Update: 12/1/2010 - We have been approached by a RE agent inquiring about the surface rights – no $ discussed but interest is being shown by the land owner immediately to the south. I was told the buyer was looking purchase the land to connect two other parcels to make on contiguous one to pass to their kids. It doesn't make sense to me as both other parcels are to our south. I believe it is to line up land / wind rights in anticipation of future wind farm development.
Update: we have received at least 1 offer on the whole shebang – oil and minerals for the whole parcel – the offer was contingent on all owners selling and that didn’t happen. The price came in at $145/acre for the whole 8,281 acres. Based on what is being asked for similar property, (>$300.00/acre) we could almost realize that same amount from just the sale of the surface rights to the 2805 acres we hold.
During this endeavor a couple of both Price and McClintock owners have mentioned interest in selling their small interest because it wasn’t worth the time and trouble to keep track of or worry about. AND, a couple of others have mentioned they would be willing to buy the smaller interests if they were available.
Please - If you want to sell - Please DON’T sell out of the list of current owners - - it will only cause the rest of us headaches.
I’ve been asked what the price of an interest holding would be - well the fast and only true answer is “whatever someone is willing to actually pay”. The surface rights are not the problem - everyone can see the land - what it look’s like and how much there is. It’s the minerals (resources) that are the bugaboo - There are several “Industry Standards” and “rule of thumb” ways to find the “value” of your holdings, and each has its believers, Some say you need a engineering and geology survey, others say 20x or 30x or 60x the monthly net income or of lease signing bonus amounts, and the list goes on. But the bottom line is that since there are so many unknowns - such as how much oil and gas is left, what’s the future price of oil and gas (and maybe wind rights for the surface land) ….That any “Value” of your “resources” rights is a guess.
Having said that, what I plan to do - with my wife Cindel’s approval - is to go to several of the companies out there who buy mineral interests and ask for offers (they are usually free). Since we have a 1/10 interest in the whole pie they might give us some attention. Converting a fractional interest into shares of ownership we could say there are 1920 “shares” of Pecos Land “stock” outstanding. A 1/192 (10/1920) owner would have 10 “shares” So, Using the info I get from the buyout offers to buy Cindel’s 192 shares (1/10 =192/1920) I could maybe work some magic to come up with a “formula” that might result in a “reasonable market value” acceptable to all for a single share of the Pecos land.
What do you think? It will probably take a little while but I think it might be the only way without getting into high dollar surveys and appraisals which the results of, by the way, are just that appraiser’s opinion. I Know - I use to be one - grin