Since I’m blogging from San Antonio, TX this weekend, I thought I’d post a local piece. From the San Antonio Express News:
S.A. area’s rural land now is hot property
Buying and selling houses is so passé. These days in Texas, folks hankering for real estate have a new aim: land, and lots of it.
A wave of retiring baby boomers and hunters setting their sights on weekend getaways have pushed demand for Texas land to an all-time high, an appetite that’s fueling double-digit appreciation in the state’s farm and ranch market.
The land rush and the run-up in prices have given rise to a new breed of real estate investor, one who flips ranches instead of houses.
One Texas-sized example: a 78,000-acre ranch in Maverick County that has changed hands three times since November.
“We’ve had three years of double-digit increases in our median price statewide,” said Charles Gilliland, research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. “It’s unprecedented.”