Reply to What does it cost to maintain a hobby farm?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My parents have a hobby farm.  It is managed by a farm manager and 4-6 men.  The outlay for payroll and regular equipment maintenance is roughly $500-600,000 a year.  This is on top of any other unusual outlays (another field truck, another tractor, replace the barn generator, reroof the stock barn).  It is a complete money suck.  On the other hand it provides a huge amount of pleasure to them and it is hard to argue with that.  They do not live there fulltime so these expenses are all on top of their regular expenses.[/quote]

This is so helpful, thank you!! -OP[/quote]

You're welcome.  Although it is a "hobby farm," we do actually produce a crop product that we sell.  While the farm has only operated at a loss, it is nice to have some income to offset all of the other feed & seed types of expenses related to the crop.

If you intend to buy a hobby farm that is already functioning then you will want to look at the books for the business.  The business may or may not be sold as part of the property.  In our case, my parents began the business after buying the property.  As they get older they may decide to sell the business while still keeping the property.  If they sold the business then the business owners would rent back the land and equipment as part of the sale.  However, as I stated, my parents derive an unimaginable amount of joy from this hobby farm and it is difficult to imagine a scenario when they would sell.  Surprisingly (to me), we do get perhaps 4-5 unsolicited inquiries a year about buying either the entire enterprise or just the business.

Labor is the most difficult part of the whole farm process.  It is hard to find people who want to do farm-types of work.  My parents pay a minimum of $15 an hour for a general employee.  Even finding a housekeeper who would cook lunch for everyone was a challenge.  If you are truly interested in owning a farm then you need to do a lot more homework.  I think you will surprised by all that it entails, financially and physically.[/quote]

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