Stan, Granddaddy's tend to be right because they have lived long enough to see everything. I had a next door farmer who told me long ago to buy land because they are not making it anymore. In fact he was telling me to buy cut over timber, for back taxes, and never sell it, only sell the timber and get several crops off it in my lifetime. Cut over timber back then sold for almost nothing and taxes were even less. He then talked my father into letting me do it, took me to inspect several parcels for sale every year and went with me to the tax sales at the court house door.
My uncle, the Sheriff, held the tax auctions twice a year. Though not legal, even in those days, I was allowed to bid on the parcels that I wanted. Back then you had to be 21 to be considered an adult but things like that were often just winked at. My father did have to sign the papers, on my behalf. Over five years I bought several large blocks, many smaller blocks of cut over timber and a small farm, for what even then was pennies on the dollar.
Several blocks of timber have been cut twice or even three times and should yield a one more timber crop before I pass away. I have never sold any of those parcels, I have swapped two for medium size farms and used the money from timber sales to increase those farms as neighboring land came up for sale. And Mr. Rounds was right, they are not making anymore land and the time to buy land is every opportunity you have, if you can figure a way to afford it. Land never pays in the short term but always does in the long term. I hope it never sees a correction in land prices. The Model 12 fad was just that, a fad and bound to burn out.
