Another option, which depends heavily on available cutomers, is you-pick, either berries, fruit, flowers or veggies. BUT, you have to have a customer base within an hour, half an hour is better, and you have to be willing to be there to supervise, whenever you are open, as the honor system may not work too well. You also have to plant, maintain and generally take care of your berries, etc., as well as provide some sort of shelter and security for your cash box for you or whoever is overseeing. Equipment, if only mowers, and buckets (at cost) for the spur-of-the-moment picker who doesn't bring their own, will also be needed, and either a bathroom or porta-potty, esp. if you want to attract families with children. I have heard that providing picnic tables is NOT a good idea - between the mess and kids running around getting into things, it's a lot more trouble than it's worth. You might be better, esp. if there is a slaughter house nearby, to grow grass-fed beef, pork or chickens, letting the customer handle the butchering. If you do it, you will need a lot more equipment and certification, which can add up to big bucks. Don't try for certified organic, at least in the beginning - it takes 5 years of not using any chemicals/antibiotics etc. to get certification, anyway. If you can combine raising hens for eggs and birds for slaughter, free-range eggs could also be a possibility. Milking goats and possibly processing that for cheese, etc. is another possibility, but which also needs careful attention to detail, cleanliness and possibly certification/inspection. As well, where are you going to get your animals - will you be raising your own, will you be buying them in, etc., etc.? Raising young stock to be able to pasture them, if not letting mamas raise them, breeding, and the vet bills that can go with it, over-wintering, haying, storage, shelter, etc., etc., all need to be thought out and planned for. I'm not saying you can't make a living on the land, just that you need to think things through very carefully before and while you are doing it. Read some of Joel Salatin's books, as well as anything else you can find on grass-grazing. If you are going to do it right with cattle, you should fence off areas and move the cattle every few days, so they are always on fresh grass, and the grazed areas can recover and grow up again. Access to water, etc., needs to be carefully planned as well.

Five years ago we paid $55K for a 3.8 acre lot 15 miles east of Austin, Tx. It is a flat (easily build-able) lot in a residential development with nice homes, reasonable deed restrictions, and city water tho we had to put in our own septic system. The property has lots of nice trees but no particular "view". A 2.0 acre lot in the same development (actually right around the corner from us) with very similar typography was just listed for sale at $106K! i.e, more than 3X as much per acre as we paid five years ago. Who knows if it will actually sell for that much. I'm hoping it won't b/c if it does, our taxing authority will use the sale as an excuse to raise our property taxes.

Sounds like the lack of comparable properties is also an issue, the lender can't establish a reasonable value if there aren't comparable properties. So combine that with excessive land value .... I hear people say that 20% down is "normal" these days, and I beg to differ. USDA & VA loans are 0% downpayment loans. FHA requires 3.5%, Fannie & Freddie both have 3% downpayment programs. I work for a community bank and we do tons of loans that have downpayments of less than 20%. There really are MANY different financing options, people just need to either do their research or find a really good loan officer.

If you sell with owner financing, you no longer own the property, you only own the mortgage with rights to foreclose. What would be the advantage to either party to instead form a land contract instead? In most states you can't simply repossess someone else's property in satisfaction of a lien on that property. You must go through the foreclosure process and first attempt a trustee sale or auction on the property. If the property sells at the auction you must submit a full accounting of money received, money owed and reasonable fees for the foreclosure process, some states will limit those fees to arms length fees only. There are strict timelines regarding disclosures and procedures when doing a foreclosure. Further, some states require you to show evidence of actively attempting to sell the property for an extended time. Most of these costs are lessened and the strict guidelines are relieved in a contract for deed (land contract). A "foreclosure" on for a land contract is essentially the same process as an eviction, which is much less costly and much more seller friendly. In many ways, a land contract is a lease with a bargain purchase option (of zero dollars). A buyer's interest in the property is protected by the contract he has with the seller rather than by the deed that is filed. So in most states you can simply repossess your own property (land contract). Land contracts are very safe for sellers and risky for buyers. As the seller has the deed, and the contract that transfers the rights and privileges of ownership are not recorded with the deed, the seller can use the property as collateral. In other words, they can get a loan and a lien on a property they don't really own anymore, because the protections afforded the buyer are not made part of the public record. ETA: I am oversimplifying this a bit to make it readable. There are some nuances to each that I glossed over, but the general idea is intact. ETA2: Edited for clarity