Home On The Range?

[A-plus]

A friend is talking about putting together a hunt club near Gaylord. He has over 300 acres on a paved county road and is thinking about dividing the road frontage into 15, one acre parcels and selling each with equal ownership in the remaining acreage. On the land he intends to build a trap and sporting clays range, then do some wildlife management, especially for upland birds and deer. He figures it would cost about $100K for each of the building lots with equal ownership interest in the remaining 300+ acres. Does this sound like a viable idea to y'all?

[alex-v]

I have seen similar topics of forming large or small hunt clubs show up on other discussion lists and newsgroups. Some common questions that have been asked include what about family of the owners? What about guests of the owners 'cause you know there are going to be some? Then there is the question of what happens when all 15 owners show up on opening day and want to hunt the same area?

What I noticed was a mention of building a trap and skeet range but no mention of a good rifle and/or handgun range for sighting in.

[Backwoods-Savage]

Sounds pretty darned expensive. You'd have $100,000 into the land before any building or drilling of wells, etc. Also there would have to be some type of politics set up ahead of time to know how it was to be run. Might interest some, but not I, thank you.

[Rondevous]

300 acres is too small for that type of venture.
If your friend can, he should sell the land or buy more.
I think in this day and age you must target the people who can afford 250K for an investment such as this.
Pick up a copy of Gray's Sporting Journal and look at the ads in the back.
The sporting clays range etc., sounds doable but not with 15 households nearby.
Start up capitol is hard to acquire, maybe logging could help geberate funds?

[wild bill]

i agree 300 acres is too small for something like this. 5 guys maybe but not 15.

[A-plus]

The focus would be on a private pheasant hunting club type of setup for the owners. There is not enough property for a quality deer hunting club for 15 owners and to get it down to 5 owners, it would cost about $300K to buy in after expenses are covered. The sporting clays and trap fields would be to give the owners something to shoot at besides game animals in the off seasons. Other ranges could be developed as the owners would want, but they would be the only houses real close to them, so they would only have themselves to complain to about the noise. Any other neighbors would not have a lot of noise issues since it would not be a commercial range with that sort of continuous usage. He was thinking about setting it up as a corporation, with each owner having a share in it and having bylaws to govern the operation.

[unclecbass]

Way too expensive.

[part timer]

$100K is very affordable to the right clientele. The development, maintenance and marketing would have to match their expectations. From my perspective your friend would have to do a few things to make this work:

1) Have a good working capital fund to use for development. Not too many people want to buy in to a 'vision' from an unknown developer. He will have to build the ranges, develop the streets and infrastructure and maybe build a model home or two.

2) Develop excellent habitat for pheasant and perhaps grouse. This takes cash flow to maintain.

3) Ensure privacy and exclusivity. If I'm laying down $100K for a lot, another $300-500K for a house, the additional upkeep/taxes for a second/third home and some on-going membership dues I'm going to expect a lot in return. If the property isn't maintained for members and a restricted amount of guests I doubt people will buy in.

4) Tie in to the Gaylord golf business. You can probably find a good market with folks that want multiple season recreation opportunities. There is lots of good, accessible golf in that area. A tie in with the golfing business (preferred tee times, social membership at a local Country Club, etc) might be added incentive.

There are a lot of good ideas that fail because people can't, or won't, provide adequate up front investment.

[Foreveryoung001]

As a Gaylord Resident, I can say that with that type of expense, for a pretty small hunting range, it just seems a little pricey to me. There are plenty of hunting opportunities in the area, if people are willing to look and do the footwork. We have several hunting clubs in the area, most of which are much larger than the one proposed here. I'm not saying it won't work, but I do think it will take a lot of selling on your friends part. For hunters who want to take the time to look, $100K could find better hunting investments in the area. Now, throw the land managment in with that, and it's a little better, but I think it will still take some work to convince someone to spend that kind of cash to share that amount of land with 15 others.


If I want to worry about 15 other hunters on 300 acres, I can run up to some of the state land in the area...and that doesn't cost anything.

Just my thoughts.

[Alpha Male]

Sounds like he has absolutely no idea what he is getting into.

Four words..lead abatement + EPA + insurance.

Who would hold the preserve license? Who would run the range? Which firm is going to prepare the environmental impact statement? How much would insurane cost and who would be named as certificate holders?

If he's got 300 acres, he can find an easier way to make money faster.

[john warren]

we have a 400 acre club behind us. and while most of the year they are no problem, there are times when they become very bad at traipsing onto our property.

[A-plus]

You guys have given some great responses to this, hopefully my friend will be able to learn something from it all. Some of this, I have already told him, but he does not always believe me. I agree wholeheartedly that 15 families are way too much for this property. With the lay of the land I would say 2 or 3 families could share it, but now you are talking about a lot of money per family, so don't really know if this project is doable at all. It would sure be nice if a way could be found to preserve some of this open space for the future without having the government get their hands into it or lose it to intensive commercial and residential development. Thanks for everyones input and it would still be interesting to see what anyone else has to say about this type of project.

[Sib]

15 guys with 100K each gives you 1.5 million to play with. Yeah, I bet the landowner thinks this is a good idea, lol. Seriously, if I was going to join a club with 1.5 million available for land acquisition, it would have to be bigger than 300 acres in a marginal hunting area. 1.5 million will get you far superior land and probably more of it. Sounds like a great deal to the guy selling the land, but not to the guys who join.

[wagoneer]

I agree with most of the posts so far, and just have a couple things to add.

First, with 15 owners, you are looking at 30 - 90 hunters, assuming each guy has 1 to 3 friends, fathers, sons, brothers, hunting wives, sisters, or daughters that will want to take advantage of the main draw of the place.

Second, if he concentrating on pheasants, and wants to maintain the hunting for that number of people on 300 acres, its going to take lots of upkeep. Feeding fields, nesting areas (possibly with restricted access), and still may need to release birds to keep up.

Tell him to look at what $100k will get around the area. I just bought 40 acres nearby for less than that.

[ABMike]

Sounds like he has absolutely no idea what he is getting into.

Four words..lead abatement + EPA + insurance.

Who would hold the preserve license? Who would run the range? Which firm is going to prepare the environmental impact statement? How much would insurane cost and who would be named as certificate holders?

If he's got 300 acres, he can find an easier way to make money faster.


ABSOLUTELY no idea. Aside from the above, you have development terms.
What happens when one person puts up a $400,000 home, and the neighbor puts a used trailer on his lot.