From: "John Mianowski" 
Newsgroups: alt.invest.real-estate
Subject: Re: Questions about buying land
Date: 25 Feb 2006 16:56:59 -0800
   posting-account=43j70QwAAACdvF6wRMPVPZD290tNI4nn

Below.

JM

Ethan wrote:
> Recently I asked a real estate agent about buying land in a very rural but
> allegedly "up and coming" area.  He sent me listings, adding that I should
> contact him if I were interested in any of them.  The listings were one-acre
> parcels, about $15,000 each.
>
> Then I looked at county assessor office records, and saw that one-acre
> parcels, if I'm reading correctly, have sold in the last two years for $600
> to $2000 each.  As far as I can tell, the properties have the same or very
> similar zoning characteristics, views, type of soil and veg., etc, as the
> expensive properties.
>
> I emailed him about the discrepancy--just asked whether he could explain it
> to me--but I never heard back from him.  Since agents' fees are typically a
> percentage of the purchase price, is he intentionally avoiding me because he
> doesn't want to admit that the parcels are nowhere near the asking price?

He probably didn't want to bother with you because you identified
yourself as being reasonably intelligent, & would take up a lot of his
time vs. the amount of money he things he's likely to make off of you.
"His" parcels are priced by their sellers, who are probably not
particularly motivated to sell.  They, like you, may have heard that
this is an "up and coming" area & figure that they can get a lot more
for their property than its historical value, & are waiting for the
"stupid money" to show up.  If that doesn't describe you, then they're
not interested & neither is their agent.

> I noticed that the expensive parcels are associated with owners who own
> many, many acres in the area.  I'm wondering whether their prime motivation
> is investment, but that they always offer part of that investment at a
> wildly inflated price, just on the off chance that a buyer won't do his
> research.
>
> Second question:
>
> What do people here think about online land auctions, e.g., bid4assets.com?
> I read one horror story about some land someone bought on an online auction
> that was basically a cliff.  Visiting bid4assets just for fun, I saw some
> land I liked, emailed the seller about ten pointed questions regarding it,
> and he failed to respond.  I also emailed the bid4assets general help desk
> some general questions about buying land on their site--questions that were
> not answered in their FAQ--and they failed to respond.  I'm getting the
> feeling there's a lot of hanky panky when it comes to the sale of land, and
> if you're smart enough to ask questions, the seller and everyone associated
> with him run the other way.
>
> What websites are there that give honest, candid info about the process of
> making wise land investments?  I've searched the net quite a bit, but I run
> into a lot sites that are just trying to sell me land.  Even this
> newsgroup--which I've just subscribed to--is full of spam.

Don't believe much that you see on the 'net.  There's a lot of snake
oil out there.  I can't really point you to anything specific (& I'd
recommend that you don't trust me if I did) but it's out there - you
have to read between the lines sometimes, & apply your brain (which you
clearly have) with a healthy dose of skepticism at all times.

Incidentally, I'm in the Real Estate Auction business, but we deal only
with high-end, high-quality stuff, not cheap junk.  From my
perspective, I can tell you that there are a lot of "sellers" out there
who have completely unrealistic ideas about what their property is
"worth".  There are also plenty of "agents" who are willing to pander
to unrealistic sellers, list their property for way more than it's
worth & just let it sit, waiting for somebody with a lot more money
than sense to come along.

JM

> Help appreciated.
> 
> Ethan