What Makes One Texas Ranch Worth a Premium While Another Struggles to Sell?
| Podcast
For this episode of Landowner Insider, I sat down with Max Ramsey, Director of Operations at Mock Ranches, right before we left for an elk hunt in Colorado. Max works South and Central Texas and the Hill Country, and we used the conversation to connect two things that rarely get discussed together: how a ranch is managed and what it sells for. The short version is that buyers are getting pickier, and a premium price needs a premium property behind it.
Why Buyers Are Getting Selective
Max put it plainly: the good, prime properties are drawing interest right now, and there is a buyer for them. The difference from a few years ago is that buyers can afford to be as picky as they want. They aren’t looking for a project. They want something turnkey. If you’re asking a premium, the place has to look and perform like a premium place. There is still a market for buyers who want a project, but sellers and those buyers aren’t meeting on price yet.
Reading the Numbers: Only the Market-Ready Ranches Are Moving
That morning I had recorded a solo market update, so the statewide numbers were fresh. Transactions and total dollar volume are both down roughly 10 percent, yet average sale price is up about 3.5 percent. That doesn’t mean every ranch appreciated 3 percent. It means the good ones are selling, and the rest are not. Market-ready properties are bringing premiums of roughly 6 to 8 percent, while plenty of others are selling 4 to 8 percent below where they started. You can get the full breakdown in my 2026 Texas land market report.
Pricing and Preparing a Ranch for Sale
One of the most overlooked points for sellers is that it’s expensive for a buyer to make an offer on a ranch. If you price high and plan to negotiate down, you’re asking a buyer to spend time and money on a property they already know is overpriced. I compare it to shopping for a truck: if the same F-250 is 10 percent cheaper at a dealership down the road, you drive there before somebody else does. Sellers can ask whatever they want, but a higher price means either more time on the market or more investment in the ranch. We see the proof in places that list two or three times before they finally sell, because either the seller gave in or the market caught up.
The Ranch as a Proving Ground: Whitetail Management and Feed
A good part of the episode covered the 500-acre San Saba-area deer lease Max and I run with Max’s cousin. It had not been fed or managed properly before we took it, and it had been shot hard. We use it as a proving ground for what we advise clients, testing feeders, feeds, blinds, and land management on our own dollars.
A few lessons came out of it:
- Body condition drives antlers. Next year’s antler growth is secondary to how strong a deer is going into the rut, so keeping deer healthy through the dry, stressful part of the year matters.
- Buck-to-doe ratio matters. Too many does per mature buck means bucks run for two months and go into winter worn down.
- Consistent feed beats on-and-off feed. A deer is a ruminant, and changing its diet stresses it. I think the key months for antler growth are roughly January through July, which also tracks with doe gestation and lactation.
- Cottonseed is a supplement, not a replacement. We’ve fed free-choice cottonseed and protein for about 24 months, and I haven’t seen fertility problems when it’s a small share of the diet. Feeder spacing depends on the ranch; ours are roughly every 120 to 125 acres to carry a higher deer density, which would be too much for a South or West Texas place.
- Goals come first. Whether you want a 140-inch county deer or something bigger decides how much feed is worth buying. Free-choice protein is expensive, and timed protein feeders don’t spread feed evenly, since young bucks and does reach them first.
- How you treat the pasture matters. Deer get used to your routine. A string of four-wheelers racing in the dark and parking close to the feeder teaches them exactly what is happening.
None of this requires a giant property. Max and I agree that you can manage a smaller place correctly and still have good deer.
What Buyers Often Don’t Know About Ranch Operating Costs
This ties directly back to real estate. It’s hard to hire a real estate agent who has never bought land, because many agents understand the entry but not the exit, and they don’t know what it actually costs to own and manage a ranch. Those costs can be very low or very high depending on your goals. High-fence ranches in South Texas are a good example: with exotics like oryx and nilgai, the operating costs can eat a buyer alive without a management plan. When we can lay out those numbers ahead of time, a buyer understands what they’re actually buying.
South Texas Is One of the Stronger Markets Right Now
Max and I both see South Texas having a good year after several flat ones. We credit two things: a big early-summer rain that turned the country green, and the confidence buyers now have in bringing their families to the ranch. Max noticed the shift in buyer sentiment just from 2025 to 2026.
Why We Started Texas Land and Wildlife
About a year ago, Max and I started Texas Land and Wildlife because we kept hearing the same two questions: “I bought it, now what?” and “What should I do to maximize the value before I sell?” The classic example is a seller who wants to show a buyer the view from the top of the hill, but the hilltop is grown up in eight-to-ten-foot juniper and nobody can drive up there. We copied the idea of the residential home stager. We clear brush, open up roads and the showing route, and make the place easier for a buyer to picture, and under the right circumstances a seller can pay us at closing. A $10,000 clearing project can return many times that in sale price, though not always, and it’s strongest in a market where only the well-presented ranches are selling.
Running the business has been a learning experience. Equipment is expensive to own and repair, and there are logistics, operators, and scheduling to manage. It’s also changed how both of us walk a property. With the right machinery, you start seeing what a ranch could be, and you can help a buyer see it too.
Brush Clearing and Fire Mitigation
We also talked about wildfire. I had just spoken with trial attorney Steve Harrison about what landowners can do to mitigate fire risk, and we’ve seen several large fires this year. Landowners who had a mitigation plan, such as clearing cedar from around live oaks and creating buffers around structures, saw the oaks survive because the fire stayed on the ground.
Clearing a whole ranch at once is a big bite when machine time runs north of $200 an hour. Doing a little each year over five years can change a property completely and spreads out the cost. On method, I don’t love a dozer pushing a straight wall of cedar, especially in rocky country where it turns over the surface rock. I prefer mulching and thinning the edges, layering and limbing up larger trees to build a mosaic. It’s better for wildlife, easier on the eye, and slows a fire. There is a place for every tool, including the dozer, root plow, and excavator, but the mulcher can transform a Hill Country ranch without being invasive. One caution: this time of year it’s hot and dry enough that one spark off a rock can start a fire, so be careful.
Interest Rates and Deal Structure
On the financing side, the trade-up ranch market is soft. Many people refinanced or bought in the last five or six years at much lower rates, so selling and buying back at today’s rates can cut their affordability by about 30 percent. First-time ranch buyers also face tougher affordability, and construction and oil and gas buyers are being squeezed by fuel, labor, and materials costs. Higher-priced properties and larger tracts have held up better.
Deals take more creativity now. We’re competing with multifamily, DSTs, and commercial for the same cash, so we’ve leaned on staging, different cash flow models, and tax strategy such as cost segregation and Section 180 deductions. Our company numbers were up about 20 percent through the first three quarters of the year, with plenty of inventory coming in Q4. My advice to sellers hasn’t changed: it’s always the right time to sell with the right presentation, but this is not the time to test the market with a high price.
Watch the Full Episode
This article is based on my conversation with Max Ramsey of Mock Ranches on Landowner Insider.
Work With Mock Ranches
Whether you’re preparing a ranch for sale or looking for one that’s already market ready, our team can walk you through pricing, presentation, and operating costs. Browse ranches for sale, South Texas land, and Texas Hill Country land at mockranches.com, or learn how Texas Land and Wildlife can help get a property ready for market.
