(A Honest Guide for Aging Hunters)
By J. Berkenkamp, Land Buy Right | Updated June 2026
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you own hunting land you haven’t visited in a while. Maybe your knees aren’t what they were. Maybe your kids moved to the city and couldn’t care less about opening day. Maybe you still drive past the county road turnoff in your head sometimes — but the truth is, you haven’t made the trip in years.
You’re not sure if you should sell. And nobody has ever given you a straight answer about how to figure that out.
This post is that straight answer.
I’ve bought hunting land across more than 20 states. I talk to landowners every day who are in exactly your position. The ones who call me “someday” and the ones who called me last week — the difference between them almost never comes down to money. It comes down to clarity. They finally had a framework for the decision.
Here’s the one I use.
The 4 Things That Actually Determine Whether Now Is the Right Time
Most people think the timing question is just about money — “is the market good right now?” It’s not. For hunting land specifically, four things matter, and market timing is the least important of them.
1. Physical Access Reality
This is the one nobody talks about honestly. Hunting land only has value to you if you can use it. Five-acre parcels in the backcountry, ridge-top deer camps, timber tracts with creek crossings — these require real physical capability to enjoy. Not just to hunt, but to maintain.
Ask yourself: Have you walked the property in the last two years? Could you do it today if you had to? If the answer is no or not really, the land has already stopped being a hunting property for you. It’s become a liability with good memories attached.
That’s not a criticism. It’s just what it is — and it matters for timing.
2. Family Succession Likelihood
Most landowners assume their kids want the property. Most kids don’t. Not because they don’t love their parents, but because their lives are different. They live somewhere else. They don’t hunt. Managing rural land from three states away is a headache they didn’t ask for.
Have you had the actual conversation? Not “someday this will be yours” — but “do you want it, and do you want to manage it?” The answer to that question changes the calculus entirely. If no one is taking it over, holding it is just delaying an inevitable sale while paying taxes every year in the meantime.
3. Financial Carrying Weight
Every year you hold hunting land, you pay property taxes. In most states, that’s somewhere between $3 and $15 per acre annually for rural recreational land — but it adds up. On a 40-acre parcel held for 15 years, you might have paid $4,000 to $8,000 in taxes alone, with nothing to show for it.
That’s not counting the years of forgone investment return on the equity sitting in that land. There’s no shame in doing that math. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have held it — but it does mean you should factor it in when deciding whether to hold it another five years.
4. Emotional Readiness
This one is real and it’s legitimate. Some land carries weight that has nothing to do with acreage or dollars. If your father bought it, if you’ve had meaningful experiences there, the decision isn’t purely financial and it shouldn’t be treated like it is.
But here’s what I’ve observed after years of these conversations: the people who feel best about selling aren’t the ones who stopped caring. They’re the ones who made a decision on their terms, got a fair price, and put the money toward something that actually serves their life now. The regret usually goes the other way — people who held on out of guilt and eventually lost the land to taxes or had to sell in a rush for less than it was worth.
Emotional readiness doesn’t mean you don’t care anymore. It means you’ve given yourself permission to make a clear-eyed decision.
How to Score Your Situation
Rate yourself on each of the four dimensions above from 1 to 5:
- Physical Access: 5 = I could go tomorrow. 1 = I genuinely cannot access or maintain it anymore.
- Family Succession: 5 = My kids want it and have a plan. 1 = Nobody in my family will take it.
- Financial Weight: 5 = The carrying costs are trivial to me. 1 = The taxes are a real burden and I’ve been putting off selling.
- Emotional Readiness: 5 = I have no attachment to this particular land. 1 = I cannot imagine ever selling it.
Add your scores. Here’s what they mean:
16–20: Hold if you want to. You can access it, someone wants it, the costs are fine, and you’re not emotionally ready. There’s no urgency. Stay patient.
11–15: The window is opening. One or two of these factors is shifting. This is the time to at least understand what the land is worth and what a sale would look like — not to decide, but to stop flying blind.
6–10: The math is moving against you. Two or more of these have already shifted. Holding is costing you in real terms. Getting a fair cash offer and understanding your options costs you nothing and takes less than a week.
Under 6: You already know. You’ve known for a while. The only thing stopping you is the permission to act on what you already believe. That permission is yours to give.
What a Fair Offer Actually Looks Like
The biggest fear I hear from landowners in your position isn’t “I don’t want to sell.” It’s “I don’t want to get taken advantage of.”
That’s a reasonable concern. Here’s how I approach it, and how you can evaluate any offer you receive:
A fair cash offer for rural hunting land is typically 60–80% of retail market value. That sounds like a discount until you factor in what you’re not paying: no realtor commission (typically 6–10% on rural land), no 6–18 months of carrying costs while it sits on the market, no closing costs, no risk of the deal falling through. When you run the net-to-seller math side by side, cash offers often come out within 5–15% of what you’d clear from a traditional listing — and they close in weeks, not months.
I’m not going to tell you every cash buyer operates this way. Some don’t. The way to protect yourself is to ask any buyer to show you the math — what are comparable sales in your county, how did they arrive at their number, and what are they not charging you. If they can’t answer that clearly, keep looking.
I can always walk you through that math for your specific property. No obligation, no pressure — just numbers.
Use the Tool Below to Score Your Situation
I built a simple diagnostic that walks you through these four dimensions and gives you a personalized timing recommendation based on your answers. It takes about three minutes.
It won’t tell you to sell. It’ll tell you where you actually stand — and what the most common next step is for people in your situation.
[→ Take the “Is Now the Right Time?” Diagnostic Below]
One More Thing
If you’ve read this far, you’re not in “maybe someday” mode anymore. You’re in the thinking-about-it mode, and that’s a different thing. People in that mode usually just need one honest conversation to get to clarity.
Call or text me directly: I’m J. Berkenkamp, and I buy hunting land from owners exactly like you — not to flip it, but because I understand what that land means and I pay fairly for it. I’ve been doing this since 2018 and I’m not going anywhere.
Call or text: 616-326-2134 Or submit your property info at jbone@landbuyright.com
There’s no pressure and no pitch. Just a straight conversation about what your land is worth and whether now actually makes sense for you.
Land Buy Right buys vacant and recreational hunting land across the United States. We pay cash, cover closing costs, and close on your timeline. J. Berkenkamp has purchased land in more than 20 states since 2018.