What’s in a Fence?
Jun 11th, 2008 by Kevin
When many investors buy land to build that second home typically the infrastructure is already there. Roads, ditches, etc. Most take this for granted, but in places like Nicaragua and other Central American countries there is often hard and continuous work to build and maintain this infrastructure. Take for instance, something as simple as putting up a fence. Of course there are the physical aspects of actually building it, but what does a fence symbolize?
With our early stage Las Laderas Development in northwestern Nicaragua on the Cosiguina peninsula, putting up a fence is no small undertaking. With 200 acres of land over foothill terrain, (for us this turned out to be over 3 miles of fencing) that can be a daunting task, but its is one of the first things you can and should do as a responsible land owner on any development initiative, after you have the boundaries surveyed and the property titled.
What is the importance of a fence in a land development such as this?
- It is a cost effective and incremental step forward to add value to the property
- It establishes ownership and a presence
- It establishes and protects the property boundary
- It allows you or a potential investor/buyer to walk parts of the boundary to get a feel for the land
- It creates a fire barrier (clearing a 2 foot wide boundary on each side of the fence will often stop advancing fire)
Now if you have interested buyers, they can visibly see the boundaries of the property, and from our own experience this is important. When we visited the property ourselves as buyers even with the help of 2 land surveyors, it was difficult to establish the exact boundaries. Imagine how this might impact a buyers experience?
Building a fence is a start, but many of the virtues of a fence can only be attained with a cuidador or watchman on the land. Hosting and employing a cuidador on your land is likely one of the most valuable things you can do for your current or future investors. A cuidador can:
- Watch/monitor and to some degree enforce the boundary
- Maintain the fence
- Help prevent removal of valuable trees from within the boundaries
- makes ownership and presence real
- act as guide to assist you and/or potential investors navigating the property
- establishes a partnership for future work that will be required on the property (clearing lot lines, unfavorable underbrush etc)
In the end a fence is just a set of sticks with some wire, but it is one of the first things you will need to do to be both a responsible land owner as well as a good neighbor.
