Price of largest land offering in California—50,000 acres in Bay Area—drops to $68 million
The price of a massive, private and mostly untouched property in the Bay Area that stretches across 50,500 acres has dropped to $68 million, according to California Outdoor Properites.
The N3 Cattle Company Ranch, originally listed at $72 million, is for sale for the first time in 85 years. The land, spanning four counties, is the largest land offering in California, according to listing agent Todd Renfrew of California Outdoor Properties.
Located just south of Livermore, and east of Oakland and San Jose, the wild land encompasses 80 square miles, bigger that the nearby city of San Francisco.
The ranch sits as it has for hundreds of years, according to the California Outdoor Properties listing.
“It’s pretty much untouched,” Renfrew told the Sacramento Bee in an article last summer. “It’s what it looked like 1,000 years ago.”
The property features diverse terrain, vegetation and important watersheds and creeks. The working ranch has a four-bedroom main house, a bedroom annex, bunk house, horse barn, shops, four cabins for employee housing and an additional 14 hunting cabins.
There are 200 miles of private roads for hiking, trail running, mountain biking, hunting and riding ATVs.
The property is home to lots of wildlife, such as elk, deer, pigs, mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, quail, turkey and doves.
The sellers are two sisters, Sandra Naftzger and Natalie Naftzger Davis, who are fourth-generation ranchers, Renfrew said. They’ve been operating the ranch for the past 20 years.
California has reportedly shown an interest in acquiring the property to create one of the largest state parks in decades. Introducing his proposed state budget in January, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he wanted legislative leaders to dedicate $20 million from a one-time surplus to help purchase new public parkland, according to the Associated Press.
Although Newsom declined to say where that new park might be, 17 lawmakers, mostly from the Bay Area, have urged him to look at the N3 Cattle Company Ranch.
Since the state is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, Renfrew said Wednesday that he he wasn’t sure how the state’s park plan was coming along.
“I know the coalition of buyers is still very interested,” he told The Bee.
This story was originally published April 15, 2020 at 8:55 AM with the headline "Price of largest land offering in California—50,000 acres in Bay Area—drops to $68 million."
