These 10 People Collectively Own 33 Million Acres, Or 1.5% Of All US Land

It is a well-known fact that when it comes to ownership of rental properties in the US, Wall Street, and particularly Blackstone, has become the single largest landlord in the country. But what about undeveloped land? As summarized by Vizual-statistix, according to The Land Report published by Fay Ranches, the top 100 owners of US land collectively have 33 million acres in their private holdings.  This equates to about 1.5% of all USA land – that may seem like a small percentage, but it’s actually a massive area.  The chart below lays out the top 10 largest private landowners with the areas of Puerto Rico, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C. included for scale. As can be seen, all of the top 10 own a piece of the USA that is bigger than Rhode Island, and five have a piece that is at least as big as Delaware. John Malone, who is the largest land owner in the country with 2.2 million acres, owns private property the size of Puerto Rico.

Some additional perspective from The Land Report:

  Investing in rural, undeveloped land continues to be a popular strategy among the affluent, according to the 2013 Land Report 100, the latest annual survey and ranking of the largest private landowners in the United States just published by The Land Report and presented by Fay Ranches. Increasingly seen as a “safe deposit box with a view,” acreages continue to be purchased by leading landowners at solid rates. In 2012, the country’s top 100 landowners cumulatively increased their private holdings by 700,000 acres to a total of 33 million acres, nearly 2 percent of U.S. land mass.

Liberty Media Chairman John Malone and his 2.2 million acres under ownership topped the Land Report 100 list, which focuses exclusively on deeded acreage owned by individuals, families, family-owned companies and family-controlled foundations and excludes leased and public lands. Malone edged out Ted Turner, who currently possesses more than 2 million land acres. Rounding out the top five in order were: the Emmerson family, Brad Kelley and the Irving family. The 2013 edition of the Land Report 100 presented by Fay Ranches can be downloaded at http://fayranches.com/blog/2013/10/01/2013-land-report-100-sponsored-fay-ranches.

“It’s refreshing to continue seeing large landowners find value in aggregating their land for conservation and agriculture purposes versus parceling it out and developing it,” said land broker Greg Fay, founder of Fay Ranches, which is sponsoring the Land Report 100 for the third straight year and is a longtime supporter of the magazine. “Everyone at Fay Ranches congratulates leading landowners for their commitments to the land, to conserving our wild places and preserving our agricultural heritage.”

This year saw a shake-up in the top ten as Stan Kroenke elevated his position from No. 10 to No. 8 after his recent purchase of the historic Broken O Ranch, described nationally as “one of the largest agricultural operations in the Rocky Mountain West.” Kroenke also owns the 540,000-acre Q Creek Ranch, the largest contiguous ranch in the Rocky Mountains.

There are several landowners new to this year’s 100 list, including No. 28, Dan and Farris Wilks, billionaire brothers who recently purchased more than 400 square miles of land, mostly in the eastern half of Montana. Oil field services entrepreneurs, the Wilks brothers own the prized N Bar Ranch in Montana, which is known for its wildlife and fishery resources. Another new addition to the Land Report 100 presented by Fay Ranches is No. 96, Arthur Nicholas. The co-founder of Nicholas Investment Properties owns Wyoming’s historic Wagonhound Land and Livestock, an AQHA Ranching Heritage Breeder.

“America’s largest landowners continue to recognize land as a compelling asset, one whose numerous attributes go well beyond ROI,” said Eric O’Keefe, editor-in-chief of The Land Report. “It’s a story you’ll see again and again in the Land Report 100, one that features familiar faces and some new ones I’m sure readers will instantly identify. ”

So here is how Bernanke's trickle down supposedly works: US millionaires - rich in assets - become billionaires, increasingly buying up US land, i.e., more assets, while everyone else, read the not so wealthy, buy Made in China trinkets, purchased mostly on credit so loading up on liabilities, i.e., debt.

Comments

[the0ther]

Also consider the huge percent of land held by Fed state and local government. Makes that 1.5% that much more significant.

[Cacete de Ouro]

It appears the article has not explored one crucial point. Note that the top 10 owner contains 4 families, 2 'heirs to ' and 4 individuals. Given that the 4 individuals undoubtably are part of a single or multi family office, I would say that all 10 entities in the top 10 have a family office. The key point is that families have always retained land..

[Mentalic]

OT: Not sure if this has been covered by ZH...But...here it is...

N.S.A. Devises Radio Pathway Into Computers

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/us/nsa-effort-pries-open-computers-not-connected-to-internet.html?_r=0

[ak_khanna]

Welcome to the Modern Day illusion of Democracy.

People sponsored by the rich, make false promises to the masses to get elected. Distribute national wealth amongst themselves and their sponsors (Industrialists) and when that is not enough borrow money from rest of the world and continue the distribution process. The borrowed money has to be paid back by taxing the masses keeping in mind that tax rules are made such that the politicians and their sponsors pay minimum or no taxes.

End of political tenure, rinse and repeat till the whole system breaks down and the world wealth is cornered by a minuscule of the population.

www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article40231.html

[The_Ungrateful_Yid]

Yep ^

[jonjon831983]

"The peasant chattel shall work the land for us."

[knowshitsurelock]

This is supposed to be the list of the largest landowners?  Now that really is funny.

That's like saying Buffet and Gates are the richest in the world, according to the Forbes 500, because they almost have 100 billion, and neglecting to tell us that the Rothchilds are worth over 600 trillion.

[natty light]

Would be interested in a chart for Paraguay.

[PrecipiceWatching]

The Bush's and Jim Rogers are insiders on the "secret" of cheap Paraguayan land.

However, I wonder who is going to protect their ownership rights if things get ugly in South America, and some tinpot Communist decides HE wants their land.

[Stuck on Zero]

Instead of land why aren't these fat cats buying stocks like al the experts say to do?

[HowardBeale]

John Malone doesn't own shit as soon as a guy with a gun says he doesn't. Period. All "wealth" is a delusion of those in the golden cocoon; they are going to suffer the most, but given their high profiles, they will only suffer for as long as it takes to kill them.

[praps]

If you own all the land then everyone is your slave.  You can raise their rent as high as they can pay, forcing their wages down to subsistence level.  

But of course you have to overcompensate the people who assist you in the process.  The bankers who invest the rent you collect.  The CEO's who are the slave drivers.  The lawmakers who maintain your property rights.  The law enforcers who stop people taking your property.

[El Vaquero]

Heh, I've hunted Oryx right next to Ted Turner's land, hoping to catch one going in or out.  I also know one of the Kings.  The Kings are generally nice people, and Turner, while a douche, has been buying land for a long time.  While I cannot comment on Turner's actual motives, I do know that he does a lot of conservationist type stuff with his land, and the Kings have been ranchers with a lot of land for a lot longer than I have been alive. 

[Chicken_Little]

Your Oryx's must like buffalo poop if they're next to Ted's land. I grew up in Atlanta with Ted and CNN from the beginning and he had it right until he met Jane Fonda, AOL, and drank the rest of the cool-aid. He was a really good Southern man when he continued his Father's work but drinking the liberal cool aid cost him billions.

BTW, what King do you know? Jamie Dimon or Loyd B?  Can you get me some royal money to invest along with the only sure bet which is loading up the JPM (Arm of the FED) vaults with the real thing?

[El Vaquero]

Oryx is actually pretty damned good, and it's also a better idea to hunt them right on the fence line of the White Sands Missile Range if you have an off range hunt. 

The King family are ranchers, not bankers.  Nothing to do with JPM or GS.  But, it turns out upon further inspection that the Kings that I'm thinking of are a different set or ranchers than the ones being referenced here.  The family that I'm thinking of only has 170,000 acres, or about 1/5 of the other King family. 

[CJHames]

As someone who recently bought 5 acres and put a house on it, then bought the 5 next to it, and now is looking to buy the 10 to the west of me, I can hardly blame anyone for not wanting more land. I'm going to get that 10 acres, then grab another 5 that's available, then another 10 that I know of .... until I own as much as I can.

[Satan]

In my house a game of Monopoly ends with my wife withholding sex and my kids plotting my murder ( I'm the banker ).

[Nobody]

Which has more value?
200 acres of prime farmland priced at $3000/AC
or
A condo at Nevis with a citizenship priced at $600,000

[Cornholiovanderbilt]

Where the hell is my great gaygodson andersin cooper on this list?  This isn't funny!

[esum]

  "Buy land, they're not making it anymore." - Mark Twain

[Duc888]

"As someone who recently bought 5 acres and put a house on it, then bought the 5 next to it, and now is looking to buy the 10 to the west of me, I can hardly blame anyone for not wanting more land. I'm going to get that 10 acres, then grab another 5 that's available, then another 10 that I know of .... until I own as much as I can."

You will never own "your land".

Stop paying taxes on it.  Then you'll learn who owns it.

You rent it.

[Malachi Constant]

Want to know how this will end? Ask Plutarch:

Of the territory which the Romans won in war from their neighbours, a part they sold, and a part they made common land, and assigned it for occupation to the poor and indigent among the citizens, on payment of a small rent into the public treasury.

And when the rich began to offer larger rents and drove out the poor, a law was enacted forbidding the holding by one person of more than five hundred acres of land. For a short time this enactment gave a check to the rapacity of the rich, and was of assistance to the poor, who remained in their places on the land which they had rented and occupied the allotment which each had held from the outset.

But later on the neighbouring rich men, by means of fictitious personages, transferred these rentals to themselves, and finally held most of the land openly in their own names. Then the poor, who had been ejected from their land, no longer showed themselves eager for military service, and neglected the bringing up of children, so that soon all Italy was conscious of a dearth of freemen, and was filled with gangs of foreign slaves, by whose aid the rich cultivated their estates, from which they had driven away the free citizens.

An attempt was therefore made to rectify this evil, and by Caius Laelius the comrade of Scipio; but the men of influence opposed his measures

Google it and read on. Also note the emphasis (mine) - today the slaves are called "immigrants".

[BigSpruce]

If you want to know  who really owns US Govt lands ,read "Storm over the rangelands" by the late Wayne Hage. He was a rancher, and self educated scholar who won a landmark property rights case against the US govt. -US Forest Service/BLM.

[BigSpruce]

Timberland is a very good investment if you have the expertise. I have bought two parcels in the last two years - where the value of the timber present was equal to the list price. Both have great access and locations. It does help that I work in the timber industry, which enables one to know -  to the penny - what the wood is worth.

[bbkaren]

This title is misleading. 33 million acres is owned by 100 PEOPLE, not 10.

All the smart people on this board and only two noticed this?