RE: Finding rural property with a Buyer’s Broker.
Dear potential buyer,
My wife and I research the internet for information on our economy and we both feel such opportunity is fortunate. Our local newspaper is terribly biased, as is the mass media at large. Information is king.
When I read survival or alternative living comments I find them interesting and generally accurate. But this information also is typical for its genre, and a little incomplete. In other words, some updating is in order, if I may humbly state. More and better advice.
My words here will hopefully aid you in finding the right parcel of land: real estate for
survival. During the Great Depression, many people survived by growing their own food. They moved back to the family farm. Nowadays there are far fewer family farms to run home to, and many more people. You need to find your survival land while there is still time.
I believe my information is paramount. For 31 years I’ve dealt with persons who want to buy forested land, lands which are adaptable as farm, garden or survival acreage.
What in the World is a Buyer’s Broker?
A person seeking land should be aware of the option of using a Buyer’s Broker.
This is what I am selling in the marketplace—my services as a Buyer’s Broker. In real estate, a buyer wants a good deal, but he also needs accurate information. This ACCURATE information would more likely come from a Buyer’s Broker rather than a traditional listing broker. A Buyer’s Broker is under contractual obligation to give you accurate information. No such contractual arrangement exists with traditional listing brokers—they work for the seller. I would work for you.
The Buyer-Broker contractual obligation is what is important in your case, especially. You
hire me to represent you, the client, via legal contract. I will be your guide through your challenge of finding surivial land. With a Buyer’s Broker, you have a leg up. You will not be a “babe in the woods.” You will not be like a customer in a huge unfamiliar store, walking endlessly, trying to find a product, and no one there to answer your questions or help you.
Permit me to offer you a second perspective. A city dweller or a person with means who desires a change thinks, and thinks some more. They want to get out, find some land, get a farm. But they have no idea how to proceed. City real estate brokers are too busy, fast-talking or uninformative.
How will this person proceed? Working with traditional brokers puts you, the buyer, at a disadvantage. You need information. But information gathering is a long process. There is a learning curve. Unless the person has experience, he will be very, very busy mastering the learning curve to find his property. Or perhaps he will be a ”sheeple” person who goes with the flow. These non-thinkers learn the hard way, and end up failing or just proceeding the hard way up the hill.
To me there are enough things that end up the hard way as opposed to when you can take short-cuts you indeed take them. The Buyers Broker, if a good one, is a short cut, an expert guide. Also, the price ends up costing you less anyway. He is more likely to get the discount, whereas you cannot (generally).
An additional perspective is to look at a Buyer’s Broker as a specialized middle man. (All brokers are middle men, as you know.) If I were in your shoes, contemplating this challenge of finding escape property, I think it would be very beneficial to use the middle man. This is true especially if you are new to the task. Consider that you will literally be on unfamiliar ground. Yes, you can eliminate the middle man sometimes and save money--maybe. Yet maybe not, because later it can cost you much more in time, money and aggravation. It’s playing the odds. Remember, a Buyer’s Broker is obligated to present truths in his area. If he does not, he is had--and will lose in court to you. The Buyer’s Broker takes on risk to a greater degree… the obligation to provide accurate information to his client.
Now if you have lots of time to “do-it-yourself”: to go into areas around our county and do all the studying, scout out all the deceptions and truths, figure out why sellers are selling and if they are hiding something—well, that is your decision, and more power to you. You are taking on the risks. Just don’t complain when later you find out you paid too much, or you easement is faulty, or your land floods, or something is wrong with the house, or there is a mine 2 miles away, or the snow is so deep that you cannot live there year round, or that your trees are being eaten alive by gypsy moths--these are some of the things a Buyer’s Broker might inform you of. I was once in your shoes, and forewarned is forearmed, to use
an old cliché.
I wonder if a Buyer’s Broker can also be likened to a line or buffer of protection. I myself tried to find one in Florida, once. The problem as I see it is to find a Buyer’s Broker with the qualifications you need and want.
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So, finally I am through with my introduction. I talk a lot. But you see, I
want to give you information. And there’s more! The following sections will cover
Qualifications
1. A real estate professional specializing in remote land for over 31 years. I have sold everything from 1-10 acre parcels to square miles to whole lakes.
2. Aware of the land fragmentation going on in my region of the UP (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan, and its consequences. In fact, I want to write a book.
3. To help counter land fragmentation, I have proposed a million acre park
4. 2006 bid for state representative
5. Environmental activist, in particular concerning sulfide mining.
6. In a cut-throat business I claim odd-ball status. Uniqueness.
7. I walk the talk. My wife and I own 80 acres in the woods. We garden, nurture an orchard, cut our firewood from our own trees.
8. My web site is full of information as to what I do. www.richardhendricksen.com
Choices of Land
This land of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is not for everyone. It’s been called God’s Country, and also the Great White North. I urge you to investigate climatological and geographic data about this area for yourself. Do your own due diligence, as it were, before
deciding that you want to buy here.
For starters, here are some UP characteristics you may include in you look at the UP, as you compare this area to other locations across our great country. Of course, each region carries its own positives and negatives. These characteristics are mine, and just intended to give you start:
Here in the UP you will have:
3. Long, bracing winter s. Things quiet down in winter out in the woods. The snow comes early and stays late, and preparation is necessary.
4. Low population density (300,000 for entire UP)
5. Large public land ownership-- nearly 50% (highest east of Mississippi)
6. Process of despoiling underway. This involves timber company fragmenting and its history (closest to wilderness than elsewhere but changing)
10. Soil quality is not exactly like Iowa’s
So, if I were a person searching our country and wanting to survive (my heart would go out to that person)…. that is, to grow most of my own food like during the Great Depression or as many Russians did after the Cold War or as Cuba did when they had nothing else.. What would I do?
Questions a Broker would most likely ask?
Questions I ask you as the broker include: Do you have a family? How old are you? Can you learn? How much time do we all have? How much money (?) do you have?
Do you have children to care for? How about your spouse’s attitude? I have seen many a wife destroy their husband’s dreams. Kids need to go to school. Age: can you work, many people are good bluffers. Knowledge: some people have left after arriving because they aren’t realistic and cannot learn. Time: will our economy collapse quickly or in slow-motion?
Money: this little nasty word is still applicable. The broker, if honest and true, needs accurate information in order to make decisions for you (that is: this in return determines what information is presented to you). He does not get paid unless he’s successful, although he may charge some non-refundable up-front fees which is fair. The specific amount is negotiable depending on the specific buyer: personality, prices, land type, knowledge, willingness to do work, etc. \
I could and have had hundreds of choices to show buyers, but there is no way this can occur, as time is limited. I could burn a buyer out with choices, keep his head spinning here and there. I’ve done it before and it’s not pleasant to see. They end up going home dizzy. I did this to a couple of attorneys once, husband and wife. I heard from him 10 or so years later. He wished he had done something then with me. I spent 2.5 days with them… I think.
The Guinea Pig
Use me as a test case. Your questions are extensive, one answer leads to another. First, learn about me. Visit my web site, look at my references. Go to my picture gallery, scroll down, get an idea of the magnitude of this gallery. Study that sequence. Use that same knowledge you learn about me and apply it to others, or hire me. Understand this. But then go to your area desired and find someone like me.
The Law
What is it about real estate law that you need to know as you search for your land? Real
estate is a regulated industry, and you will be encountering this industry, and its standards and practices. A Buyer’s Broker such as myself will help you navigate in this world,
to understand some of its laws. This may answer some of your miss directions or questions or disappointments.
For example: when a real estate agent does not tell you
about a “better property”, is that because
1. you did not ask him or
2. is he not getting paid for information or
3. is he getting a better deal with another property
4. something else, maybe he just made a mistake
It appears to me that buyers today fail to recognize that without a Buyer’s Broker agreement, real estate law specifically treats them as a customer, not a client. And this legal distinction carries practical consequences. Are you just a dumb idiot? It’s a sad day in hell for you. The broker could have told you that you were a dumb idiot…..Ah, but you would not want to hear that, and you would walk out the door huffing and puffing your chest, thinking how dare someone tell me the truth… So, the game is played. But the smart buyers, the serious buyers, commit to a Buyer’s Broker. They become clients, whereas the dumb people remain customers, paying more and getting less.
You see, a Buyer’s Broker is obligated to tell you of all choices. It is an implied obligation. Some would even say it is not “implied” but “mandated”. It’s a curious principle to me. The courts would enforce it for your benefit…. That’s why a Buyer’s Broker would tell you, cause he does not want to be sued and lose….. unless he made an exception.
Go to the web, and search “buyer’s broker”. It will give you a host of information. Compare and go to my web page and read up on buyer’s broker. Understand the word “exception”. I realize this can be complex, but who cares-- go for it. You are the one buying land. It is your hopes and dreams of escape, survival, self-sufficiency. It is your money. Don’t waste it. I say: demand honesty.
Responses to your story
In your Missouri area, if you know there are beef cattle around do you think the mutant motorcycle zombies know too. Would you get off the beaten trail to evade these zombies. Good neighbors are imperative there, I would think. I read you bought your farm.
We had a terrible time with the round headed apple tree borer. We directly lost 6 young beautiful apple trees, and will loose another 8 or so next year. Do you think we are learning something the hard way. Yep.
A 300 ft well hum, sliced bread. We have a 341 ft well, a friend calls our water sweet, but within 1 miles springs bubble out of the earth, pure clean water. It is amazing to see these brooks, maybe one foot across. Look on my web site, the gallery. You have to know water rules or customs, pitfalls and advantages. What do you think the Indians used to drink… tea. Here in the UP. we have problems with mining. You have to know about it too.
In my web site, I give lots of clues. Good Luck. Do a web search on buyer’s broker real estate (area)
You have some statements in this newsletter I’d like to comment about, should you care.
When comparing the property boom (real estate Balloon) in parts of the country, What do you think of the UP of Michigan? I don’t know what other parts of the country prices are like. I have not looked at other national areas close enough--- except I have never seen anybody like myself anywhere else. I am sure there are others who are similar. It would be interesting and exciting to compare to me, observing people trying to survive and find their way.
I think buyer’s broker is on the cutting edge in real estate.