# Cabela's brokers ranch sales



## g/o (Jul 13, 2004)

Cabela's brokers ranch sales
Associated Press
Published Sunday, December 17, 2006

NEWELL, S.D. - Three whitetail deer bounded across an alfalfa field and disappeared into the trees along Horse Creek, as if on cue to prove Greg Smeenk's point.

Smeenk and Joe Schreiner were riding in Smeenk's pickup on a tour of Schreiner's Timber Creek Ranch, which Smeenk is helping to sell. Smeenk said the ranch, along heavily wooded Horse Creek, offers an excellent combination of land suited for both production agriculture and hunting, including plenty of whitetail.

That combination drew interest in Schreiner's 6,754-acre ranch from throughout the nation, including an offer from a prospective out-of-state buyer.

That nationwide interest, and the impending sale, didn't happen by chance.

Schreiner's ranch, previously owned by longtime area resident Harold Snoozy, was listed with Cabela's Trophy Properties, a new nationwide listing service for recreational ag land.

Greg Smeenk, left, and Joe Schreiner of Newell, stand on Schreiner's Timber Creek Ranch. It's a piece of property that was listed for sale with Cabela's Trophy Properties, a new nationwide listing service for recreational ag land. Associated Press 
Dakota Properties of Spearfish, owned by Jeff Garrett, handles all of Cabela's properties in South Dakota. Smeenk is an associate broker for Dakota Properties.

Cabela's Trophy Properties is an example of the growing phenomenon of affluent people, many from elsewhere, who want to buy land to hunt and fish on, Smeenk said.

Cabela's Trophy Properties grew out of Cabela's chief executive officer Dennis Highby's own frustration a few years ago when he was looking for recreational property to buy and couldn't find any national listing service for such property, according to Dave Nelson, manager of Cabela's Trophy Properties.

Launched in February 2004, Cabela's Trophy Properties now has nearly 700 properties worth almost $750 million listed in the United States, Canada and Belize. It has brokers throughout the U.S., as well as Canada, Mexico, South Africa and Belize, Nelson said.

Properties range from $15,000 to $15 million, he said.

Cabela's Trophy Properties' fall catalog lists 18 farms and ranches for sale in South Dakota, including the Black Hills area, along the Missouri River and in East River. The most up-to-date listing is carried on Cabela's Web site.

The service is a natural way for the outdoor retailer to tap into the burgeoning recreational ag-land market.

"Ranchland right now is very hot," Nelson said. Some of Cabela's customers want land as an investment or as a way to avoid capital-gains taxes, he said. But most buyers want land for their own outdoor recreation. "Our bread and butter is the hunter and fisherman," Nelson said.

Hooking up with Cabela's was a natural for Smeenk, too. Smeenk, a longtime Butte County rancher, has been selling real estate for 3½ years, and last fall, he joined Cabela's Trophy Properties.

"They can reach out and touch a market that somebody like me could never do," Smeenk said. "They're doing it on a national scale like a local multiple listing service."

Most of the buyers don't have to make a living from the ranchland they acquire, he said. "Most of these outdoor people have their money already."

Typically, they buy a ranch, and either hire someone else to run it, or they lease it out, Smeenk said. They come out for a few weeks every year to hunt or fish or go snowmobiling.

Smeenk said he has several ranches in this region listed with Cabela's. He has sold a few others, but the Schreiner ranch will be his biggest sale.

Although Schreiner declined to reveal the price offered for his ranch, it was listed in Cabela's catalog at one point for more than $2.1 million, about $318 per acre, on average. However, that price was still far below the $590 per acre paid for a Cheyenne River ranch last spring by two Florida men.

Using the land strictly for ag purposes doesn't justify those prices, Smeenk said. "These people buying these hunting ranches don't necessarily care about the prices."

Although Schreiner's ranch offers plenty of whitetail deer and wild turkeys in the woods along Horse Creek, it is also a good ag-production place, Smeenk said. Schreiner has been running about 170 Angus cows and between 500 and 600 yearlings. The ranch includes 640 acres of farmland, more than half of it irrigated. The farm ground produces 1,000 tons of alfalfa each year, Smeenk said.

Smeenk said the boom in ag land is being driven by recreation and residential development, with much ranchland near the Black Hills being split into 20- and 40-acre lots.

Schreiner is experiencing the land boom up close for the second time. Originally from Montana, he had a small ranch in the Stillwater Valley between Columbus and Absarokee. His neighbors included actor Mel Gibson and the founder of Montana Silversmiths. Tom Brokaw and actor Michael Keaton had ranches farther up Stillwater Creek.

Land prices rose, allowing Schreiner to sell his small ranch in Montana 10 years ago and buy a bigger spread in South Dakota.

Now, Schreiner said, "The billionaires are pushing the millionaires out of Montana."

The recreational-land boom now is rippling out to western South Dakota, Schreiner said. "It's just been a 10-year period to get here."

Although Schreiner wonders how long the ag-land boom will last, he has no regrets about selling his place as a combination ag and hunting ranch.

"I learned a long time ago, don't fall in love with nothing," Schreiner said. "You've got to look at the economics."


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## Hunter_58346 (May 22, 2003)

:stirpot: :stirpot: :stirpot:


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## DJRooster (Nov 4, 2002)

Money changes everthing!


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## djleye (Nov 14, 2002)

uke: uke: uke:


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