What are your thoughts on buying grazing land? Any advice?

P

PercyMum

Well-Known Member
Joined
13 June 2010
Messages
775
Visit site
Hello all!

Just over 2 acres has come up for sale near me. It is fenced off into three paddocks, has a block consisting of 2 stable, a tack room, feed room and a very small barn. Asking price is 80K - its near the New Forest. Is this overpriced? What is it like having your own place?

I currently have 2 horses and want to get a third, so my livery bill is going to be near £1000 pcm :eek:, so I am trying to decide if this would cut costs long-term. I can also have my horses on the routine I choose. But I dont know if I am sugar-coating the idea. Ie, no help, noone to talk to etc...

Also, can you get such a thing as a land mortage?

I'd be very interested in peoples thoughts/experiences!
 
Given how much land has gone up in recent years, it can only be classed as an investment. If you have to sell the chances are you will make a decent return on it!
The ultimate thing is that in less than 10 years time, if you pay a decent amount of mortgage, you will OWN your land and never run the risk of loosing grazing etc!
 
Land is a good term investment.

You can get a mortage for land and a search on the internet will give you institutions that proviide them.

However bare in mind that you will be paying out on the maintenance of the fields and stables, removal of the muck etc.

Also make sure that the land has planning permission for equestrian use as you don't want to find that it hasn't got it if you are paying so much money for it.
 
The land is being sold as grazing land, and I phoned the planning people and asked if I could put an unlit arena in and they said in theory it should be fine. Although there is a dreamy looking arena next door so I might ask if she would consider me paying a flat rate for a given number of hours usage a month (or is this a bit cheeky? i wouldnt mind if it was me but there is nowt so queer as folk..!)

Whats it like having your own place? Does it get lonely? What do you do for holidays?
 
Me and mum have a long term let on 5 acres, we have added field shelter, 3 stables and a feed shed. We have everything we want including x-country jumps built this summer. I think it great having your own place I am now able to turn my horses out everyday for at least a few hours even in winter (no YO saying not today too wet/ muddy/rainy)
I have friends and family that help weed and cover for holidays and illness.e
We do seem to always be paying out for various maintenance jobs and fencing to be done.
We also have a horsey friend nearby that lets us use her lovely arena. Oh and the lady that owns the nearby farm gives us the use of her quad bike and chain harrow in return for me exercising her big mare occasionally.
Good luck with whatever you decided.
Teresa
 
PercyMum said:
Whats it like having your own place? Does it get lonely? What do you do for holidays?
Click to expand...

^^^heavenly^^^ no yard politics, no one 'borrowing' your stuff, turning out as and when you please....the list goes on.

When i go away i have a very reliable lass who comes and house sits the cats and does the horses, last time i went away i came back to a yard cleaner than when i left!

With regards to getting lonely, yes it does a little but i've made friends with the neighbours and go out riding with them and have chats over the paddock rails.

As for arena's it can be expensive to build your own especially if you can use a neighbours very cheaply (i rent on an hourly basis @ £5 - i'd have to do a lot of arena riding to justify building my own!) and you have to weigh up the cost as well as the loss of valuable grazing land from your plot
 
The only downsides are lack of company, possible issues of security as lots of livery yards have owner on site/next door, and also cover for holidays.

If you can resolve those, I would go for it. If you can afford it that is! Its a hell of a lot of money for not much land! It may be possible to raise some finance for the purchase but unlikely you could borrow more that 66%ish as it would be non residential.
 
Go for it....love it

The only thing is holidays getting someone to keep an eye etc but I have that although never done to your own standards!!!

So many freelance instructors around too so its all good. But a great investment

Land where I am just does not come up very often although in recession I am seeing abit more. If its convenient for you to get to ie in Winter go for it. Your outgoings are currently huge!!

As a guide its usually £10k an acre have a look on pony paddocks for sale..(it will come up as something else?? woodlands for sale I think..same people) it will show what prices are on offer. £80k sounds a lot? Is it a very sought after area or fabulous for hacking...its what its worth to you really isnt it.
 
indie999 said:
As a guide its usually £10k an acre have a look on pony paddocks for sale..(it will come up as something else?? woodlands for sale I think..same people) it will show what prices are on offer. £80k sounds a lot? Is it a very sought after area or fabulous for hacking...its what its worth to you really isnt it.
Click to expand...

Its just on the outskirts of the New Forest and has great road links. I think its quite expensive too - been on the market for around a year. Perhaps I could make a daft offer? You never know, I might get lucky!!
 
Go for it! I have been trying to buy some land near(ish) to me for the last 2 years. Its like trying to find rocking horse poo! lol.

You could always rent out a stable and that way you would have someone to help with costs and maybe even your horses in an emergency.
I would definitely ask about the school next door, if you don't as you don't know! Good Luck
 
until recently I had 2 acres (just bought another 2 adjoining) and stables, tack room etc and have put an arena in.

Getting own land was best thing I ever did - we put in on the mortgage as "home improvements " mmmm..

I have one neighbour and we look after each others horses for holidays etc so it works great - not lonely at all and you can do what you want when you want.

The only thing I really struggled with was only having 2 acres with 2 biggish horses - I had to rent ground elsewhere for 6 weeks a year to let it rest - having the arena helped as I used this as winter turnout but still struggled for ground. you will have to be very very strict about turning out in bad weather etc to save ground (saying that my land is rubbish for draining etc) I would haggle on price as with current market you probably have the upper hand.

The othe options is to look for 2-4 acres without stables and put them up yourself - this is what I did - the planning application is not hard (i did rubbish pencil drawings haha) and you can have what you want - round here bare pasture is around £10k an acre.

Would def. ask about use of arena next door if you do go for it also if they have alot of land you could enquire about grass keep for 6 weeks a year to rest yours !!

Good luck ,,,,,, sooooooo exciting getting your own place .... you wont regret it .
 
If you don't and it's sold you will be kicking yourself. We had to remortgage the house as we couldn't get a loan from our bank, as they didn't do land and that was Natwest, so we went with the Norwich and Peterborough building society
 
Go to the local agricultural auctioneer [the market], and ask his advice, he buys and sells land all the time, will also advise on borrowing the money. Other sources are Land Agents, posher and often not so "in touch", expect to pay some commission, you can't expect people to work for you for nothing, but if they can negotiate a better price, based on the true [current] valuation then you have got a deal and a good deal at that. Some people just put things on the market in the hope that someone will come along and fling money at them, sometimes it works!
 
We did the same thing 11 years ago, had 3 girls with ponies and my own horse so livery bills were getting silly, we came across a "very" run down and abused parcel of land (been fly tipped on etc.) but it had some old stable buildings (no roof/doors and some walls missing) already on site, we checked with council and they said because the buildings had been there for a long time they had aquired permission, so,we bought it and began the long process of clearing the rubbish, rebuilding the yard and putting in fencing etc. It is hard work and you have to either buy machinery or pay someone for topping/spraying etc. but it is worth it, we now have a lovely yard with all mod cons and 2 years ago we put our own arena in (we had been using a neighbours prior to that). the best thing we ever did and its worth a lot more than we paid including all the repairs.
 
Right, I have booked a proper viewing (rather than driving past and hanging out of the window!!). Am so excited!! Hopefully I can get it for a song, win the lottery on Saturday and pay the whpole lot off in one go! I'll let you all know how it goes!
 
The old saying, and it's a very true one, is "2.5 acres for the first horse and an acre per horse thereafter". While I entirely see that you would be saving some large livery costs and could be in your own routine etc., I would query whether there is enough land with the stables. I you largely keep your horses in then its probably OK, but that really isn't much grazing for 3 horses.

Also ask yourself what is the land LIKE - e.g. are there parts of it that are patently soggy, overhung by trees etc. Because you need to knock off some grazing space in the equation if this is the case.

But owning your own land is a huge bonus, and you probably won't regret it ever. and perhaps you could rent a bit of additional grazing if you needed to. Good luck!
 
It's lovely to have your own fields but it may be worth getting advice from the auctioneer on business rates on horsey facilities not attached to a house. I think it varies from area to area.
 
I know your area fairly well and I think it is a lot of money so you are right to make them an offer..cant remember if yu said it has running water? Electricity? I would expect that for such an expensive bit of land. But when you are paying £1k per month for livery then this is a bargain? But 2 + acres is not a lot of land. Look at drainage etc flooding

I am in Herts and £10k is about right? I bought a similar amount a few years ago the seller wanted £40K I paid a lot less...knocked over half off.
 
The price is about right for my neck of the woods......
A 2 acre paddock with 3 boxes, feedshed & hay store went just over 2 yrs ago for £130k :eek: - and its total greenbelt (will never get house planning due to location & local restrictions).
The almost-next-door yard - 2.5 acres with 4 stables, hay & feed stores is currently on the market & has 'several' serious enquiries at offers over £120k :rolleyes: its 50% dry & 50% soggy ground, with lots of tree cover & not much grass grows under the trees on the wet half of it (but it looks lovely in the summer when its now on the market ;) )

In answer to the 'how many' on the land. I have 4.5 acres & 7 stables - I used to keep up to 15 at any time, with an additional rented 5 acres on the other side. Now got only the 2 currently, and I was prob the only one round here not panicking in April about lack of grass for mine.

The girls next door keep their 2 big horses (17 & 17.3) on 2 acres, but to keep a reasonable cover on the ground, they have them in 50% of the time & the field is divided into 3. Its also a sandy well draining field.
Do note - they are restricted by the land owner from keeping more than 2 horses at any time, as the previous renter had 3 chubby cobs in there & they virtually wrecked all the grazing, needing it to be rested for a few months before going up for rent again - at £400 pcm.
 
Last edited:
I rent 6 acres and my 3 boys live out all year round and it doesnt seem to last long at all. Have had to move them off and they wont be going back until next spring now, I have 2 x 16.1hh TB's and a 15hh standardbred. Horses eat more grass than you realise. My 3 horses get through more grass than my landlords 6 cows!

2 acres is a very small amount, unles you are going to keep them in most of the time and not turn out over winter I would seriously think about a larger area or possibly re-think a 3rd horse :-)
 
Own land is great. maintenance is time consuming and costs money so you need to enjoy it. Finding other people to do it for you is ok but they will do it to their own timescale rather than yours. I agree with others that 2 acres is not enough for 2 40k an acre in the foresot is the usual asking price for 2 acre parcels. It is more for smaller areas and less for larger but definitely worth making an offer. When you buy ask lots of que stions about field boundaries as they don't always follow the fence line even if the plan shows it does. in the forest you will need permission to trim them or remove if poisonous and the nfpa are not exactly sympathetic to horse owners. Check it has planning permission for stables too.
 
meant to add I found I couldn't borrow against land as not buying for business so borrowed against house to buy it and could borrow for that purpose. If you find you can mortgage land I would be interested to know the name of the lender.
 
I have 3 horses on 5 acres and when my loan horse goes back next year I won't be replacing him as I think I have too many for the space I have and with the amount of turnout I like the horses to have. I would think that your horses will have to spend a lot of time in the yard/stables over winter.
As your livery bill is so high I am assuming you are on some kind of assisted diy or part livery, have you worked out that you will definitely have enough time to be a total slave to your horses? Will you be able to get to them at least twice a day if they have to be kept in if we have a bad winter and can you come up with a plan for if it's impossible to get to them? Can you get water and feed to them even if we have 4ft of snow?
If you can then go for it. My boys are at home with me and I love that :-D
My main issue with having them at home is that I sometimes don't get chance to ride because i'm too busy re-hanging a stable door or fixing fencing or whatever else needs attention. Good luck with it all
 
Hubby and I had looked for land for 15 years...until 3 years ago when we were lucky enough to buy 3 acres of land at auction. We paid £29k for the lot but then had to set about building, putting a road in, having traffic surveys done....and then more recently installing mains electricity! We've probably spent approx £45k so far with the new brick stables etc.....it's been a huge amount of work and very stressful but absolutely worth it! This land is our retirement money basically! So yes, it would be an investment.

For the first winter we had 3 horses on the land and towards jan/fab the land was totally wrecked....I have mine out as much as possible with them in at night if they have to....plus the last few winters have been very wet where I am....and you can't predict what the weather will be like! I now only have my two there and I'm completely over run with grass...but I know that won't be the case in the winter. I'm actually looking forward to just having two and seeing how well the land does and how little hay I use! LOL

I came from a livery yard and have to say it took me a while yo adjust to 'going solo'....there are many things I don't miss about being on a yard but the motivation you get from others people and the social side of things do change.....its not all bad but takes a while to get used to.

Good luck, hope it all works out.....its a wonderful feeling when your the boss of your own place!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top