Young Couple Buys Ranch with Government Money

Kirk and Tina Sczepanik had a dream. They wanted a ranch of their own. But with the rising cost of land and the demands of raising three young children, the possibility of realizing their dream often seemed remote.

Kirk, 29, grew up on a ranch. He earned a degree in Agriculture, and now works for a construction company. Tina teaches Spanish at their local high school in South Texas. From the time they got married, they had their eye out for available ranchland. They investigated financing, and they learned they would need a down payment of at least ten percent.

Most area banks required twenty percent. On top of the purchase price, they would need to finance any improvements, equipment, and livestock. If the property they selected didn't have a home already built on it, they would need to finance construction of a house. Despite the apparent obstacles, they never gave up hope.

Tina spent months researching on the Internet. She followed up on every lead for ranches and financing. Finally, she came across a reference to a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, through the Farm Service Agency. The program, called the Direct Farm Ownership Program, is designed to support and encourage people just like the Sczepaniks to settle in rural areas and either farm or ranch, or both.

Immediately, Tina contacted FSA and they completed an application. In order to qualify for the funding, they first had to be rejected by conventional funders.That part was easy. Tina simply explained her need to local banks, and they wrote her a letter verifying she would not qualify under their guidelines.

Although the program is available to all Americans, there is a set-aside of funds earmarked especially for minority applicants. Because Tina is Hispanic, they qualified under the set-aside, and were approved in the summer of 2003. With a guarantee of funding, they began looking in earnest for the ranch of their dreams. Through one of those strokes of perfect timing, they learned from friends of a ranch that was soon going to be put up for sale, but had not yet been listed.

The ranch was 140 acres, and included a frame house. The house had been built in the 1930's, then added onto twice. It had fallen into some disrepair, but it was in good enough condition to merit renovation. Three middle-aged siblings had inherited the property upon the deaths of their parents. None of them lived close enough to the ranch to want to keep it, but they had grown up there, and they wanted it to go into the hands of a family. They quickly accepted Kirk and Tina's offer.

Working closely with helpful staff officers at the Farm Service Agency, Tina and Kirk structured their financing into two loans. They used the acquisition loan to buy the property and finance a portion of the repairs on the house. That loan had a term of forty years, at an interest rate of 3.75%. They also took out an operational loan for seven years at 5.25%. The second loan financed the remainder of the renovation of the house, as well as fence repair and the purchase of cattle and equipment. No down payment was required for either loan, although the couple did put down some earnest money and paid a portion of the cost of the survey.

When they closed on the property, the real work began. They made the money stretch by doing a substantial portion of the repairs on the house themselves. Kirk's construction skills, and his relationship with vendors, were a definite benefit. Everyone in the family, including the children, helped with the renovations. Tina sums it up, "Essentially, we just gutted the house and rebuilt it from the studs out."

That work took several months, but finally, in September 2004, the family moved into their new home. For all three children, life on a ranch is a wonderful adventure. They have room to roam, and opportunities to make a real contribution to the family as they help their parents put things in order.

Joseph, now 12, is working on business ideas of his own. He plans to participate in a youth business opportunity program of FSA, which allows young people from ages 10 to 20 to borrow up to $5,000 to start a business. And Tina's father has taken responsibility for one field, where he has already planted a large garden to keep the family in vegetables. Tina laughs, "He's out there all the time on the old tractor that came with the house. He's having so much fun."

Meanwhile, Kirk has rebuilt some of the fences on the property, and has moved his three horses into their new home. His pride in their ranch, and in his wife, is evident as he talks about their new life. "You know, I'm the one who knows about ranching, and cattle and horses. We can make this a wonderful place. But it never would have happened if Tina hadn't been so determined, and gone out and found this program."

2004 (c) Jillian Coleman Wheeler

This article is condensed from New American Land Rush: How to Buy Real Estate with Government Money, by Jillian Coleman Wheeler (c) 2004. For more information, to go: http://www.NewAmericanLandRush.com For more about grants, visit: http://www.GrantMeRich.com You may reprint this article, if you credit the author and include this resource box.  Please notify the author of publication information:  jillian@grantmerich.com

There is something emotionally charged about the buying and selling of New York high-end real estate. How else to explain the juggernaut of reality TV shows about high-end brokers?

After 30 years of marriage, Sharon and Michael Newman decided it was finally time to move from the Catskills to New York City.

On blocks near Kissena Park streets are quiet, houses are small, and the electricity that charges the atmosphere in downtown Flushing is nowhere to be found.

A five-story, seven-bedroom house in Brooklyn Heights has sweeping views of New York Harbor and the Manhattan skyline.

Demand is so intense that there are waiting lists in some buildings, and a few landlords report that eager renters are even bidding up rents.

Sales at the very high end of the market barely missed a beat in the recession. But that prosperity hasn’t yet trickled down.

A Flatiron condo, a Midtown South co-op and a Brooklyn Heights carriage house.

A four-bedroom ranch in Montclair, N.J., and a four-bedroom colonial Cape in Babylon, N.Y.

For a century, Roosevelt Island housed a grim penitentiary. It was demolished in the 1930s.

More borrowers are opting for fixed-rate loans with terms other than the standard 30 or 15 years, especially when it comes to refinancings.

Two more glass skyscrapers are added to a group of towers on the waterfront of Long Island City.

Insurance coverage for a co-op unit; when a tenant is ‘blacklisted’; a co-op is smaller than estimated.

The market for $500,000-to-$600,000 houses in Westchester has become especially active.

A shaky real estate market means more sellers are providing buyer concessions, from gift cards to help with paying property taxes.

Houses of worship are adaptable to residential and other uses as congregations dwindle.

Nearly two million Americans could benefit from mortgage relief from the nation’s biggest banks, as part of a broad government settlement to be announced on Thursday.

A cold war-era satellite relay station is for sale in California after a Silicon Valley mogul gave up on plans to turn it into a weekend home.

How can I make my front porch more appealing to buyers?

Court hearings meant to protect New York homeowners from foreclosure are hopelessly slowed by endless paperwork and requests for additional information.

The Bay Area and Silicon Valley expect the windfall from the Facebook stock offering to make their in-demand region even hotter.

The house, designed by the architect Eric Fisher, looms over the street like a big industrial arm.

A town house in Dallas, a midcentury modern in Rhode Island and a Tudor in Denver.

Prices in some parts of the country are still off by as much as 25 percent from their 2007 peak.

Trinity Church is the largest landlord in Hudson Square and is part of the effort to rezone the area to residential from manufacturing.

Rising oil prices and a boom in shale exploration are leading companies to add office space in the Houston area, most notably Exxon Mobil.

Ms. de França is the president and chief executive of Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, which focuses on new residential developments.

Meet the real estate broker’s interns: an ambitious group willing to do anything, earn nothing and wake up early on a Sunday to fluff the couch cushions at open houses.

A Flatiron condo, a Midtown South co-op and a Brooklyn Heights carriage house.

A four-bedroom ranch in Montclair, N.J., and a four-bedroom colonial Cape in Babylon, N.Y.

Homes in Dallas, Rhode Island and Denver.

Compare the cost of renting and buying equivalent homes.

For recently divorced men, a new breed of decorators offers help navigating a strange new world.

Plants that light up the winter garden can be found at Broken Arrow Nursery in Connecticut, which has long been a favorite of gardening geeks.

A sister in need drew the painter Beverly McIver back home to North Carolina, unaware that a new beginning was in store for both of them.

A jewelry designer finds striking new objects for storage.

Timothy Sakamoto and Jochen Repolust are part of the small but growing niche making mobile apps focused on specific works of architecture.

To promote an auction of 20th- and 21st-century design, the interior designer Stephen Sills has created a preview exhibition in an apartment at the Apthorp.

Fishs Eddy now sells plates acquired from the archives of the now-defunct Syracuse China Corporation, many more than 100 years old.

The designer Russell Greenberg creates custom baby rattles with ends shaped like profiles of mom and dad.