Currently my main pasture is fenced in with wood posts holding electric rope. The summer pasture is temporary posts holding electric rope. I’ve had this setup for 10 years with no problems. I love how low maintenance it is but I hate the look. Last year a quote to do the perimeter fencing in post and board came in at 8k. I can’t cover that with the farm budget but may be able to convince hubby that it should come from the household budget if I think we’d get it back in selling the place. The plan is to sell once my horses have passed (horses are late 20s but going strong). The rest of our property is neatly landscaped, fairly new hobby farm aesthetic. I’m thinking if I were a buyer, I’d pay more for a place with fencing already established because I’d be reluctant to put young or rambunctious horses in just temporary fencing. Does anyone have experience with fencing adding value to property prices?
Yes. Not sure by how much, but, yes, it does.
well my expectation would be the cost of fencing is a suck cost that is never recovered
Admittedly we are not on a “farm” but in all the property appraisals we have had fencing was not even given a value… the barns since they could be easily converted into other uses were value at least twice the value of nice barn
The average normal buyer does not care about horses
In all my years here it has just been recent that any of the unsolicited offers started with I understand you are zone for horses, how many can you legal have?
My experience aligns with clanter’s. Most buyers aren’t horse people and don’t care about horse stuff. Horse fencing doesn’t increase value for the vast majority of buyers.
This is my experience too.
The only people who will find your fencing a positive is a horse person. And even then they are likely to want it in some other location or some other product.
I think fencing (and most equestrian amenities) doesn’t significantly increase value, nor does it increase interest- but it may help sell the right buyer on your property.
I think dog proof perimeter fencing would be more attractive to more buyers.
We had an appraiser tell us that fencing was one improvement that would give a good return when selling. He was very conservation about other improvements – said that we should only expect a 25% to 50% return – but that fencing was considered very desirable.
I think he was correct. In our part of the country, it’s common to see places without horses or livestock be fenced. It’s not unusual to see a large ranch broken up into acreage tracts, for instance, and the buyers of individual parcels fence their properties.
For example, on our street almost 50% of the properties are completely fenced, and close to 40% more are partially fenced. Most people seem to want at least perimeter fencing around their piece of paradise.
ETA: However, we didn’t invest in permanent cross-fencing of our horse pastures. Use Horse Guard electric fencing instead, which has worked great. Around our house, we have dog fencing.
It does have value especially if you have a gated entrance and a fence at least that’s what our appraiser said.
Said security is a big driver in getting a higher asking price and faster sell.
Thanks everyone for your feedback - what I’m gathering from all the responses is that it probably varies by region. Maybe I should check with a local real estate agent and see what they say. Thanks everyone for your input! I would love to fence in the whole property with dog-safe fencing but that is definitely not in the budget! My pooches have to manage with a small yard and supervised trips to the woods!
Land prices are so high here that almost nothing other than an 8 bedroom house with a pool and media room will increase the land value above already insane levels.
This. If you’re in a big hobby farm area and you’re the right kind of farm, people will want to have goats and sheep and chickens and the like. When they have those, they tend to get LGD’s and those need perimeter fencing. Fully-fenced with a gated driveway would be the most attractive to the most buyers, I would venture.
I agree with Clanter
When we sold a 5 acre property with a barn, fenced and cross fenced, the buyer converted the barn to a garage, and tore out most of the fencing. The next buyer tore out the rest of the fencing. This is in Northern Virginia, property zoned for horses.
I agree that it would likely be buyer specific. Even among horse people- as an example, I hate wood fencing due to termites & maintenance, so I would not consider that a positive.
there is One positive if the farm/ranch is an actual Business… Fences and corrals used for agriculture have a seven-year deprecation life
I consider all horse-related improvements to be a sunk cost. And given the tight real estate inventory, it’s unlikely that any property that’s not horribly flawed would sit for long on the market. Pretty much, it’s going to sell quickly whether or not you do this.
I heard a report on NPR where the economist who specializes in real estate said that the crazy high prices will abate fairly soon, but the inventory shortage is going to persist for a good while because it can’t be easily fixed with gov’t incentives, so homes should still sell quickly even several years down the road.
All this is to say, sorry, you’re not going to convince a skeptical hubby using the property value angle 
Do it because it makes you happy. Take a small loan out, and pay if off over 2 yrs.
BUT: I do believe horse amenities could attract and seal the deal for the right buyer. They may not pay more, but they will at least assign an emotional value to those features (that intangible “I can bring my horses home right away!!” factor. Many of us would forgive flaws in the house if the barn and pastures were great.
We’re in a rural area in Central Florida – horsey but not everyone has horses (there are cows, goats, sheep, chickens, and some just have property). Most folks do have perimeter fencing though, and entrance gates. Many have no climb fencing with a top board. If you do have dogs it keeps them in – and if you don’t it keeps dogs and at least some critters out. Not sure how much of the cost you’d get back …but depending on your area I’d say perimeter fencing would be a plus. Interior pasture fencing not so much since that depends on whether you have grazing animals or not.
Not my property, but friends. They spent thousands replacing all the fencing, making the place a premier horse property… only to have the buyer rip all of it out. That was heartbreaking to watch.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen any sort of horse improvements dramatically improve property value.
a few weeks ago we were contacted by an interested party whose first question was “how many horses are allowed by zoning” … never before has any one asked that
Then found out a company from California is moving its office to our town which explains some of the offers my neighbors and I are getting even though none of us have any of our properties on the market… but we all have multiple acre tracks in the middle of the city
Oh man… That’s heartbreaking for real to see such fencing be ripped out! When we were looking to buy a turn-key horse property would have been ideal. When we bought our place it had a “barn garage” like one nice box stall and the remainder was a workshop. With one acre horse guard electric fenced. Remainder acres were groomed and wide open (just under seven). Three years later, I practically spent my life savings installing no climb fencing w a top board (roughly five acres), built out two more box stalls, installed a sand arena (now the only level spot on the property) and added a run-in. While it cost so much it’s safe and my horses are happy – sooooo there is that. My husband hopes some of this may be attractive/add property value. I don’t know, maybe for some horse crazy person like myself LOL. One can hope when we’re too old to maintain it someone will love it.
