Moving from the city to the country:

As ranch brokers, we have the opportunity to interact with buyers from all locations with different purchase objectives. Many have lived in homes with city services such as water, sewer, and garbage and are entering a new arena when making a purchase in rural parts of our country where these services are not available. Putting together a team of professionals to help you be comfortable and knowledgeable with your acquisition is important. Here are a few common considerations when buying land in the Mountain West:

Water Rights:

In Montana, landowners have a right to use water on their property for a specific use, such as domestic, irrigation, or livestock. Water rights are filed based on when they were put to use such as April 1, 1884, or July 29, 2014. The older rights have a priority over a subsequently filed right for the same use in the same drainage. If this is an irrigation right and water is scarce, the more recent right may be reduced or turned off to allow the older or senior right to have water for use. For irrigation rights, the District Court may appoint a “Water Master” or “Ditch Rider” to monitor diversion points in a water basin and make sure priority dates are followed when water is in short supply.

A Water Rights Attorney is a valuable asset to help you understand what water rights you may have and disclose any potential issues or opportunities these rights may provide.

Conservation Easements:

A landowner has a right to donate uses of their property to an organization to protect the property for the future and receive a tax benefit or cash from the donation. The uses that we see most often donated are subdivision rights, clear-cut logging and mining rights. While it may restrict the designated uses, it generally lowers the price on the property significantly allowing you to purchase more property for your money. Once these items are donated away from the property, they can seldomly be purchased back.

The main questions you as a buyer need to ask is “Are these uses I want/need with my new property,” or “Can I enjoy the property without these donated uses?”

Meeting with the conservation easement holder with your broker and/or attorney will help in deciding the importance of these issues.

Easements:

This is the legal right for you to cross over someone else’s property or their right to cross over yours. This may be a right for access to your property, or for irrigation water (ditches or pipe), utilities, or for a specific purpose (e.g. moving livestock). Your title policy will show exceptions, and your real estate attorney is able to explain how this may affect you and your use.

Noxious weeds:

As a land of immigrants, and by transporting goods around the world, sometimes unwanted guests arrive also. Noxious weeds are plants not native to our landscape that may arrive by boat, plane, train, or even on your clothes. These plants often invade our landscape as they lack the natural controls from their homeland, such as bugs, that limit their spreading. Chemical, mechanical, and biological controls are used to fight these invaders. You as a landowner need to know your responsibility to protect your neighbor and your ranch.

The local conservation district is an excellent resource to evaluate how this will affect the management of your property.

Smooth Transition:

This may be your first experience buying western ranch property. Our team at Live Water Properties is excited to help you make a smooth transition into your new Mountain West ranch by introducing you to local professionals who are experts at answering questions and providing quality services.

 

Part Three – Agricultural and Range Options

Proven and effective wildlife management strategies often employ rotational grazing practices to allocate a percentage of range pasture and cover for game, use specific water gaps or tanks to concentrate stock watering areas, establish a noxious weed eradication program, aggressively control predator populations, and manage timber resources by selective thinning trees to increase grass forage. To maximize the wildlife potential of any property, strong consideration must be made to creating and/or maintaining both a sufficient food and cover base. The absence of one of these items greatly reduces the likelihood that animals will frequent the property with any regularity, and when both features are gone, so is the game in most cases.

When it comes to food sources, utilizing the agricultural potential of a property to grow cash crops like alfalfa, sanfoin, grains, sugar beets, corn, peas and legumes, will provide real income stream, while incidentally creating a major draw for wildlife. Positioning food plots near water and bedding areas increases the frequency of use by a considerable margin.

Dense cover areas are critical for shelter from the elements, protection from predators and to encourage wildlife to live and stay on the property year-round. Establishing and maintaining transitional “edges” between nesting/bedding cover and available food sources will compel wildlife to frequent those particular areas on a regular basis. In Montana, the best cover habitat for both upland birds and big game species seem to consist of mixes of hardy grass species and woody brush cover that will stand up to snow and wind, along with pockets of either deciduous and conifer trees. Russian wild rye, wild rose, buffalo berry, snow berry, plum, juniper, caragana, Russian olive, kochia, willow and cattail are but a few of the types of cover species that wildlife favor. Also, unharvested spring wheat and barley crops will stand up well to deep snow, while providing a preferred and readily available food source

Other sporting-related options that will embellish the recreational assets of a property include fish introductions, upland bird stocking to create hunting opportunities where a wild population is marginal or non-existent, obtaining a shooting preserve license to lengthen harvest seasons, and building a skeet, trap or sporting clays course.

Property owners may want to consider Federal, State and private programs that could be relevant when implementing a recreational enhancement plan. One of the most familiar is the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) started by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1985, and is designed to provide assistance and financial incentive for landowners to maintain sustainable farming practices as well as encourage the development of natural wildlife habitat. The Agricultural Act of 2014 consolidated the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program, Grassland Reserve Program and Wetlands

Reserve Program into the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), which provides for both agricultural land easement and wetlands reserve easement options that could provide direct wildlife benefits. The Private Landowner Assistance Program

(PLAP) is specifically targeted to landowners interested in promoting and protecting wildlife resources on their property. The Healthy Forests Reserve Program (HFRP) offers easements and financial assistance to landowners wanting to enhance and protect timber and forest habitat. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) provides financial and technical assistance to agricultural producers in addressing natural resource concerns, to include improving or creating wildlife habitat. Land stewardship programs offered through local conservation districts, DNRC Reclamation and Development

Grants, Ducks Unlimited habitat enhancement programs, Pheasants Forever and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, are all sources of information, specific expertise, and potential partnering, as it pertains to promoting wildlife. Federal Conservation Easements are also a possible avenue that can offer a landowner potential tax incentives to protect critical and sensitive wildlife habitat on a property. These options are by no means comprehensive, but may at least provide a place to start.

When it comes to appreciation and value as it relates to real estate, the old adage “location, location, location” certainly is a primary consideration, however recreational elements that include a healthy and stable wildlife resource increase the desirability and worth of a property by a significant amount. Land stewardship strategies that give importance to wildlife concerns will result in a recreational property that is fulfilling to own, as well as greatly enhance pride of ownership.

Part Two: Streams, Ponds and Lakes, Wetlands

Fluvial restoration usually entails a combination of bank stabilization techniques to curtail or prevent existing or potential erosion issues; creating superior fisheries habitat by engineering areas of riffles, runs and holding water that incorporate protective structure; and sometimes even increasing the velocity of existing flow. Erosion problems generally stem from bank instability due to natural runoff events and/or natural or man-related degradation of the riparian corridor. Remedies often include rip-rapping banks with rock or logs to increase stability, and reseeding exposed banks with native grasses, bushes, trees and willow species. Excavation of the existing stream channel can create a complex of necessary habitat regimes for trout, including feeding areas, spawning gravel, and pools complete with rock and wood structure for cover. In the case of spring creeks, the absence of regular “flushing flow” events associated with annual runoff periods can eventually lead to siltation and over-widening of the channel. Both these circumstances generally contribute to an increase in water temperature and lack of holding water for trout. A narrowing of the channel can provide deeper water and protective cover for fish, and also increase the velocity of flow, which usually results in cooling the water temperature and preventing future silt build-up.

Creating ponds and lakes can lead to enjoyable stillwater fishing opportunities, provide nesting and feeding habitat for waterfowl, and create an associated riparian area that is attractive to a myriad of upland bird and both game and non-game species of wildlife.

Ponding sources can vary from springs, drilled wells, existing groundwater percolation and even offsite – where creek flow is diverted through a pond or lake, then channeled back to the source. Thoughtful planning considers the natural terrain of a property to determine the best location for a pond or lake, and factors in the importance of creating a diverse lake bed environment where balanced proportions of shallow weed beds for food production and adjacent deep water areas for shelter provide a fertile environment conducive to a productive fishery

Wetlands and marsh preservation is key in maintaining the overall health of a property. These areas can be exceedingly important in naturally controlling erosion and flooding events on a property. The additional benefit centers on wildlife; everything from ducks and pheasants to muskrats, beavers, mink, foxes and deer utilize the wetlands ecosystem for nesting, bedding, feeding and cover habitat.

Continue Reading: Part 3 Agricultural and Range Options

Today we start a 3 part series on maximizing recreational assets of real estate.

Recreational-oriented property has been a dynamic segment of the rural real estate market in the Rocky Mountain west for many years. Beginning in the early 1980’s, the historic trend of farms and ranches being purchased mainly for agricultural production was augmented with an additional buyer pool of individuals largely motivated by recreational amenities that a property could offer. This trend continues today, and some of the most compelling and desirable acreages are those that provide the foundation to raise crops and livestock as well as provide good opportunities for fishing, hunting and a variety of other recreational pursuits. These properties oftentimes reward an owner with a lifestyle tied closely to the land, along with the benefits of a viable income stream, potential tax advantages, and long-term appreciation of an investment that can actually be touched, is engaging to own, and can be enjoyed by family and friends.

In the broadest sense, the term “recreation” as it pertains to real estate certainly describes different things for different people, but most individuals highly value the presence of fish and game, whether for sporting pursuits or the simple aesthetic experience of having a prolific wildlife community and sustaining ecosystem on the property. While some properties naturally have the right blend of ingredients to support diverse wildlife, many do not, due to location, or the simple fact that a mix of preferred features that draw and support animals are insignificant or non-existent altogether. Fortunately there are methods to address these deficiencies, ultimately increasing productivity and invariably, the overall value of the land. Generally, as long as water is available, habitat and food sources can be established or further enhanced. While this process of property sculpting does require effort, time and money, the benefits can be very rewarding, and may open the door to acreages – possibly “diamonds in the rough” – that do not immediately provide strong recreational options, but are also priced accordingly less than more turn-key offerings.

Concurrent with the surge of interest in recreational property, an industry comprised of land and water reclamation and enhancement firms has evolved that specialize in property improvement strategies for landowners to increase wildlife populations, whether it be for fish, upland birds, waterfowl or big game species. These firms incorporate knowledge of disciplines including agricultural management, range and soil science, water rights, wildlife biology, engineering, geology, forestry, construction and other areas of expertise, are well versed in what can and cannot be done due to practicality, viability, and existing regulations, and can facilitate the process of obtaining any requisite permits for a particular task. While there are many different issues and improvements that may need to be addressed on a particular property, enhancement projects generally fall into a few categories – albeit accepted practices, regulations and required protocol will vary state to state. My observations are based on experience gained through brokering recreational real estate in my home state of Montana for almost three decades.

Continue Reading: Part Two Streams, Ponds and Lakes, Wetlands