20 miles west of Indianapolis Indiana | hinfarm - 2/8/2026 09:14
It’s not rocket science.
If you own assets that have inflated in value your doing great, if you don’t you’re not, not at all and it’s not just from a $7 coffee or a phone with a data plan either.
Net worth doesn’t pay bills though.
I think a lot of guys with paid for land are just satisfied with making less and surviving and the guys renting the bulk are taking it on the chin at the moment. Thats eroding working capital.
Would be easy to judge those renting most of theirs and say you should have bought some more, but that payment 3X rent cost wouldn’t be helping at the moment either.
I was renting some land right when I got out of college (2006). And I had a farm I was farming for 2 years sell for $7000 an acre in 2008. It was a million dollar farm. So I couldn’t buy it but if I could have scraped up 20% down, and over time refinanced at say 4% eventually. I’d be making a payment still over average cash rent. Paying property taxes on top and income tax on the principal. Now I’m not against buying land, and I’m looking back I wish I had bought that farm. That is one of the few I look back realistically and think I should have somehow begged, borrowed and stole to get. But looking at it realistically, a $400 payment with more to boot in an environment where $300 rent is a looser is still a financial boat anchor. That’s $25,000+ you need excess funds from to make work. Maybe today id just bite the bullet and take a second mortgage on the equity to make it? Or that farm had some road frontage on a second side, I’d honestly probably partician off some lots on 20’acres and sell them for $30,000 an acre vs the $15,000 they are worth as farmland now. Idk???
But this is reality for some. Old money will survive this most likely and those without sponsors may run out of time like many did in the 80’s. And we are still not as bad as it was in the 80’s IMO. |
K shaped economy
