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| Good evening all, I am new on this forum but I have read through it several times over the years mainly for tips on repairs or equipment adjusting.
I am looking for advice, I am a 32 y/o guy who has been farming since he was 9 years old. The guy that I help is a family friend, and realistically a grandfatherly figure to me. He has been by my side through all of my major life accomplishments and even failures. He has been as supportive as my own parents and I really do not know where I would be in life if I did not cross paths with the farm. He is in his 80's now and it is mainly, my Dad who is retired now and I who does the farm work now. We Farm approximately 450 acres, and it is something I have true passion for. The guy that I have been helping for is looking / wanting to get out of it. Three years ago he asked me to be in on the business which was essentially me handling all of the grunt work while he handles the finances and most of the paperwork. His family does not have any interest in the farm at all.
I could see he is tired of farming and wanting to officially retire but now here is my predicament. Taking over is an extreme cost burden, and not one that I can bare on my own but have some ideas on where to start. There is potential to get financing for it I work full time, so does my wife but we have a house, kids and other expenses with roughly 20k in savings. The guy I help said that he would rent the equipment to me and if I decide to buy the equipment he would put whatever I paid into rent towards the purchasing of the equipment. Which would likely be 350,000 after doing my research. I wish I would've truly planned for this 10 years ago heck even, but I was dumb, even then I'd still be in this spot.
I have heard of one story, where a farm hand was in a similar situation and the farmer he worked for did a 'seller finance' type of thing where the farmer was given a portion of the profits until the guy could cover the costs on his own. Is there anyone on here who has done that, and has advise for something like this. Would it be too much to ask for, would that be disrespectful? I don't feel like it is and the worst that could be said is no, and I would make it worth his while. I have some equity in my house and was going to look into a HELOC type of loan but that would maybe get me 100,000. I know our inputs are at least 150,000 depending on the year and costs of ferts, fuel, ect.
Also is your farm in an LLC? It seems there is some financial benefit's when it comes to that.
Thank you for your time
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Farm Hand to Farmer (Seeking Advise)
