This! Totally this!
We have had this problem more than once trying to deal with our tax appraisal.
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100%
if this is 1 hour to DC (driving - but even better if there is train service) this could be very expensive to the right buyer.
This is wise. Unless you buy something first and then list your place you may just find it sold immediately and have absolutely nowhere to go!
Buy and then list OR list and try and find something in time. Either way is a gamble and a real headache. If you don’t have to move and like what you have it is always better to stay put. At least in my thinking.
We have moved a lot from one farm to another. Can be exciting but not enjoyable.
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Stay where you are. Maybe take some of the money you would use to market it, move and get another with closing cost, commissions and such and redo your kitchen and/or bath.
If and when your market gets hot, you wont even need to try to sell, they will come to you. Often cash, quick close, no commission, no strings, as is. Thats how I sold mine a couple of years ago, 20yo pet stained carpet and all…they even cleaned it out, just said take what you want, we will take care of the rest.
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Location on this is everything. In my county in VA (Culpeper), that’s a $700K property. One county over (Fauquier) it might be a $900K property. An hour south of Charlottesville, it might be a $600K property or less. And that’s all “within an hour drive of a 1M+ city”.
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Something we looked at when trying to compare (often disparate) sold or on the market properties was sold (or listed) price to city/county tax assessment. If you look at enough properties a pretty consistent percentage value will start to pop out.
Houses that are priced well above or well below that percentage are outliers often for a reason.
But we found this sort of thing helpful in sort of “level setting” just where we were to market.
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First go to LandAndFarm.com, Land.com, Zillow.com or Realtor.com and look at comps in your area and other areas close to large cities in the MidAtlantic…that gives you a starting point. If there are no comps then, you might be a “unicorn” property for a buyer looking for a horse property in the area…and can thus price at a premium.
Most real horse people I know prefer a small house and focus on the horse amenities…unfortunately, most “horse farms” are priced with huge houses (over 4k sq feet) and intended for people who have no intention of having horses.
My suggestion is to hire an independent appraiser to give you an answer. Realtors might price it low to move it.
Just keep in mind a property is worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it.
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Hire a real estate appraiser to give you a true idea of current market value and time expected to sell. They should be independent - not a real estate agent.
Is your home updated? Like others have said the size of your home most likely will prevent people from being interested in it. I’m in the midwest home market, and I think I would pass even, though the acreage size is ideal. Number of bedrooms and their size are key. Honestly I think they are more important than kitchen renos. You can always remodel stuff but adding square footage to a home is costly.
Horse people would argue that building a new barn plus fencing is super expensive but in the grand scheme of things your target market might tear down what barns you currently have because they have zero interest in livestock.
Farms prices by me are very location dependent and size dependent. 400s to 1 mills easy and I’m about an hour out from a majority city too.
I will offer another POV. The house size is irrelevant. The farm size is ideal. It has working animal facilities, barn, fencing.
The house is a basic livable size. It is the size my house started as. Adding to a built house is cheaper than starting from scratch and you can modify house to suit your taste. Permits to build on raw land are more restrictive than permits to modify a house that is already built.
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I’m doing this right now - exactly this. Have a realtor coming today to get the paperwork ready for when I do want to list. She pulled comps from the last year that were farms, but also compared the house to house value in the district I live in.
It’s tricky. Her thoughts are that it’s better not to overprice, and let the market bring it up if there is interest. If you price to high and have to drop, people get suspicious.
Region is important. I agree that house size is likely affecting the estimate, but the right buyers might bring it up more than you can guess. The “bigger, nicer house” thing is a big difference. At the size of your home, it’s unlikely you’ll get a family with 3 kids moving in, so it eliminates a lot of prospective buyers.
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It depends on who is interested, but the house is never irrelevant.
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Exactly. It would be mostly irrelevant to ME - it’s just me and my SO and the dogs and horses, no kids and no plans for any. But people like me are a small percentage of the house shopping population.
Again, it really depends WHERE. And not just which city, but WHERE. I’m a real estate smurf, but IME this house on the north side of Atlanta would likely pull ~$1M (they’re gonna tear down the house and put a massive one up). On the southeast side it would be significantly less, $600k or so, even with the same distance and access to the city.
I’d talk to an appraiser IIWM. And shop around for a replacement farm before you get too deep into this - unless you’re wanting OUT and will be looking for just a house, buying this again won’t be easy just due to supply.
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well it might be of interest in the future, I just got my homeowners renewal which made me gasp at first but it included a step by step break down of why the 40% increase… Also included a break down of how the minimum value to Rebuild was determined to be $540,000.
Exactly - a HUGE range depending on location. If I drive 50 minutes west of here, I’m still within an “hour of a capital city” but low chance of a commutable job where salaries are higher. It’s also much more rural, so a 20 acre property is relatively typical. In my current school district there are exactly zero horse farms on the market and 6 properties with more than 15 acres. One is an old estate (100+ years old) and the others are all vacant land.
I have to rely on surrounding school district comps, and my realtor’s best guess based on experience.
She priced mine a little lower than I had hoped, but upon reflection I think it’s better that way. If I get more it will be a big win…if not, I haven’t overvalued my resources for my next home.
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Not farms, but both my husband’s house and mine sold for quite a bit over asking price in 2023.
I managed to gain 50k+ in equity in 3 years by taking really good care of the place and getting the landscaping high and tight. I was shocked, honestly.
A lot of houses in my area sell for over asking price without doing anything. One recently went on the market with one photo total, and was pending by the end of the day. Another didn’t even bother to clean the house, let alone stage it. From their listing:
Makes me wonder if I should even bother. 
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If you take somewhat good care of the place, I think you’ll be fine.
I admit I spent days cleaning and touching up and scrubbing walls and decluttering and staging. I also went over-the-top on getting the landscaping effing PERFECT for the showings. Here were my pictures:
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/2536-Forest-Park-Dr_Dyer_IN_46311_M38451-62815
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One thing to keep in mind is an excellent realtor should have a very good understanding of the market in their area.
We sold a farm last year. We hired a local agent, who had been in the business about 4 years, and was in the process of opening her own office. She is the highest selling agent in the area.
Our agent set the price, based on what she had seem locally. A mentor of hers, with many, many more year’s experience, told her she had it priced too high and her thought it would sell for $60K to $80K less that list.
It went live, and we had 2 parties look at it right away, got competing bids and sold for over asking price.
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Closer to $500k I think depending on where you are. You either need a big barn/ arena OR a big house to get more money. It might go up if you have direct trail access/ very horsey area/ excellent pasture/ new fancy barn/ updated house etc.
