TheLandJournal.com

I would love to take the time to highlight a few states in this blog, 1 state at a time in random entries. This will be the first of others to come. I would like to start out with Georgia rural land.

Some of Georgia’s rural communities have exploded into 2-3 mall cities from being a place where everyone knew each other and shopped at the “General Store”. Not all have though and even with the big farming companies buying smaller ones out, there’s still some of the small town farms still left. So many people that love to work the land. You know, the type that if they haven’t soaked their shirt with sweat entirely multiple times throughout the summer day, they had a slow day. The people who spent their time thinking about when the weather is right to plant and when the crops are ready to harvest rather than dressing up for an interview hoping to brag themselves up to a promotion.

Georgia has mild winters, lots of rainfall and humid seasons. This allows the growing of a very wide variety of crops and livestock. Traveling through the rural areas of Georgia you’re bound to see many farms because not only do Georgia farms support a wide variety, but they’re also the number one producer of Rye, Pecans, Eggs, and Peanuts in the US. Georgia farms lay claim to nearly half the peanuts produced in the US.

So, knowing all this, it’s no surprise 1 out of every 7 people living in Georgia work in agriculture, forestry, or a related industry. All of these people account for over $57 billion of the $350 billion economic output.

Georgia rural real estate is, as expected, looking up. With every dollar increase in the value of their land comes the temptation to sell. Who can blame them, for most people nearly everything has its price. In addition to the increase in cost of Georgia rural land comes the aging of the farmers working it. While many of their children have grown up and gone off to college to see what life has in store for them, their elders grow older each day and wonder how many years are left in them of being able to run the farm. While many things make it easy get sucked into the city life, you may not know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

With all the rural land for sale in Georgia (LandsofGeorgia.com currently has over 800 listings for Georgia rural land for sale and going up a few dozen per week) there’s bound to be change. How intense this change is depends on the battle of those who wish to continue the lifestyle along with those who want to preserve vs. those that want to develop. Many are buying the land with interest in holding it as is for a profit knowing it’s a matter of time before they border much larger development and this land will be worth many times what it’s already grown to. Others are retiring and getting out of the big city and compared to a house in Atlanta, you’re getting a great deal on a peaceful chuck of Georgia rural real estate.

Maybe you will never buy rural land in Georgia, but you at least need to see what Georgia is all about. Have you ever heard of the Providence Canyon State Park? It’s know as Georgia’s “Little Grand Canyon” supposedly the 150 ft trenches were formed from farming and erosion in the 1800s. There are many other state parks as well with historic sights to see, here’s a good place to start: http://gastateparks.org/net/go/parks.aspx?show=parks&go=1&s=0.0.1.5

A few quick facts about Georgia:

Population: 8,186,453

Founded Jan 2, 1788 (4th state)

State bird is the Brown Thrasher

State tree is the Live Oak

State flower is the Cherokee Rose

Georgia has 159 counties

Fact reference: http://www.agclassroom.org/kids/stats/georgia.pdf