We are not farmers and yet we live in farm country with a mix of both hayfields and woods. We do lease our hayfields to a neighboring farmer and additionally just started leasing hunting rights.
Being a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) by background / training probably plays a role in my taking on the "finance role" in our family. Ensuring that we maximize our "homestead" investment is something that has been front and center in my mind; but, it is not something that Ed is as naturally inclined to think about as I am.
Our forested area has not been logged in quite a while and we do have a significant amount of large and old growth trees (across a variety of species); neither Ed (to a greater extent) or myself (to a lesser extent) wish to monetize this space. We enjoy the natural beauty, the wildlife habitat, the hiking trails, the wild mushrooms, the maple tapping, and the firewood that the forest offers.
That said, while contemplating how to monetize our woods in a different way, I stumbled upon the idea of leasing our land to hunters. While "Googling" this concept, I discovered a company called "Base Camp Leasing" and ultimately listed / leased our land through them (it all happened so quickly that I almost think we should have listed for more money).
Using a third party comes with its costs; we paid a 25% fee but received some security back in terms of a $2M liability insurance policy provided by the broker and what seemed to be to be pretty well thought out and iron clad lease agreement language in the lease with our lessors (whereby they signed off on and accepted all of the risk associated with hunting on our land and both from a regulatory standpoint and a liability standpoint). The lessees are only able to hunt during the seasons specified in the lease agreement and are limited in terms of who/how many people may come to the property and may hunt.
In our case, our lessees leased our land sight unseen. They are from the Chicagoland suburbs and there are three in total. There is a husband / wife and a friend of theirs. They come only on the weekends and do text when they plan on coming so that we (mainly I) do not walk the land while they are here (one of the trade-offs). They seem to be very nice people and we are in the process of developing a good relationship with them.
One of the things that our lessees asked was whether they could leave a camper trailer on our property during hunting season. We did say that that would be OK subject to County and Town ordinances. The trick was finding a spot where their vehicles would be able to drive / tow the trailer without getting stuck (we do have hills and they don't have the best towing vehicles) and yet where the trailer would not be seen by us on a regular basis (nor by any neighbors - we did not want to create a potential eye sore for anyone).
I'm probably more pleased with our new arrangement than Ed is; however, Ed has been open to seeing how it goes. We are basically paying our property taxes on all of our property through this endeavor. Additionally, while talking over the fence with our out of town hunting neighbors, Ed learned that they know people who would like to rent our land for the purpose of hunting and who would pay the amount we get from our current lessees (plus a little more even); and, there would be no "commission". Something to consider for next year I suppose.
In the meantime, our lessees have asked if we would like a doe if they got an extra one (in accordance with their licenses of course; there are does galore around here); they even offered to help teach Ed how to process "said doe" in our garage. The jury's still out as to whether Ed will accept their offer or not...
I've also discovered a couple of Airbnb type places that handle camp site rentals on private property -- outside of deer season in our case. I've actually been surprised by what camp sites appear to lease for.... Who knew... The only lessor requirement is a toilet; but, the toilet can be anything from a composting toilet to an outhouse to a porta potty. Shower availability is an attractive feature for these camp site rentals; so, now my thoughts are turning toward how to accommodate said shower without digging a well. Turns out, this shouldn't be as hard as I'd originally thought given that we could use an elevated tote set above a shower head on any sort of open to the sky platform we could build.
I'll keep mulling things over but so far, we're making progress on monetizing our property in a way that works for us.
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