Answers · Comparing Your Options
Should I use an FSA loan or a private lender?
FSA direct farm ownership loans are the cheapest farmland money available — take one if you qualify and can wait. The costs are time (often 60 days to many months, and funding can run out mid-year), loan caps ($600,000 direct), eligibility rules, and paperwork. Private money is for when those constraints bind.
The Farm Service Agency exists to put farmers on land the commercial market will not finance, and its direct loan rates are set below market — sometimes dramatically so, with special down-payment programs for beginning farmers at even lower rates. No private lender competes with that pricing, and we will not pretend to.
The constraints are real, though. Direct farm ownership loans cap at $600,000 ($2,251,000 guaranteed through a bank, as adjusted annually). You must be unable to obtain credit elsewhere, meet experience requirements, and farm the land yourself — FSA is for operators, not investors. Applications queue behind annual funding allocations, and a complete file can still sit for months waiting for money to be appropriated.
The two also diverge on purpose: FSA finances owner-operators; Turnrow finances non-owner-occupied, business-purpose deals — investors, landlords, and operators buying through entities for lease-out. If you are a qualifying beginning farmer buying your own home place, start at your county FSA office, not with us.
The Turnrow angle
Where Turnrow fits: purchases above FSA caps, investor and entity deals FSA cannot touch, and deadline purchases where a months-long queue means losing the farm.
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