Summary
There are so many different ways to make money if you own land. If your goal is to create income using an existing asset, you might be surprised how creative you can get even with a small piece of land you.
Pasturing animals
If your land includes fields, you might want to take a look through the on-line and paper classified ads in your area. More than likely you will be able to identify horse or cow owners who are looking for space to graze their animals. What a fantastic way to make money and if your land includes large pasture areas, the animals will keep the grass down so you can even save money!
Hunting rights
If you own wooded land suitable for hunting, you can rent your land out during hunting season. Best of all, you can charge by the person or charge a flat fee. You are in control with this one, making it one of the best ways to make extra money while maintaining full use of your land during the off-season. If you have wildlife on your land, I recommend that you explore this income-generating possibility.
Storage
Have you noticed how many mini-storage rentals there are? If you have a building on site, this is another potentially lucrative way to make extra money. These days no-one seems to have enough room to store their stuff which makes storage space a prime way to earn some extra income. Even if you only have an old barn or shed you can store four wheelers or boats during the off-season (or trailers, campers, snowmobiles, classic cars etc.).
Camping
If you have level, open land that would be suitable for camping, you might want to look into the logistics of starting a basic campground. Depending on the current condition of your property, it is possible to start up a campground with only a small amount of start-up money. Usually to get started you only need stakes to make the sites, some campfire rings, a port-a-potty and signs. There are so many free and inexpensive ways to advertise these days such as Craig’s List and backpage.com that you can at least place an ad and see what kind of interest it generates. If there is interest in your area, you have a pretty simple way to generate passive income without having to make a large upfront investment or doing expensive upkeep.
Logging
If your property includes wooded areas, it might be smart to get a few quotes from different logging companies to see how much you could earn from the timber. In order to preserve the value of the land and to be a good environmental steward of your property, I do not recommend that you clear-cut the land. However, you may be able to log part of it while preserving some of the wooded areas. You might want to look into logging companies that cut sustainably by selectively harvesting only certain kinds of trees. This protects the value of the land as well as lessens the negative impact on the environment. Just do a Google search on “sustainable logging companies” in your state.
Flea markets
If your land is in a high traffic area, I suggest that you look into renting it out as a flea market. Do you know how many small tables you can fit on an acre of land? Even if you charge just $15/day for each vendor and you have 20 vendors/day for the first year, you are already generating an additional $300/day which comes to more than $2,000/week. This is a very low-cost way to make use of your land while helping to connect local vendors and consumers in your community. As usual, do some research on the logistics before diving in.
Cropland
Depending on the kind of farming that exist in your area, there may be individuals or larger companies looking to lease land short-term or long-term for farming purposes. If you have tillable land, it could be worth your while to place an advertisement in the local papers as well as places like Craig’s List and backpage.com to see if you get any hits.
Power leases
In this day of alternative energy, it is possible to make money leasing rural land to wind generating companies or others within the alternative power industry. However, the details about this are too complex to cover in this article. I do explore these topics on my blog which you can access through my company website or check into other articles that I have posted here on Ezine.com on the topic.
Paintball Fields
Providing space for paintball “wars” is still a big industry. If you are in doubt, just check out all the paintball fields linked through this website: http://www.pbreview.com/fields/ As you can imagine, it does not take that much to make your raw, rural land “paintball” ready. Essentially you just section off all or part of your land and rent it out to groups. Just to give you an idea of how it works, here is a a link to an example of a privately-owned paintball field: http://www.actionpaintballsac.com/
Conclusion
Land is an asset especially for those who are creative and determined enough to invest the time and energy into getting something started. Just be sure to do the proper research before you get started such as finding out if you need a license or permit and dot all your “i’s” and cross all your “t’s.” Good luck!
