Monthly Archive:: October 2015

Owning a central Virginia farm just got a little more sustainable. When it comes to issues like a pesky invasive species taking over your property, there are a couple options. Herbicides like RoundUp have been in play for years and require extensive testing by the likes of the EPA before becoming available on the market, but that doesn’t mean they’re 100% safe. Most of them are relatively safe for humans (providing you don’t ingest them) but can still have pretty detrimental ecological effects, doing damage to animal populations (birds especially) and rendering the soil infertile. As is often the case, the cheaper option often wins out, and the use of herbicides in recent decades has become almost as pervasive as some of their target species. But in the past couple years there has been a noticeable surge in the interest of pesticide-free, organic produce grown on organic farms. This is certainly the case with farms near Charlottesville, a city where the farm-to-table aesthetic characterizes the ideology of many farmers, restaurateurs, and consumers. Many farms in Charlottesville are keen to produce healthy, pesticide-free fruits and vegetables on their land. If you want to rear crops on a farm in or near central Virginia without the use of pesticides…heck, if you want to clear persistent weeds or overgrown vegetation on your personal property, who ya gonna call? Goat busters!

Based in Afton and servicing land in the Greater Charlottesville area and beyond (at least as far as Richmond), Goat Busters fearlessly commands a fleet of goats and uses them to rid your land of pesky plants. Kinda makes sense if you think about. Using these scrappy, stubborn, hard-headed animals to combat plants with the tenacity of kudzu or Japanese honeysuckle comes down to fighting fire with fire. The benefits are many: you get to avoid the detrimental effects that herbicides have on soil integrity and save the money you’d spend on heavy, industrial machinery. Goats normally eat lots of vines, but when the weather gets dry, their diets diversify. They’ll eat poison ivy, poison oak, and many other plants native to land in central Virginia. And they’ll get in between rocks, steep hills, and other hard-to-reach places with ease. They’ll also spot check troublesome areas because as you probably know, clearing a plot of land is not just a one-and-done task. The plants are pretty attached to your land, and they aren’t giving in easily. You’ll have to address trouble spots more than once, whether it be repeated applications of herbicides or repeat visits from hungry goats. The Goat Busters pledge to devote as much time as necessary to a plot of land, and subsequent waves are cheaper, since there is less work for the goats to do on second and third visits. And of course, the end result of having a bunch of goats grazing the encroaching plants on your land includes a bunch of rich, smelly, eco-friendly fertilizer as part of the deal.

Obviously these guys aren’t the only option for clearing land overrun by persistent, invasive plant species. Herbicides are cheaper and more economical (at least from a monetary perspective). It would probably be more affordable in the long run to buy your own goats, have them graze the portions of your land that are overrun, and sell them once the job was done. But with this course of action come all the extra responsibilities. You must consider fencing, predation, dealing with goat health and providing food, water and shelter, not to mention the time it takes to buy and sell them. But there’s no denying the advantages to this method of land clearing. If you’re sitting on farmland or a rural estate in central Virginia and you’re looking for environmentally-conscious ways to address an invasive plant species, consider the Goat Busters. Your land may thank you some day.

We will admit that we are a little biased. Some of us are more than partial to the farms in Madison County, where the heavens are spangled by luminous pink and copper-colored sunsets. But our proclivity toward the mountains aside, buying a home in the country is a great idea for several reasons. There are definitely urban amenities that a country home in central Virginia or a rural estate elsewhere in the Greater Charlottesville area can’t provide, but there are several benefits–financial and otherwise–to buying land in the country, and we’d love a chance to share some of these with you.

As far as the perks of country real estate go, price is one of the most readily apparent. We’re not even talking about crossing state lines here, because obviously you’d pay far less for 100 acres in Albemarle County than you would in New York City (if they even have 100 to spare up there). But these price discrepancies are observable even within property in the Greater Charlottesville area. According to recent data published by the Charlottesville Association of Realtors, land in Nelson County, Greene County, and Louisa is much more economical than homes in Charlottesville or land in Albemarle County. (Keep in mind that some of the land in Albemarle County is divided up into subdivisions, essentially suburbs of Charlottesville). The median price for a home in Albemarle County was $322,000. The median price for a home in Charlottesville was $271,000. The median price for a home in Nelson County was $179,000. The median price for a home in Greene County was $219,000, and the median price for a home in Louisa was $170,000 (all figures reflect data from the second quarter of 2015, with exception of the Louisa figures, which reflect data from the second quarter of 2014). By buying a country home in central Virginia, you pay less for more.

You literally save more by buying rural, but you also have the opportunity to generate revenue from your land. Within a few years of buying a plot of land in central Virginia, you can generate some healthy cash flow, and you can do it on your own terms. You get what you put into the land…so if you wanted to start a small organic farm with help from your friends or family, you could. If you wanted to build stables for a horse farm, you could do it. There are also opportunities to make a real career out of it, at your own pace. The land in central Virginia is good for so many things: breweries and hop farms, vineyards, orchards, livestock pasture…there really are endless possibilities. And with a decent-sized bit of farmland, you can explore them all.

The competition is scant and sparse here in the country. Depending on what you want to do with the land, that may be a good or bad thing. Technically, the Greater Charlottesville area is a buyer’s market (for now at least), and nowhere is that more pronounced than out in the country. The median number of days-on-market for those country homes in Nelson County is 261, up 80 days from last year, and the sales price to list price ratio is 87.2%. However, Greene County’s median DOM dropped from 136 to 44, and Louisa showed similar improvement, meaning you may want to make your move in this area sooner rather than later. With this information in mind, if you’re looking to make a quick flip, rural properties aren’t for you. But for a community that wants to put down roots, you can’t beat it. The rural housing market is also much easier to predict.

We’re certainly aware of the amenities that big cities offer. These tend to be characteristics geared toward younger people (as we know, recent college grads are flocking to big cities en masse). But these same things are reasons why living in the country is great. There’s typically less regulation in the country, giving you more autonomy. Zoning laws, for example are much more lenient if you own rural property, and there are less restrictions on what you can and can’t do. Also you can’t put a price on space (well I guess technically, that’s what real estate is)…but the feeling of waking up and seeing only familiar faces in every direction can be very powerful. Not until one experiences the hustle and bustle, the grit and grime of the city, can one truly appreciate what it means to be alone. Your stars and sunsets will be your own. You’re also looking at better tax rates and less crime by living in a rural area, due in part to the strong sense of trust and community connection that occurs here.

And really, it’s just a better lifestyle. There’s room to run around and enjoy the outdoors…hiking, fishing, hunting and swimming are so accessible that you’ll get bored of the activities. The air is crisp and fresh, the views are breathtaking, and the property values are low. What’s not to love? Call us today to find out more about the Farms in Virginia for Sale.