Omaha daily bee., 1909-01-03
TIMELY REAL ESTATE GOSSIP
Farm Lands Business Record Breaker
for Year 1908.
PEOPLE HUNGRY FOR INVESTMENT
Fight for Switching Instead OF Local
Rates On BELT Line Important
20 Local Real Estate
Co., Men.

D. .|
While the year Of 1905 undoubtedly made
y record in. the offices Of many firms hand
ling farm lands. 1909 will see more farm
land handled than ever before and Omaha
IL widely known sas. a market for farms
and ranches, which the dealers here sell
TO clients in all parts Of the country.
This is the opinion Of ]. H. Osborne of
the Osborne-Hansen company, who has just
returned from a trip TO the Dakotas, which
makes about forty trips he has made to
South Dakota during the year. his firm
having sold in the west. 27 farms ranging
from twenty acres to 100 acres in size.
Land hungry" says Mr.. Osborne,
simply crazy for western farming lands,
the people will buy old, improved places
at 500 to 125 per acre; they will take i-
rigated tracts or tracts which some day
will be irrigated or lands which have been
shown to be adapted to dry farming.
IT do not believe l know of many acres
in either Nebraska or South Dakota which
will be idle long. The people want every
acre and mean to make something grow on
all kinds Of land under all sorts Of condi-
lions. The work Of the state experiment
stations has inspired. confidence in land
buyers who have seen that good crops can
be produced in sections where a few years
ago no land buyer would venture. The eX-
pertinent station has gone into such places
and grown good crops by handling the
lands as they should be handled. The land
buyer knows what he is buying when he
gets a western farm-h knows what he
will have to do If the land rays dividends
and this knowledge is valuable to the
dealer. The lands are drawing many people
into Nebraska and the coming year would
seem to hold much promise, as the crops
have been, better and the old farmers will
have more money and put a share of 1t
at least into the new lands of the west.
We look for the greatest year in the his
tory of the state for farm land selling,
the last year being a record-breaker with
many Omaha firms"
At the rate new factories and ware
houses, implement houses. car shops and
cement block plants are locating In Omaha,
real estate dealers must keep a sharp watch
TO furnish the new firms with desirable
sites and there is more than usual interest
in business property, especially in that To-
Gated on tracks. without a doubt, the com
ing OF fifty-five new warehouses, factories
or stores to Omaha during the last year
one each week.-Mrs. made the real estate
business better and, according to the deal
tTSt dultu EtbN ~ lHt buSAhO1o o. N
when it was needed. When the belt line
switching cases are finally decided by the
Nebraska Railroad commission scores OF
desirable factory sites viii be made avail
able. Belt line property is held by almost
every dealer in Omaha who has any con-
siderable list of property. But these lots
or acreage tracts have not been favorably
considered by prospective buyers, because
to locate out on the belt line and pay a
local railroad rate into Omaha on the
products and a "local" from Omaha out ia
the plant, meant the factory might just as
we'll be located twenty-five miles out, and
the railroad facilities looked bad. But there
is now little doubt about the case before
the State Railroad commission. in which
business men seek to have a schedule of
switching charges enforced instead OF
local rates. to and from points far out
on the belt line. The ruling of the COM
mission will be awaited with the utmost
interest by real estate dealers. The case
grew out of the situation at Ralston, where
a real estate firm located several factories
and then the railroads refused a switching
rate and gave notice Of putting in a local