The largest new discovery of natural gas and oil in America lies in the Utica Shale. The Utica Shale stretches from Ontario in the North, through upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia in the South.

Exploration companies are already securing land rights and leases to exploit this huge economic opportunity. Some exploration companies, such as Chesapeake Energy have reported impressive results of their initial wells.

The State of Ohio is still drafting regulations on how companies may drill and get the gas and oil out of the ground. While governor Kasich is a strong supporter of Shale exporation, environmental groups are opposed. The Ohio EPA is still studying the impact of the controversial fracturing process on ground water and the environment.

With the strong demand for cheap energy I am pretty sure the Utica Shale will be exploited. And this will create a bonanza for the States and communities where gas and oil companies settle in.

You probably wonder how a land owner or investor in acreage for sale can profit from the Utica Shale gas exploration.

There are 2 main ways for investors: You either own land that you lease to an exploration company or you provide services that the companies or their workers need.  You also could drill yourself, but that’s a topic I can’t cover in this post, as it requires extensive experience in oil and gas exploration.

As a land owner I recommend you check, if your vacant land is actually located in the shale. You can use these maps of the Utica Shale, or go to the websites of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources or the Energy Information Administration.

Most of Eastern Ohio is either in the Utica or Marcellus Shale.

If you own land in the Utical Shale you can lease the mineral and exploration rights to an oil or gas company. Many land owners were probably contacted by Oil Companies planning to drill in the area. One of my friends owns more than 80 acres in Guernsey County. He was offered $2,000 per acre for a 5 year lease. There would not be any drilling directly on his property, just horizontal drilling underneath.

Based on an article by the Utica Shale Landowner’s Group this seems low. It appears that the price of mineral rights in some Counties are already above $4,000, with speculators estimating that it could go as high as $9,000 per acre.

Before you sign any lease or sale agreement of your mineral rights, you should consult an experienced attorney. Selling the mineral rights now, will limit the amount of money you can make from your vacant land in the future. Instead, you should lease the mineral rights for a period of time. If they find oil or gas you will receive royalties.

In Texas, which is ahead of Ohio and other Utica Shale States, royalties are 25% of the oil or gas produced. In Ohio royalties are just 12% – 15%, but that number will increase as the market heats up.

An other way to profit from the coming gas boom in Ohio and other Shale states is to provide services to the industry. Experienced real estate investors have profited from providing housing to the the industry, such as apartments for the workers.

It has been estimated that more than 200,000 jobs could be created in the State of Ohio alone. This will require lots of additional housing in communities that have not been part of the recent housing boom.

We see opportunities for developing apartments and single family housing in these communities, as well as stores, shopping ccnters, offices and storage.

How do you find the best place to develop housing?

Read reports of the major exploration companies. They are all public and they publish lots of information on where they are drilling successfully.

This may be the opportunity of a life-time, if you own land in the Utica Shale or are ready to invest in real estate in the Shale area. It could create a boom that will easily wipe out all the losses of the housing bust of the past few years.

A few days ago I read the article An Ounce of Gold or an Acre of Land? This sparked some thoughts about the benefits of investing in land vs buying gold.

I explained 3 benefits of investing in land instead of gold in another article. They are:

1. You can live off your land, grow food, hunt, build a cabin.
2. You have tax benefits as gold is considered a collectible by the IRS.
3. You can easily buy land in your IRA and gain tax-free profits.

The idea that an ounce of gold costs the same or even more than an acre of land is certainly intriguing. As of this writing (August 4, 2011) gold is at an all time high at $1,681 per ounce. That’s certainly higher than recreational land which goes for $1,200 per acre in South East Ohio.

From a frugal investment perspective you should never buy at the height of the market. Gold has been on an upswing for a while and even if “experts” predict that gold can go above $2,000 it is a risky decision to buy when everyone else jumps in the game.

This chart shows the consistent increase of the value of gold over the past 5 years.

gold price charts provided by goldprice.org

Land and real estate on the other hand are currently relatively cheap, not considering the farm land bubble caused by Ethanol subsidies. Unlike the housing bubble that burst a couple of years ago, land was much less affected by the real estate boom. Still, land values have dropped a bit over the past few years. Which means you can buy land at the bottom of the cycle, while gold is near the top. Not a smart investment decision.

Another argument against investing in gold is the risk that comes with gold ownership being strictly regulated by the US government. It is well known that in the 1930′s President Roosevelt confiscated all gold in America. Private ownership of gold was dis-allowed for decades. There is a small chance that the government could resort to these measures again, if the economy collapses.

Private land ownership on the other hand won’t be threatened by the government for a number of reasons. For one, private land owners pay property taxes, so it is an important source of revenue for the government. Confiscating private land and real estate on a large basis is virtually impossible in a free republic like the US.

The end of private land ownership would mean the end of this great country and capitalism.

With the US dollar losing value every day and inflation looming on the horizon, many financial advisers recommend you buy gold and other precious metals. They have a good pitch, as gold has gone up in value significantly for a number of years. And with the Federal Debt out of control, pundits predict that the value of gold will continue to go up.

Although gold is a very safe investment in times of crisis I will argue that land is an even better value.

I always believed that land is the most stable investment anyone can buy. However, a recent email from my accountant convinced me that there are even more advantages of buying land that certainly will outshine gold and precious metals.

Here are 3 major benefits of investing in land for sale instead of buying gold:

1. You Can’t Eat Gold

This is obvious, but you can’t eat stocks, real estate or land either.

While gold and stocks are passive investments that you buy to essentially park your money in hopes that it will appreciate (gain equity), you can live on and from your land in times of real emergencies. You could grow food, raise cattle or other farm animals, hunt deer and turkey, build a cabin or house to live in, and become totally self sufficient.

Even if our currency would lose all its value you would have a place to live and food to supply your family, even trade to others, who did not have the foresight to invest in acreage for sale.

2. Tax Advantages of Land

When you buy gold, the government (IRS) consider it a collectible. That’s the same with other precious metals and gems.  If you sell a collectable you are subject to the 28% tax rate and not the favorable 15% long-term capital gains rate.

Other things considered collectibles and subject to the higher 28% tax rate are works of art, rugs or antiques, stamps or coins, musical instruments, historical objects and even your wine collection.

As any real estate, land is taxed at capital gains rates, if you hold it for more than a year. Until 2012 you may not have to pay any capital gains tax when you sell land, if you are in the 10% or 15% tax bracket with your ordinary income!

3. You Can Buy Land in your IRA

You can buy land in a self-directed IRA and keep all your profits tax free when you sell.

This is a tremendous benefit for you and your family. All types of self-directed “retirement accounts” qualify, including Roth IRA’s, HSA’s (health savings accounts) and CESA’s (Coverdell educational savings accounts).

Make sure to get qualified advice before you buy land in a retirement account, because there are certain limitations on what you can do with it. For instance, you can’t live on the land, if it is in your IRA.

I you want to buy gold in your IRA you have to be more careful. Any gold you buy in the IRA must be 99.5% pure and IRS approved. Basically, only gold coins that are classified as legal tender qualify as an IRA investment. Many companies promote buying gold in IRA’s. Be very careful before you select a custodian to handle your IRA accounts and only select one that’s very well versed in investing with IRAs.

Last week I had to check out a 20 acre piece of land in South East Ohio. The property was all wooded and had a lot of underbrush – typical, remote Ohio acreage for sale – see picture below. It was really hard to navigate through the trees without the help of a GPS receiver. Truth be told, I would have been lost numerous times without a GPS.

On this specific trip, I used my Android phone’s GPS, however, that’s very risky. If you can’t get cell coverage, you can’t download the map and you are limited to the coordinates (latitude, longitude) for navigation, without the help of a map backdrop.

Many rural properties in Ohio and most of the States west of here are based on the Public Land Survey System (PLSS). This is a network of squares, whose basic units are townships and sections.

When you try to locate a piece of vacant land you can research its legal description and  location in the public property records in the auditor’s or assessor’s offices. Large rural properties that are not located in a subdivision are simply described as sections or part thereof (half, quarter).

Here’s an example of a legal description for the SE Ohio property in the picture above: Being the North one-half of the Northwest quarter of the Southwest quarter of Section 26, containing 20 acres, more or less.

How can you get the coordinates of the corners of a section, so that you can locate the parcel with your GPS receiver?

The BLM (Bureau of Land Management) maintains a database of section corners and a mapping system for public use. You can find it at the GeoCommunicator.gov website. If you click on Site Mapper, it will open an interactive GIS of the United States with many different data layers including the PLSS.

To actually get coordinates of section corners, however, I prefer to use this free website: Earthpoint.us

There are 5 simple steps to display the coordinates of section corners:

• Go to Township and Range
• Scroll down the page until you see Convert Township, Range and Section to Longitude and Latitude
• Now fill in the required data concerning State, Principal Meridian (anyone), Township, Range and Section – you can get this information from the public records. It is usually part of the property records that can be found online in any auditors office

.

• When you click “View” it will generate a list of coordinates for the Township corners and Section corners, as well as the centroids.

• In order to map any of these corners, go to Google Maps and copy and paste the coordinates into the Google search bar. Google will display the map with a green arrow pointing at the location you are looking for.

If your property is just a quarter or half of a quarter of a section, you can simply compute the center between 2 corner points by calculating the average of their longitudes and latitudes.

I need to make a few disclaimers here. The coordinates published by BLM are not guaranteed. They only will serve as  a rough guide to locate any existing boundary markers in the area. The section corner coordinates will give you a good idea of where the property is located (maybe within 10 ft). To get its exact boundary lines you should always hire a professional surveyor.

Finding the boundary points of wooded lots can be a serious challenge. When you buy hunting land or rural acreage for sale there’s a good chance the county you are buying in does not have very good property maps. Even if they have property maps you may have a hard time finding a boundary marker or monument in the middle of the forest.

Here’s a simple but powerful solution to that problem. You can find boundary markers of rural and wooded vacant land with your smart phone. I am using an Android device (an HTC Droid from Verizon). I am sure there are similar iPhone apps available, too.

The first step is to get the coordinates of the boundary point you are looking for. In many counties Google displays the property lines of rural lots on their maps. You can see them, if you zoom in close enough (use the Map, not the Satellite display option).

Find the boundary points of your vacant lot in Google maps. Then zoom in as close as possible.

Next, you need an application to read the coordinates of your cursor position. Google Labs has a couple of applications that allow you to do this.

Click on the Labs NEW! icon (you can find it in the right upper corner of the Google Maps page in a pull down menu) to display available applications. Enable the one called LatLng Marker.

After you save and close the pop-up window you can click the right mouse button anywhere on the map and a menu will appear. At the bottom of this menu you will see the Drop LatLng Marker text. When you click it, a small box with latitude and longitude will drop on the map at the location of the cursor.

Drop the LatLon Markers at all boundary points of the vacant land you want to locate with your smartphone. The coordinates you see are in degrees with up to 5 decimal points. Latitude is degrees above the equator and longitude is degrees West of Greenwich (negative values in the US).

Do this for all of your boundary points and write down the values. You can also do a screen capture and print that image. Google’s regular “print map” function does not keep the markers on the map.

Download A Free Android Application

Now you are ready to download a free Android application called c:geo. This application was developed for geocaching. It also offers a screen where you can manually enter waypoints.

When you launch this application on your Droid you will see 6 options. Go to “Any Destination” which opens a coordinate input screen. Here you enter the coordinate of the marker you want to find first.

When the coordinate is in, you hit Compass or Radar. Either function will display a compass needle and show in which direction and how far your waypoint (boundary marker) is. Now you simply walk or drive following the directions on the Droid screen.

Following the arrow should guide you to the location you selected on the Google map and very close to the actual boundary point.

Here are a few more tips to help you find the boundaries of your rural acreage and vacant lots:

• The GPS of your Android phone must be turned on. You can disable it, in which case the locations are based on cell towers and very inaccurate.
• GPS is a power hog. Make sure you bring a car charger and maybe even a spare battery when you head out to locate your boundary markers.
• 1 degree in geographic coordinates equals 69 miles. In order to locate your property to within 10 ft, you will need to record the latitude and longitude to 5 digits after the dot ( this means 0.00001 degrees = 4 ft)
• Finally, the locations you find are not your legal boundary points. They are just an indication where the boundary markers should be. If you can’t find physical boundary markers you may have to consult a licensed land surveyor to help you locate the exact boundary of your vacant land.

Offered for only $9,900

[click on the picture for details]

This lot is a STEAL! There are only 2 vacant lots left at the University Heights Subdivision. With .83 acres this is the larger one, full of mature trees.

Your commute to downtown Athens and Ohio University is only 10 minutes. Athens is a progressive University town, famous for their nationally acclaimed Halloween Party.

Watch our video previews below!

View from the top of the hill on University Heights Drive.

View from Fisher Road looking up the Hill – the lot is behind the house.

Call us today at (614) 285-LAND or send an email from the Contact Us.

Offered for only $43,900

[click on the picture for details]

This property was used for mining more than 10 years ago. Trees have regrown. But it is rugged terrain with a few ponds and ravines. This is a great hunting property. You will find plenty of deer and turkey.

We are selling the area marked in blue on the picture above – approximately 37 acres. We just had it surveyed. All corners are marked with iron pins and easy to find.

Watch our video previews below!

On Dickens Road heading West near at the middle boundary line.

On top of the hill in front of the trailer at the turn of Dickens Rd.

At the Southern end of the road pointing North.

In the center of the property on a ridge pointing West towards North.

Call us today at (614) 285-LAND or send an email from the Contact Us.

We see many people who are fed up with low returns on CD’s or money market savings accounts put their money in the stock market. Stocks are a convenient investment. You can buy them from your home and easily track them over the Internet. And most of us hope and pray that their value will go up.

Honestly, stocks are a gamble for most amateur investors. They lack the insight and research needed to play the market right and the performance of their investment is completely out of their control.

Investing in land and acreage for sale may seem out of reach for ordinary people. Not so! You may be surprised for how little money you can buy acreage for sale and how easy it is to close.

Many studies have shown that land is the most stable real estate investment around. Even though the value of land dropped in recent years. Over time land is a very stable investment that protects your money from inflation and the ups and downs of the stock market.

Here are 5 reasons why you should sell your stocks and invest you money in vacant land:

1. Historically, land has increased in value most of the time. There’s only a limited amount of land available. As the population grows it becomes a shrinking commodity. The less there is, the more the price goes up.
2. When you own land you have tax benefits, such as deductions, property tax help, possible conservation easements or a 1032 tax-free exchange.
3. Some vacant land creates passive income for its owner. You can sell the timber that grows on your land, you can lease your property for farming or – if its recreational land – for hunting, or you can get paid to have a wind mill or cell tower installed.
4. Timberland has yielded returns between 12% and 14% a year since the 60′s. In 2007 the ROI was more than 17%.
5. You can enjoy the land while you own it. Just think about hunting, ATVing or camping. While stocks are simply sitting in a safe (actually they are just a number on your portfolio managed by your broker), you can set foot on your land, hunt, drive your ATV, camp with your family and enjoy the outdoors.

Investing in land allows you to earn decent returns with many residual benefits you simply don’t get in the stock market.

Do your research before you sign a contract for acreage for sale and buy for the long term, say 5 to 10 years. That’s the way to make a nice profit with less risk than investing in stocks.

Finally, you can buy vacant land below market value if you buy from us. As a land wholesaler we search for discounted acreage for sale all over the country. And because we buy well below market value, we can give a large part of these discounts to you, eour buyers.

Many buyers searching for the right piece of raw land or acreage for sale hit a major roadblock when they try to locate the parcel they want to purchase. Vacant rural properties may not have clear property lines and may not be marked by pins. Boundaries are often defined by legal descriptions that are a hundred years old. Many rural counties lack accurate property maps or computerized land records.

We try to help buyers locate our vacant lots for sale by providing nearest cross streets, pictures of the property, aerial photographs, maps, and even coordinates, so you can find the property with a GPS receiver.  Still it may be difficult for you to figure out the exact location,and you may need to use a bit of your resourcefulness to pinpoint the acreage for sale you plan to purchase.

To get the most accurate property location you should hire a surveyor, but this may be rather expensive for large parcels.  Here are a few effective ways to locate your property for free.

As a first step we suggest you contact the county auditor or assessor and ask for specific location details. Often times they have detailed maps and online ownership records. This information is free and may be available online at the county’s website.

Next, you may want to contact the seller or listing agent, and ask for descriptive details, such as cross streets and landmarks near the property.  If the lot has access to a public road, it should be easy to get to. Just ask the owner or auditor how far it is away from the nearest intersection. If there’s no access to the public right of way you need to get specific instructions from the seller on how to get to the property.

Try to arrange for a personal tour with the owner or real estate agent. Sellers of bargain rural land may live far away, so this is not a viable option. They may be able to guide you to the lot over the phone. Some owners even abandoned their properties and did not set foot on it for 20 or 30 years.

Once you gathered all of this information, it’s time to head out and find the property. Use free resources, like Google Maps or Bing Maps to get directions. When you are near the vacant parcel look for the landmarks and road crossings. If you have a GPS receiver or a car navigation system you can track your coordinates to get to the site. And don’t forget to ask the neighbors for help. They may be the best source of information about the acreage for sale you are going to purchase.

Use these steps to get a better picture of the property you want to buy and you will feel confident when you submit your purchase offer.

Land contracts are owner-financed sales of real estate. The seller agrees to accept installment payments, so the buyer does not have to come up with cash for the full purchase price at closing.

Land contracts were popular in the 1970s and early 1980s because owner-lenders typically offered better rates and with less rigid terms than financial institutions. But they dwindled in popularity when mortgage rates and lending qualifications dropped significantly over the past 10 years.

Land contracts are becoming increasingly popular these days, now that banks and mortgage brokers are tightening their lending standards. They allow people with less than stellar credit to purchase real estate with individual payment terms.

Today, even though mortgage rates are still low, qualifying for an institutional loan has become very difficult. This makes land contracts an attractive alternative for many buyers.

What is a Land Contract? It is a legal agreement between a seller and a buyer. The seller agrees to sell a piece of land or a house to a buyer and to accept installment payments over time.

During the term of the land contract, the seller retains legal title to the property, while the buyer is granted an equitable title. Once the property is paid in full, the seller gives the buyer the deed to the property and the sale is complete. Now the buyer is the legal owner of the property.

It is possible to sell a property that still has a mortgage. In that case, the seller will continue to make the mortgage payments. As long as the buyers payments are higher than the monthly mortgage the seller will have a monthly profit.

Properties that are free and clear, that is, properties that no longer have any mortgage or other lien recorded against the title, offer the best buying opportunities. Sellers can be very flexible, and sometimes accept a lower interest rate or extend payments over a longer term.

Land contracts offer benefits to each party. To the buyer, there are no qualifying restrictions. Although the seller may ask for a copy of the buyer’s credit report, the seller may accept a buyer with poor credit, as long as he is confident that the buyer will make timely payments. It is possible to purchase a property via land contract with little or no money down; all terms of a land contract are negotiable.

Additional benefits to the buyer include very low closing costs, no points need to be paid to a bank, a quick closing (usually within seven days), and the buyer may be able to deduct the interest from their income tax.

For the seller, the benefits are also significant. The seller retains legal ownership of the property until the final payment is made. If the buyer defaults on the terms, the seller has the right to take possession of the property without a full foreclosure. Because land contracts make home ownership possible for people who otherwise have difficulty obtaining a loan, the seller can get a higher sales price for their property. The closing is fast and the costs are low, and the seller is assured a monthly income.

There are also potential tax benefits for the seller in terms of capital gains, since the sale is over time, rather than outright.

It is always a good idea to talk to a professional real estate agent, your accountant or attorney who is knowledgeable about land contracts.