Residential, Commercial, Land & Ranch Investing
For anyone looking to invest in real estate, Texas is one of the best places to do so — and we clearly aren’t the only ones who think so. Around 40% of all land and ranches bought and sold in the United States are in Texas, in large part due to the perfect blend of quantity and quality you will find in the Lone Star State.
Not only does Texas boast a diverse topography, but it also provides a plethora of options: whereas most states have a significant portion of land owned by various government agencies, 96% of Texas land is privately owned and bought and sold on the open market.
Residential, Commercial, Ranch and Land Investing with TexasLand
At TexasLand, we offer a comprehensive approach, guiding our clients through the process of ranch and land investing from start to finish. We take great pride in scouting out the best available properties by previewing over 300+ ranches a year. This allows us to efficiently find a match for our buyers needs. We also help identify a purchase strategy, whether it be a short-term or long-term hold. Beyond the purchase itself, our team stays involved with buyers long after the sale to offer guidance on improvements to the land and connect them with reputable contractors and vendors. For us it’s not just about finding the right investment, it’s about doing everything we can to help to ensure you’ve made a solid investment.
Our clients come to us because they trust us with their investments, and we believe those investments should pay off. While there are few investment strategies more solid than real estate — especially in Texas, where the majority of land purchases come with the potential for agricultural and/or wildlife tax exemptions, which means a very low carrying cost.
We advise our clients on making the right purchase with a number of factors in mind: location, access, road frontage, amount of usable land, and water and mineral rights. Not only will those factors dictate how the land might be used or developed, but they also speak to the passive value of the land over time. Strategies for investing in land will always vary, so we assess our clients’ goals on an individual basis and help them find the best deals.
There are two core investment strategies for our clients acquiring property:
Long-Term Hold
2+ years
We identify parcels that are in the path of growth and development, particularly in the Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Houston corridors. We focus on properties that are ideal for future development in layout, and in areas with multiple growth corridors converging in, with little to no floodplain, no encumbrances that will affect the value, utility, and ability to develop later on.
Short-Term Hold
1-2 Years
Many of our clients purchase raw land and improve the land features over a period of time, or just sit on it and do nothing. Improvements may include brush clearing, road development and water feature creation (dams, lakes). Selling the property as a whole, improved, or by subdividing and selling smaller tracts, can also increase the selling price.
Solar Panel Investment Article
By Alana Semuels 1-25-2024
TIME USA
These looming financial problems could topple the residential solar industry at a time when solar is supposed to be saving the world. Though solar represented just 3.4% of the nation’s electricity generation in 2022, studies show that rooftop solar could eventually meet residential electricity demand in many states if deployed widely, freeing American homes from dependency on fossil fuels. To help speed adoption, the Inflation Reduction Act extended a 30% tax credit for residential solar and battery installations.
Still, the residential solar industry is floundering. In late 2023 alone, more than 100 residential solar dealers and installers in the U.S. declared bankruptcy, according to Roth Capital Partners—six times the number in the previous three years combined. Roth expects at least 100 more to fail. The two largest companies in the industry, SunRun and Sunnova, both posted big losses in their most recent quarterly reports, and their shares are down 86% and 81% respectively from their peaks in January 2021. (This isn’t because of an economy-wide trend; the S&P 500 has grown 26% over the same time period.) Sunnova is also under the microscope for having received a $3 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy while facing numerous complaints about troubling sales practices that targeted low-income and elderly homeowners. Another solar giant, SunPower, saw shares plunge 41% on Dec. 18 after it said that it may not be able to continue to operate because of debt issues. Sunlight Financial, a big player in the solar finance space, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October; it also faces a lawsuit alleging that the company made false and misleading statements about its financial well-being.
Holding Costs & Taxes
Whatever the client’s goal, we want to guide them to a purchase with minimal holding costs and taxes. This is easier to do in Texas, where most land has the potential for agricultural and wildlife tax exemptions through maintaining habitat for wildlife to having cattle.