Anyone have an experience? SO is in contact with the local office.
Wondering if it’s going to be a bigger pain than our house loan 2+ years ago. Asked the local bank but they only finance 60% and pointed us in this direction.
What is the property zoned?
Mine was Residential/Agricultural & when I refied (5yrs in - paid cash for purchase) bank financed same as any other mortgage loan.
Of course, this was in 2009.
Terms likely have changed.
Hope you can get decent terms 
Ag/residential. It’s 34 acres of planted alfalfa under pivot. It’s honestly been for sale for over a year. Almost closer to 2.
You have to wonder why so long on the market.
What can you see that might make it unattractive to a buyer?
Or to a lender?
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Most people that farm/hay usually farm 100+ acres. So all the places on 20+ acres around here with houses/shops etc are selling for 500k+, farm land is selling if its 100+ irrigated. Also there’s a small house/shop right next to this place on 2 acres. Person won’t sell. So I think people who would want to build wouldn’t want to have neighbors that close. Land isn’t ideal to build a dream home because of that random house and the fact that it’s planted In alfalfa under pivot.
*SO has a degree in farm/ranch management, worked for a 5000+ acre ranch with 400+ head of cattle. He has 10 head of cows plus my 5 hay burners. I guess we will find out more next week 
well if the current trend continues that might become an ideal marijuana production plot … also, the water rights maybe worth more than the land
Possibly look at an SBA loan?
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I’ll have to ask what the shares are per year (good point) also I believe marijuana is suppose to be ok for recreational use by 2022 here. Also another good point.
If this place does work out im not very optimistic the horses would be going from 20+ acres of grass pasture to paddocks.
Plus our 2020 taxes don’t look amazing. SO was injured for a month + some FMLA. I know what a pain the home loan was 2 years ago. He finally got his upgrade which is an extra 50k a year. Worse case this doesn’t workout and we wait until next year
If I’m reading correctly, you asked for your current mortgage lender about an ag loan, and they said they could only do 60 percent? So you currently own a home as well? Is this acreage to be built as a farm only, no residence, or ?
Take a look at Farm Bureau, I have no experience but others have recommended it.
Asked a local bank (not the bank we have a home loan with) local bank doesn’t really deal with ag/land loans so the pointed us towards the local farm loan agency/beginning farm loan etc.
This piece of property has several building sites. You can build on it etc. Everyone around here usually puts in modular homes.
Husbands work schedule makes it hard. He’s been playing phone tag with the ag loan people all week. Thankfully he has this Monday-Thursday off.
We could also sell the house we have in town for double what we paid. Might have to do that to have extra cash. Would just have to rent for a bit or live with the in-laws.
I guess we will know more tomorrow
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That is what I was getting at when I asked what the plan with the property was, ie a farm with no residence or were you planning on living there. Sounds like you have a lot of equity in your current home. I sold my house in town for my down on my farm (raw land) and then lived in an RV for 9.5 months. Major suck, but worth it. Because I was building a residence on the land, I was able to go with a construction loan through a regular lender, which rolled into a conventional when everything was finished.
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That was suggested from a friend who also owns a construction company. Also the same people we have cows with. I know prices are crazy high right now but he said might as well build a shop/barn/house instead of a regular build. Our realtor said anytime we want to sell she has multiple people ready to buy.
Farm Bureau is an insurance and lobbying organization. I think you mean Farm Credit? That would also be my suggestion - OP, depending on your location, your local Farm Credit office might have a slightly different name (here it’s Farm Credit Mid-America), but a quick Google search should sort that out.
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Umm probably, however when I Googled I did find this:
https://farmbureaufamilycu.org/mortgages/
So maybe an option, no idea 
But yes Farm Credit was what I originally meant.
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Lol!!! Quick update. Talked to the Farm credit loan officer. Total s**t show. Apparently a degree for farm and ranch management on top of working for the ranch for 5+ years isn’t enough ‘experience’. I guess we are still going to fill out the paperwork for them. Also told SO go talk to bank in town. They have a new Ag loan officer plus that’s the bank he got his cattle loan through (that’s now paid off)
Anyways will most likely sell this place, a few cows, maybe a horse and just do majority cash.
We used these people when the banks were squirrely. I posted on another thread about our difficulty with the bank. They said they couldn’t finance it because it was a farm and we said give us a farm loan and they said we can’t because it’s not a farm. These people specialize in rural properties and were happy to give us the loan.
i suspect that at least practically a reason “why” there is such difficulty is the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974… I was a bank officer then and we had to “look” equally at all loan applications. To insure we were following the letter of the act we set up a scoring system of 100 points with a threshold of 70 points to be the minimum.
If an applicant did not fit the criteria then it was also rejected.
You can request from the bank the reasons underlying their decisions to deny credit. rater than just assuming this or that… there has to be specific reasons and those reasons have to be disclosed
Well, we got approved with farm credit. They were amazing to work with!
Put in a full offer, we used our agent (who we bought out current house with)
Listing agent was acting as a dual agent. She got her clients paperwork signed first and now it’s contingent. We even put in over asking.
Totally bummed since we’ve been eyeing this place for over a year. I don’t think anything similar will be for sale. Everything else is 100+ irrigated acres and over 1mil.
Aw that sucks
You did try the USDA Farm Agency starting farmer loans, directly guaranteed by the government?
The Federal Land Bank, or whatever name those may have where you are, generally try very hard to work with anyone, glad they did try for you.
Northwest Farm credit services is who we ended up with. They were amazing to work with. Super easy, we were approved on the spot essentially. Our local bank also approved us but the interest rate was higher along with more down. A little bummed and shocked. Not really surprised. I’m sure the listing agent made a nice commission working as a duel agent.
