horses after all

Facilities wise we have a small arena, 4 acres of land, 3 stables, field shelter, 2 small turnout paddocks,lunge paddock, 2 barns for storage and 1 tackroom.

 

[The_snoopster]

Me and a friend rent several fields from our local council which works out at £100 acre per year they will maintain the fencing as long as you are sensible and not let horses constantly break it.
Unfortunately most of the land will be built on in the future so we have moved around alot over the years, we move when the diggers arrive.
I also rent a 4 acrea field privately which I had a stable and feed shed built, I do have to maintain the fences myself in this field, and when I moved in I had to put up around 100 meters of fence that were missing. I pay £50 a month for this and after the first year they said they will not put it up in the future as they were pleased with how I kept the land and fences.
Down side to being on your own land for me can be that there is no one to talk to and drinking a flask of coffee after a ride all on my own can be lonely, but the plus side is I choose where my horses graze and for how long which for me is 24/7.
Also all the fields I rent or share with friend are only a two min walk away and are close to the bridleways.

 

[_daisy_]

For South Yorkshire yeah it wasnt cheap MM however that isnt that bad a price to pay for land round here. if hte land had gone to auction we were expecting to pay £16k. A friend of mine paid £45k for 3 acres and another friend payd £35k for less than 1 acre (yes he was very stupid! and hes realised it now) BUT ive just met up with an old contact who is selling a 4 acre field for £30k - swings and round abouts I suppose. And if only id known he had some for sale a few years ago