00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number three and today the show, we're diving deep into the story of how we found and purchased our meat Eater back forty Farm and advice for finding your own special piece of ground. If you've ever dreamed voning hunting property, this one's for you. Okay, hello folks, and welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, brought to you by on x Tay. The show, we are shifting gears a little bit, as many of you are probably switching gears in your minds too. You know, the holidays are here and the deer hunting season is either wrapped up for you or very soon will be. So well, that said, we're gonna start looking forward a little bit to the new year. Now almost exactly a year ago. At the beginning of last year, I was just beginning a project process that honestly was really daunting. For the first time in my life, I was trying to find a piece of hunting land to buy. It's something that so many of us, dream of, we wonder about, we imagine um. And it's something that I always assumed that when I had the means to do it, to actually purchase hunting property, it'd just be a piece of cake once you could do it, It's just all rainbows and butterflies. But I quickly found out that's not exactly true. There's a lot more to it than I realized. But as most of you know, I was able to find a piece of ground, and together with me either we bought it. We bought the Back forty and it's now being documented for this new show called The Back forty. So today what I wanted to do was pull back the curtains on the story of that search. You know, everything that happened to be getting how we decided the types of places we were looking for, and the struggles I had finding a spot, what the criteria were um and then ultimately once we decide okay, this is the property we want, what all goes into actually putting in an offer and dealing with the landowner and figuring out all these other little bits of minutia that I had no idea about. That's what we're gonna talk about. What I learned along the way, the ins and outs of how we were able to purchase this piece of sixty four acres, and everything you need to do to go through the same process yourself if someday down the road you decided something you want to do. So that's what we've gotten store today. Joining me for the conversation is Joe giz Dick and Sean Kelly, the team members from White Tail Properties who helped me through this process last spring. Uh. This conversation was recorded earlier this year, just after we bought the farm, so as you listen to it, you'll hear me full of optimism and this unknown I don't know what's the what the year has in store. Now many of you do know it was all sorts of interesting things happened, struggles, trials and tribulations, and some some amazing success too along the way. So without further ado, let's take a break to think a couple of our partners, and then we'll get right to my chat with Joe and Sean. Before we do that, though, I gotta give a little plug here to that back forty series I just mentioned, because if you've not seen these episodes over on the Meteor YouTube channel. You gotta check it out. Uh, they're coming along. Our project has been full of, as I mentioned, ups and downs, and I think our videos are showcasing that in a way that's pretty compelling. I might be biased, but our last two episodes of the season just came out. This showcases my ultimate success finally trying to kill Mature Buck, and then the second episode kind of recaps the recovery and some special moments that I shared with my son and my father. Uh, and it's probably my favorite work we've done to date yet. So go on over to the media to YouTube channel. We've got seven episodes out right now. Check it out. Feedback has been great. I think you'll enjoy it, and probably you should watch that first before listening to this episode because it will kind of color what's possible if you were to go down this road. So that all said, a couple of partners too, all right with me? Now on the line is Joe giz Dick and Sean Kelly from White Tail Properties. Thank you guys for taking time to do this. Thank you glad to be here. My pleasure, and uh, it's it's neat to finally be able to have this conversation that we're about to be having because I've talked a lot in past years with folks from white Tail Properties about what the whole buying process is like or what to be thinking about when making the decision to purchase a piece of hunting ground, and there's a lot to it. But I was always hearing about it secondhand, you know. I was always talking to someone who went through it, or I was talking with a land specialist about what that's like. But I had never been in those shoes before UM, and never been able to actually work with someone at white Tail Properties in that kind of capacity. But now I actually have UM. So I'm looking at this thing from a whole new perspective and I'm excited to have this different kind of conversation now. But I guess before we dive into what just has been going on over the past couple of months, I do want to make sure that folks listening, no, you know exactly what it is you guys do with white Tail Properties. So maybe Joe, could you quickly introduce who you are and what you do and then and Sean you can hop on out of that. So I'm Joe gives think I'm based out of Pitchfield Out, Illinois out of our home office. I'm sales manager for white Tail Properties real Estate and also run our auction division, which is ranching farm auptions. UH. For years, I was a sales eight and just like Sean, Sean UH that had the opportunity of those other agents. Jean, Yeah, I'm Sean Kelly. I'm the Southeast Michigan in South central Michigan agent for white Tail Properties UM help people buy and sell land in the south the Machine area. And and that's why you know, you and me start working because I was looking for some ground in that area. And I'm glad it worked out that way because I've really enjoyed getting to chat with you more Sean and getting to work with you on this stuff. And I guess that should be how we just get into it, because over the past five months or so, I've been on this search myself for a small hunting property. So my game plan here today was to to kind of share that story, UM, while you guys are here with me, to interject and give your own perspectives on things, or give different opinions or ideas about things that I did or what other people might go through when they're involved in that own process themselves. Uh, And I think we'll be able to take a look at this one specific example and use it to discuss the larger story and process of buy a property. I think it's gonna be an interesting conversation. So we will start at the very beginning, when I just started looking at this stuff, and we'll eventually get to the point where you know, you and Mi Sean start talking and you eventually started helping me, and when we finally got to the point where we actually closed in a property. And the very first step for me at least, was kind of thinking through and deciding on the criteria as far as what am I looking for in a property, and at a real high level what I had determined And I remember, Sean, you probably remember this. You and me had a conversation about this. But at a high level, what I was looking for was a small property, relatively affordable, probably like thirty to sixty acres the most, in which I could you know, manage and have some quality deer hunting, while also you know, there are being opportunities to to really work the ground, have diversity habitat, and to have um, you know, the opportunity to do a bunch of different things. Because I was looking at this property not just as like I want to just kill big Bucks, but I also wanted something that we could use, you know, through wired hunt, to be an educational tool, something we could use as an example to share with people. All these different ideas about how to manage habitat, how to you know, implement different private land conservation practices of course, how to manage deer, all these different things. I really want something that would be like a a blank canvas, or like the right canvas to draw this this picture on, you might say as an analogy. Um so, so it's a kind of unique set of criteria had. But in general, all the other things that you look for for a good small hunting property applied to so. I was looking for a property, could you know hold dear? So I want some cover. I was looking for a property that I thought I'd be able to access with different wind directions and things like that. I looked at the neighborhood. Who else was around me? Might there other be be other people that maybe would have similar management goals? Um I looked at the place like it doesn't have the potential like to do the kind of products I want so, would there be places to grow food plots? Would there be places to have quality betting airs? All that kind of stuff? Um at a really high level where some of the things I was looking for UM. But I guess I'm curious from your guys's perspective, and maybe Sean, I know we had these conversations, you and me, and you shared a little bit of insight into this. But what are some of the other things that you talk to people about or that you'd recommend people thinking about when they are determining what their criteria should be for what's a good property, right they go out there, they start looking, what are some of the things that you think are important for someone to consider. I think everything that you talked about were kind of like a lot of the basic or the core core things. But you know, somebody just has to sit down and and really do what you did as far as identifying your needs. And what I find is that you know, whether you're a buyer, a seller, or the property, they can be so different from one another. It's it's kind of just that individual needs to sit down and really map out everything we want in the property, like their needs and their wants, and then and start looking for it. Yeah, kind of like where you're going with that that question. Yeah, and what about like on a small like for someone who's coming at it with the budget to do something like this size or something like that. Um. I know you're serious deer hunter too, and you're you're looking at a lot of these places. Are there any other little things you look for on a property that makes you think, oh, this could be a good small property anything like that? Yeah, you know. I think the number one thing is something you talked about, was, you know, identifying your neighbors. And when I say neighbors, not just you know, the people, but the terrain, what what's surrounding you, because you know, and if one of your goals is is big bucks you want to have, you want to be centered in an area where your bucks are gonna reach an older age class. And if if you've got terrain around you that's really difficult to hunt and people can't get in there and or really do a hurt and on the deer herd or the or the bucks that are there, then that's a good thing for your property. If that's one of your needs. You might want deer numbers. Um, but I think neighbors is one of the most important things. Yeah, Joe, Would you add anything else as far as how to think about the criteria process or a specifics, Yeah, I got. I got several suggestions. One one is I would make that list of what you're looking for. Then I prioritize that list what is the most important thing to you to what is the least important thing. Because most guys get into this, okay, they want to pond tre fishing, they want a nice cabin, they want to grow great big bucks, and they want to pay half price. That stuff doesn't exist sometimes, so you've gotta make sure what your priorities are, uh and and get those in a list, and make sure that that's a fluid list. I'm gonna tell you most of the time, when you go to start star showing farms as a land specialist, we'll take a buyer and what will what his list was originally maybe turned completely upside down by the time he settles in on a farm, because after you look at two, three, four, or five twenty farms, it doesn't matter. We'll show you as many as you want to look at until you find that piece that speaks to you in the fit your criteria. So that list is not a hardline outline it is. It is a living, breathing, uh list. So just don't don't be so focused on it has to be exactly all these details, because a lot of times those details that you want you can actually create with your own work and own habitat management. Yeah, that's a great point. I definitely felt like I I kind of had to readjust expectations to myself. Like I came into it thinking, Okay, we're gonna get a B, C, D, E F G. Right, it's gonna be it's gonna be in a great neighborhood. It's gonna be great terrain, there's gonna be opportunity for food. There's gonna be the best neighbors in the world. There's gonna be you know, eighteen million different things that I wanted out of it, and what I found it was kind of interesting, at least in my process at first. It took a while, but I thought that once you make the decision to buy a farm, like you've got the financing, you can do it. I always thought it would be easy to find the right one. That I always thought the holding up was just making them to do it and then once I made the decision that spot would be there and I could just have a lot of fun looking at a couple of places and then pick my Christmas present. And uh, it didn't It didn't end up being like that. It actually ended up being a little bit frustrating because I couldn't find the right fit. I felt like I was looking and looking and looking and and and I'll kind of in a second here walk through some of these specific places I looked at. But I would see something and yeah, this isn't gonna work, and I see another one, and and maybe I'd find one that I thought would be a pretty good fit. And then the next day I found out it was under contract and sold. Um. So it ended up being a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be, just at least because of I was because I was I was in the narrow area, like I had to find something with it. I was trying to find something within an hour of where I live. Um, it was not as easy to find a really high quality property as I thought I was gonna be. Um. And you made some good point, Sean about you know the importance of what's the rest of the area around the property. I had a couple of spots that looked really great as an individual parcel, but they were like islands in the know nothing, and I just had to be tough on myself and say, yeah, the parcel looks awesome, but look at the big picture and how do you really think that's gonna play out? Um, Joe? Are there any other specific things when it comes to when someone's trying to analyze the small property and determine like is this a let's just say their goal is, Hey, I want to manage for older age class bucks. I want to I want to small property. It's gonna make for great hunting, and I want some mature deer on it. That's my number one goal. But I can only get something that's you know, thirties sixty acres. Are there any other specific criteria you suggest thinking about than the ones we've talked about. You know, Sean hit those points really well that the neighborhood as key to train as a giant key. You need to be able to get in and get out without spook and deer if you're playing on olden there on your farm. Uh, some of these are better suited if you have neighbors who don't haunt, or you have a wildlife reserve or something that can't be hutted. Send my goals. You're better off the half the best betting habitat will more of the food habitat. My personal farm is that way. I've got several areas acres around me there are no hunting, but I hold all the food. So uh. That that was just the neighborhood that I ended up in where my house is. That I would probably refer the other way around, but I do. I do enjoy my situation where nobody else is bothering a deer. But when you were going through that, you brought up two key points that I'd like to expound upon just a little bit. One. The first one to be patient, uh, and you learn that just because you decide you're gonna buy something doesn't mean you gotta run out to the grocery store and pick it up. Uh. Be patient, look at several make sure it fits, make sure you find the one that fits that uh meets your criterteria and just perfectly perfectly honest it's pretty to you something that you like and you will enjoy. Number two in your conversation there was if you find the right piece, be ready to make an offer immediately because of it's a right piece, there's a good chance it's a right piece for somebody else to and there's several other buyers like yourself looking. So you have to manage that being patient with being able and ready to strike fairly fast when you find the right one, because it is it is a little bit uh it hurts your heart to know you found the perfect piece and somebody else is already got it. Yeah. Yeah, Well, you know, Sean, you and me had a conversation about this because once I started searching, I started, you know, looking at what white Tail Properties had to offer, and I talked to you on the phone and you mentioned you did have one parcel that was kind of within my range that might be of interest, and and then I started kind of walking you through what this criteria was that I just described, and you mentioned that it's actually pretty hard to find pieces like that that stand in the market very long, right, because if there is a really good piece that hits all that you know, checks all the boxes, they go pretty fast. Right. Is that what you've seen around here? Oh? Absolutely, I mean especially in this this area, it's um there's a lot of hunters looking for that that perfect piece, and when they come up, they're not there very long. Yeah, that's definitely what I what I saw, and I think something that might illustrate some of these different criteria we were looking at and how I thought through It was the first property I went to go look at made the decision like we're gonna buy this. We're gonna buy a property. I pulled up the White Tail Properties website and I started looking at stuff within the ballpark of where I'm at, and I I originally thought I might be able to look into northern Indiana and northern Ohio as well as Michigan. So I started scrolling through and looking at properties in the map, and I saw a small property listed UH with tim woods down in Ohio, and I pulled it up, and right away I saw it was small, but it had lots of cover on it. It was it was twenty seven acres, so it was on the on the very low side of what I was looking at, but it was all like pine trees and cedars and tall grass and just gnarly thick cover. And then it connected into some bigger timber um and some good looking countries. So from like, I looked at the aero map. I kind of liked what I saw from an aero perspective. I looked at all the pictures. I really liked the fact that was it was almost all cover, but there were little openings, little grassy patches where you could put a quarter acre, half acre food plot, that kind of thing. Um, there's a handful trail camera pictures didn't show me much, but it was very intriguing, and it was really affordable. It was on the you know, because of how small it was. It definitely fit within our budget we're working with. So right away I called him up, I said, hey, can I go? Can we go check all this property? He's like, yep, let's do it. And I went and walked it and it was really it was one of those things like you said, Joe, it feels right like it was pretty. It felt pretty to me. I got out there and just had that oh wow, like this just it looked like what you imagine like a brushy, ceedery thick in Iowa, looking like like I could just see a hundred and seventy five year old bucks stepping out and walking towards my stand, and right away I fell in love with it. I started walking like, oh my gosh, there's it's so thick. But also there's these areas there's like paths cut through where this used to be like an old Christmas tree farm. I guess parts of it over the years, so it's all different age classes, um, and big kind of cutouts throughout it where there were these small openings that you could do cool things with. Someone's young, someone's old. It's nice diversity, but you know you could make you could hold dear, no doubt about you could hold dear. And I walked through and I flucked. I bumped like I don't know, fifteen twenty turkeys, and there was a shed antler on the ground, and there's big rubs and all the all those little like light balls were blasting off in my face like this is cool. And I was tempted to say right and then then and now let's buy it, let's do it, um, but I caught myself and I was like, you know what, that's I feel like that's one of those common mistakes that I've heard about, like you've fallen love of the first thing you see, um, Like if you go to pick up a puppy at the store, and you that first puppy that runs up to you and and licks your shoe. Usually it's really easy to say, oh my gosh, that's the one. UM. I was worried that might happen, though, so I tried to like, Okay, I'm not going to make a decision today. I need to go home and think about this um and not be emotional. Is that was that doing something and experience something that a lot of people go with, Joe? Is that a common thing? And is that a common mistake? Maybe? Or am I was I thinking thinking about it too much? It is? But I can tell you if you've been through the process several times, uh, not being your first time, if that you fell in love with it off the bat, you would have made an offer right then and there. You wouldn't awaited because I don't know whether that property sold or not. But yeah, if it feels right, A lot of times it is the right form. But I always tell guys, I mean that if if you're working with a good land specialist, they'll let you know if there's any activity on it, whether I think it's gonna sell, whether I'll people are looking at it in media too, And that can help. God, your decision, but uh God, do both They wait too long when they find the perfect property, just like that, because they figured the first one out can't be yet, the first one I look at can't be perfect, And then the other guys will. We'll jump on it and buy something and then have buyers remorse after they get the closing, or something else comes on the market in a month that's closer to home or a better fit for their needs or whatever. So you're you're gonna lose some you're gonna win something. You just gotta realize you can't take it personally, can't take it. It can't be discouraged by it. I'm just gonna learn from every transaction or non transaction. I'm gonna learn from every property I look at. I'm gonna refine my criteria every time I go out, and I'm gonna work with somebody who's gonna help me refine that criteria. I mean, I'm sure if you look at several part of Sean as you went through, he was all of a sudden, he knows what you want. You don't even have a column, and something comes on the market. He can call you right away and let you know that that that property is on uh, either coming to the market or on the market. He knew about it, so he can help search that down for because he's been able to spend enough time with you to learn what you want. Yeah, and I did have that experience with with Shaun and some other ages because I was kind of looking at all these different regions. So so everyone was really helpful in that kind of way. And with this one in particular. You know, I've been talking to Tim about it, and he did keep me abreast of some different offers coming in, and then that got me a little worried because I had that first interest, and then I was like, Okay, I need to wait, I need to look at least something else, just to have some context, something to compare against, you know. Um. But then another offer did come in. Uh. Fortunately it was at the moment it was like a low ball offer and they didn't take it. So I still thought I had time. So I remember starting to try to go deeper with my research process. And this is a little thing that I started to do throughout this whole, uh, this whole handful month period here that I really did try to put a lot of time behind the research of a neighborhood because like you guys both said, especially when you're going to buy a small property, you know, so much of what's going to happen on your property going to be influenced by who's around you. And if you want to be able to hunt mature box or see a lot of deer or whatever it is you're trying to do, um, it's it's really helpful if the other people around you are on a similar page. And so what I did it's a little creepy, maybe, but I did it. UM was. I started googling all the property owners around that farm. So I would find the names on onyx or like in the tax records, and I would start searching for their name, and then things the keywords related to deer hunting. So I would look for like John Dear, and we'll just say his name is John Deer. I looked for John Deere deer hunting. Or I would look for John Doe. Maybe it's about John Doe hunting, John Doe buck, John Doe big buck. And just to see if like you know, someone had their picture posted on Facebook, or if someone was in an article or whatever it might be. I don't know, just to see what happened, and it actually worked in this case on this property because one of the neighboring property owners got featured in a local newspaper because him and his wife had both killed really big bucks on opening day gun season, and they made the news. So I was thinking, man, this is great, Like I can see that in late neighboring landowner shot two really nice mature box on the same day right next to this place. So that tells me, like, all right, in the general area, there's some good deer um. I also talked to Tim, who was able to talk to the landowner and get me a little bit of information about what the previous owner had done from a hunting standpoint um. And then I also looked at Onyx maps and just looked for names I recognized. Again, this might be a little bit, you know, I don't know if that's Stoker or not, but it's just doing due diligence when you're buying this stuff, and I just want to see, like, do I recognize any names? And I happened to recognize the name of of a of a person who's somewhat known, who I had heard had had a lot of success in this area. The general area and lo and behold this person's properties within like a mile. So that gave me another really big like, oh, and you're in a good area. You know of two different people around here that take hunting pretty seriously and they're doing pretty well. You've got good cover, you got out all these things. Um, is there anything else that you guys have done on that on the research side, Like, because everyone says the neighbor you gotta gotta pay attention to the neighborhood. You need to look for good neighbors. You need to look for that. But it's it's harder than it's easier said than done, I guess is what I've experienced a little bit. Is there anything else you guys have done or heard people doing to learn not Google? Search on Facebook suits searching something we as agents and land specialists do too. If if you call me as a buyer, I'm gonna pride google you a little bit. I'm gonna learn a little bit about you. I want to know what makes you chick and whether what you're saying is anything true. Same way you call me to sell a farm, I made google you. I'm gonna look you up. I'll Facebook, yes, the whole ball of wax just and I don't think it's stock or a shot. I think it's due diligence. I think I encourage everybody to do that when you're looking at those places on Onyx or any other mapping programs that you may use. UM. I I like to look for larger landowners too, especially when you're having a looking for a smaller tract, if you're surrounded by larger landowners and that it doesn't have to be thousands of acres, But if it's larger landowners, uh, it's always better. It's you know, a large land arm may have a couple of four hundred acres, may have two or three people a hunted. Uh. The same may be the case of if it's a forty, so there maybe two or three people hunting that forty. Uh, So you've got a bunch of forties, you're gonna have a little bit different hunting pressure than if you do if you have a bunch of larger landowners around you. So a small parcel in a a larger landowner area is definitely a plum, but they generally don't laugh. That larger landowner will snap them up before they even hit the markets. Yeah, what about you showing anything else as far as researching the neighborhood. No, I think, like I think what you what you did is something that you know, we land specialists do already, Like we're we're familiar with our territories, and like there's you know, certain areas like you know and big Buck Nights that I go to, and like I can tell you what big bucks on what year at the you know, big Buck show were shot in certain areas, And like in my head, like when I'm when I'm listening property or showing property, I'm usually always bringing up like this, this buck was shot here, that was within a mile of this this property. Um the Ladies State cross bow record here, that's within a mile of this property. This guy's you know two year was shot within a mile of this property. And you know, things that you did are things that we all do, I think, And and that's where a lot of our you know, expertise comes in that we've done a lot of that homework and I have a lot of it readily available. Yeah, I will say that was a nice thing to have being able to talk to you and Tim and Tony um in your respective areas. Was the fact that I knew that who I was talking to, you knew what they were talking about. I knew that they were speaking the same language. And the fact that, UM, I think that when you talk to a regular real estate agent who's just trying to sell land, they don't really know what would be a quality area. Which areas are the good ones? Like there was a property I looked at that was not listed with the white tailed properties, just a random real estate agent, and Uh. I talked to this person and I said, Hey, do you know anything about the neighborhood? Do you know anything about the other landowners to have you heard of them practicing quality deer management or anything. I happen to see a sign on one barn, do you know anything about that? Kind of talk to the landowner and the agents like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's really really good area. UM. I've heard lots of great things about this very high quality hunting area. UM. And she's like going on and on about that, and she's like, just last year, I think they killed like seven dough or seven bucks. I think they're like a five point there was a seven point UM. And I'm thinking to myself, Oh, we're not speaking the same language like um, you're yeah yeah. So so I think just knowing who you're talking too and in the lens of looking at this stuff with UH makes a big difference. So it was nice at least with you guys that I knew that you would have a pulse, your finger on the pulse of what was going on in these different regions, and that was I would add to that that I would encourage somebody who's looking to buy to getting gage with a land specialists because they could show anything that's listened that you don't have to talk to the listing agent because the listening agent sometimes doesn't know anything. It's her uncle's or brother's farm or somebody. I mean a lot of a lot of listening agents really don't know much about hunting and recreational value. You need to see that in our listenings. They don't have one aerial photo, one picture, or one tree. I would engage as they buyer with a land specialist like Sean and say, hey, here's what I'm looking for, and I looked at Jane does listing over here? Can you call her? Can we go look at this? Can you can you tell me anything about this area? Because I promise you a guy like Sean knows more about that area than the listening agent at the time. That's why, that's why with our corporation, we bet all these guys to a point, and Sean'll tell you that the interview process is pretty rigorous. We bet all these guys because we want them to be land special. It's not just on what they are listing, but their whole territory, their whole region. We want them to know that inside and that we wanted them to know where every big buck skilled, all the landowners, who the best farm tenant is, uh, et cetera. They we want them to know everything. So I would engage them. If I was a buyer, I would engage somebody I felt comfortable with, someone like Sean, and say, here's what I'm looking for, and I found a couple of these although they're listening with competitors. Can you find information out about them for me? Because the misconception is that you have called the listing agent all time and you don't find find an agent that you're comfortable with and use them as your buyers agent and no additional charge to you. I mean, that's all that's all paid out of the original commission. Most most buyers don't understand that. But if you find somebody you like and trust, stay with that person, they can show you anything. Yeah, that was the biggest Probably Ahama went from me out of this whole process because I didn't understand that. I thought. I thought I had to talk to whoever the listing agent was. And then I thought that if I brought in another agent like I had, someone else mentioned me, Hey, you know, do you need a buyer's agent And the initial reaction was, well, I don't know. I need to talk to like some other people and I don't even know if we want an agent involved, Like does that make things more complicated? Is that going to have like increased fees? Um So? I was initially like resistant to that idea. I thought, I can just find stuff find myself. I'm savvy on the internet. Um, I'll be fine. Uh looking back on it now, after after being now at the end of the process, I wish I had pulled in a buyer's agent like Sean earlier than I did, because it ended up being really really helpful. Couldn't have done it without him Now on the end looking at it, um So, So, Yes, A hund percent agree with that. Now, not only getting a knowledge base, but you're also getting the benefit of knowing for anybody else. If you engage that person, say hey, this is what I'm looking for and it maybe you're looking for sixty acres, but Sean knows a four acres. The guy, so I'll sell a couple of pieces off of it. Now, all of sudden, that's something that never hit the market as a sixty. It maybe hit the market as a forty, but he knows that could be split off and it fits your criteria. The only way to do that is to engage with somebody you trust and believe in and we build that relationship with and once you do that, that guy will go to work for you trying to find something that fits your criteria. Yeah, that brings up another challenge I dealt with, which was because of my small area that I was interested in. I looked at the different options that White Tell Properties had and there were a couple of good options, but they didn't fit my budget. And there's a couple of good options that were a couple of options within my budget but just weren't quite fitting all the criteria had. So I walked I think four different farms that you guys had listed, of which you know there are a couple possibly, but eventually I decided, now I just don't think they're gonna be the right fit. So then I was like, well, what am I gonna do? Now? Where am I going to find something? So I just started like searching every possible online real estate website I could think of, and googling different keywords and going just through all sorts of different filters. And that became like a long, frustrating experience. But I did a lot of searching online trying to find stuff. Do you guys, have you know, any other advice or recommendations as far as finding something or how do you guys go about it? Once you say, okay, we want something in this let's say two county area that we're gonna say that John Doe really wants to farm in these two counties, but you know, there just doesn't There isn't one that white Tailed properties is listed that fits that criteria. What's the next step that you guys would recommend taking? Um either yourselves as a buyer's Asian, if you're working with someone, or if I'm an individual and I'm just searching anything to make that easier. Um, any other ideas other than what I did? I don't know, Sean, Do you have anything you'd you'd suggest? Um? I think what you did is is pretty typical in a good place to start, you know, getting into the white Tail Properties website and and storting out some of the things that you're looking for. And if that doesn't turn up, uh, exactly what you're looking for, there's so many different search engines out there, you know, and also by having like a buyer's agent help you, they can provide you with a number of things, but it takes a lot of mining. You're mining all this all these listings and they're not all readily available in one search engine. So you know, by by doing what you did, you were able to kind of uncover some things and and put them in front of me and then we were able to look at them. And I think that's you know, something that a lot of people do because they'll get frustrated with their agent possibly and they start getting into some of the different search engines and then you know, bringing that information to the to the agent and then they're able to look at it under a microscope a little bit more. What about you Jim. Um. Yeah, A lot of guys start right where you did. Uh. Some savvy buyers, guys who've done this several times. We'll just and if I were buying today in in a territory, I wasn't familiar with the first thing I do. And this that sounds odd. As another agent, as I'd engage a buyer's agent, I wouldn't do all that legwork. I'd have somebody doing it for me, because I promise you when when Sean calls Agent B down the road, he gets more information out of Agent B than you do as as a buyer, all because he's our a relationship with the guy and he calls and says, hey, I've got a buyer looking for sixty acres in Hamilton County. Do you have anything? Goes No, But you know I know John down there, he may have something. Let me make a few phone calls for you. But when when when a buyer's agent engage E gauge is another agent with potential listings or potential something a sale, they know that guy serious. They know they've got a buyer who is going to buy something, and they're gonna jump through hoops on that backside to find something just as well as your buyer's agent is gonna be. I mean, he's gonna go through and uh, Sean went through pry Land watch Lands of America, Google search engines and looking for what bait, what you're looking for to find just like you would. But some people enjoy that process, that the hours and hours of looking. Uh. Some people would rather just call somebody said, hey, find this for me and let me know when I can come look at it. So it all depends on what your overall goals are. If you're a research minded guy like you are, I'm sure Mark, some guys are not that they're more they're not so much process driven as they are in resolve driven. So they're gonna look at Okay, how can I find the form I want the fastest? And that's just say hey, find somebody you're comfortable with this, say find me this, and then they go to work for you. Yeah. Yeah, that definitely I to your point, Joe, You're right. I am definitely processed driven and I did want to get into details and it was it was the first at first, it was really fun getting to search and look at all these places online and thinking about them and looking at the maps and thinking like I even went so far as like each place I look at the arial and I'd be thinking, Okay, your most common win directions here in late October, number November going to be northwest or west northwest maybe west? How would you access this farm? How would you that up? Where do you think this would be happening? So I was like thinking like that level of detail for each one of these places. So that was a lot of fun, like a geek out on that stuff. But it was, you know, two and a half months or three months later, after I'd done this, you know, thirty times, and I've looked at the same properties over and over and over because every time I searched, well, I've seen that one and said no to that. When I've seen that, when I said no to that, like why isn't there something that's gonna work? Um? Then it became frustrating and and I wish I had been talking to Sean at that point because I hadn't looped in Sewan until later, and I think he would probably helped me a lot more get to the end goal that I wanted sooner after the fun before the fund ran out, probably, um, but but yeah, I mean I looked at the four white Tail Properties properties and just wasn't the right fit. But I walked those four, and then I walked another oh, one, two, three, four, five. I think I walked at least another five farms. So there was at least and maybe six I can't remember now, UM, but at least five other places that looked like they had at least potential. I was. I found myself already like having to compromise on my criterial list because there just wasn't that perfect spot yet. But there was one that maybe checked four out of five boxes. I was like, well, I'll at least go and look at it on the ground and see. UM. So I walked, you know, I walked. There was one big one that had a little bit of wet lands on it in the w RP program I think it is, and then there was a bunch of CRP in it, or maybe the whole thing was w RP, but it was some wet lens and some was just more grassy type stuff. UM that had some interesting potential but just end up being a little bit too far away. I walked one property that um was in a pretty good area, but just one big block of thick timber um and it held a lot dear, but it seemed like there was a lot of hunting pressure around it. And also I just didn't feel comfortable and didn't know how difficult it would be to, you know, deal with getting a logging crew in there, and if I could afford that and all that stuff, and I just that wasn't what I wanted to get into. I kind of like the idea of having some open areas already that we could work with. I remember walking a p eeast um that was in a great looking area. Um, this is another one. It was I saw a whole lot of either way too much open space or no open space. It was hard to find that mix of both. Um. So several spots I found were like just a big, wide open CRP field that was next to some really good stuff. And I was thinking to myself, Man, if I could get a good screen in here and plant some trees and you can make it great, but it would be like a six year longer project. UM. So I was like battling in my mind, is it worth trying something like that or should you look for something that's gonna give you a little bit better foundation? Um? One spot I found was a forty two acre piece that had um I think like sixteen or seven acres of of crop field on it in the front, including one that was like totally covered with timber all around it, just a little like one acre triangle on the edge of the timber, really nice little secluded field, and then there's a creek running through it that was really brushy and thick, and then it grew into like bigger open timber and some hills back behind it, and it tucked right into this area that I actually knew about from just some like I originally talked to some guy to pro shop and archery shop who told me there's a great qudium co op in the area and told me about some of the deer they're kill him. And then I found out through I don't know, some acquaintance that such and such person hunts down the road there. And through this whole research process, I found that the neighboring property was up for sale as well, way out of my price range, but this was owned by this other person of this other group of people who are really serious about deer hunting. So all of a sudden, I was like, man, this is the spot we can afford it. It's next to these like super serious deer hunters. It's got nice mix of terrain. So I talked to the agent. This is before I had a buyer's agent, and this was a property that was not listed with White Tip Property. So I just called this guy up and he's like, oh, yeah, sorry, it just someone just put it under contract or like they put in an offer and they're dealing with the financing right now. So I was like a bummer, but he's like, you know, go out and take a look at it, just in case because it was take like a long time for it to close or something. So I walked it. Everything was confirmed, looks great, and long story short, Like a week or two later, the agent gets back in touch with me and says, hey, it sounds like the financing fell through. It's available now you should put it in an offer. So I get really excited. All right, we're gonna do this. This is the spot. Great neighborhood, great diversity, terrain, great access, abc d f G. It's all there. Um And I call him back and I said, hey, I'm gonna take one more walk and then I'm gonna put an offer. I just want to like look at it one last time and then he says to me, oh, sorry, I was wrong. It just closed. So I'm like crushed at this point, Like it was. It was that emotional roller coaster you talked Joe about how you don't want to get too emotionally like caught into it, and that was definitely happened to me. It was just like the ups and downs, super frustrating. So well, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you, I think that that that agent probably dropped the ball a little bit because it's something you were interested in. Uh, we would have encouraged you to make a backup offer, so you can make a backup offer on something that's already under contract and if something falls out of it falls out they missed a deadline, or they can't close, or something happens, then you become the primary contract automatically and it's yours without having to wait for a phone call. I would have encouraged that, and I assumed Sean would have encouraged the same thing, to throw a backup offer in there. And when a seller knows there's a backup offer, they're not always so willing to extend or look through extenuating circumstance for the primary offer. I mean, if they if it's taken, you know, if it's a thirty day close and they're in the ninety days that had a couple of extensions and the buyers seems to be goofing off and not really getting that stuff together, they may just drop that contract and take up with the secondary offer, the backup offer, and then it's yours and you're moving forward. So if you've got something that you like that's under under contract or presumably under contract, there may just be a verbal offer made on it, and they're telling you there's an offer made, aren't under contract. I always encourage putting it a by back up offerate. It's the one you want, make a backup off r on it, because it may become years. It happens more often than not. Well that's what a few other people told me afterwards. It was like, you know what, um, a lot of people put an offer and then the financing doesn't pan out or the uh what do you call it? The not the assess Yeah, that will come back, right, So, so is that something that commonly happens? You know, it's not common common I you know, i'd say, it's maybe ten or fifteen percent of the time that there's some contingency that a contract is terminated. But it happens often enough that if I'm a buyer and I find something I really want, I'm putting the backup offer on it no matter what, just because that's the company I want. If something falls through, and there are myriad of things that can happen in between contract signing and closing, um, that that may put you in the primary spot to be the purchaser of that property. Yeah, yeah, that's that's seems like a good idea, and I probably should have done that. It all, it all worked. Those as are the layers that you peel back. And you know, when we started this process, it's all. This is all the stuff that hits you in the face and you're like wow, And we experienced some of that with the actual purchase of the property that we did get. Yeah, very true. And I was gonna say that that kind of leads us right to what happened next, because um, that morning, right I talked to this other agent. He tells me, oh, sorry, it's not available now, and I'm like stressed out and it's getting late into the spring. And I've been hoping that, you know, we could find a property to purchase earlier this year, so we have lots of time to put a lot of work in already this spring and summer and have stuff ready for the first year of hunting. Um. Now it's getting later and later and later in the year, and I'm stressing, like we're not gonna find me do anything. It's getting so late. Um, I thought this was gonna work out, and it's not. I swear I've looked at everything. But I was like, I'll just go back and look at these stupid search engines one more time. So I go back in there and I look at all the different spots I've saved, and the ones that are kind of like but I put them on my list, is like potential. But I never really fell in love with him. And there was one that I didn't really like all that much because just a few things about just didn't seem to be perfect. But it was like a middle of the road and I thought to myself, you know what, I just need to get out of the house today and look at something and and get really excited about this, or maybe I'll happen to stumble across something else, or maybe this will look better in person that does on the map. Um, I was just kind of gonna low spot. I was kind of bummed, and we're not gonna find anything. So I'm just gonna go out and check the spot out and maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. So get permission to go check out this farm. And as I'm driving to the farm, I passed by the neighboring property and there's a first sales sign on the neighboring property and it says acreage, and I think to myself, huh, that's interesting. I just kind of you can't see a whole lot from the road of this property, but looked like those brushy, overgrown fields, and I thought, well, that's interesting. So I step out onto the property that I'm gonna look at originally, and I'm all right, I'll check this out. But then as I'm walking that, I pull up the aerial map to look at the neighboring property, and right away I'm like, oh man, the neighboring property looks real interesting. So I take a little walk about of the original farm and it kind of confirmed what I thought it was. It was basically a big crp field with a couple of little trees here and there in one little pocket of pines um and in those pines, so I found a bunch of like really good rubs for Michigan, Like these are sizeable, like six seven inch eight inch diameter trees just tore up, and you don't see that here too often Michigan. So that was like, oh, that's a good sign um, which made me think that the neighboring property, which looked a lot better from the other criteria that I mentioned, that's in the same areage, right next door. That's a great opportunity. So I went and I looked at that for sales sign got the phone number, called the agent or the agency for that property, got permission to walk this one, and I walked it and this one started checking the boxes. Um. It was sixty acres, so it was right up there towards the side I wanted. It was within our price range, and it had five or six old crop fields that had been let go fellow, so they're all overgrown with all sorts of junk. So it's actually a pretty good thick stuff but easily reclaimed. Right if I wanted to plant food plots or something I could pretty easily still do that. Um, there was big brushy, thick fence rows separating all that, so it wasn't like it was just one huge open field. These are small little fields that were overgrown timber where I could hang tree stands and stuff like that. And then there's nice rolling, hilly topography to it and a big swamp in the middle. And in Michigan, one of the biggest challenges we deal with is getting a buck past, you know, two or three years old, like you, just most bucks as a year and a half old get shot here. So to have at least from what I found, sean, maybe you've seen something different or maybe you agree with this, but there's got to be something in your area that is special that a buck can get to and survive. So maybe it's a little property that no one's allowed to hunt. Maybe it's a reserve of some kind that's just for nature viewing but no one can hunt it. Or maybe it's a great big swamp that's really hard to get into and kill a deer. Um if you've got something like that, you've got a chance for older age class buck to make it. And this big swamp seemed like that kind of thing. Um So, right away, like I'm walked in, I'm seeing all these things. It's it's got the good cover, it's got diversity of terrain, it's got the swamp which could hold and possibly get a buck to an older age class. It's got access. I could get in here and get two different spots to hunt it. As I'm walking it, I can see, you know, neighboring properties, and I can see one of the neighbors has got a food plot planted, and he's got licking branches put out over over his food plot, like in a fake scrape tree. So I'm like, oh man, this guy takes it serious. That's something that your average deer hunter probably doesn't do. Um So, all of a sudden, like I'm getting excited again. This looks like a good fit. Um And that finally, then is when I got you into the mix, Sean, because after walking in, I thought to myself, Wow, this is the best thing I've seen yet. Probably it just kind of came about by happenstance, at my loast of lows. I happened. I happened upon by chance to find a property that wasn't like even all the searching I did online never came across this property, and turns out it just was no offense to the uh, the listing agent, but it just was not it was it was poorly presented online. There was one single picture. It was an aerial photograph of the property. There was almost no detail about it. Um. It was almost impocult, and I never found it in all of my searching. So I just kind of got lucky that this was just not put out there too terribly well. UM. So I thought, yeah, this looks like it. And then after going back and thinking about things and talk from some people, thought, you know what, if you're gonna put an offer, you might I was realizing at this point I might want to get a professional involved because I didn't really know what I was doing. So that's when I called you, Sean and said, hey, I've been hearing about this buyer's agent kind of thing. Could you help me out with this as a buyer's agent um. And the first step was that you were to come out and look at the place with me, because I thought, for sure, be good, have a second set of eyes on it with me, UM, to see make sure I wasn't, you know, looking at this thing through rose colored glasses, make sure I was seeing the same things, um that anybody else would. So what did you think when you walked it? Um? What were your thoughts from that first um, that first impression. Well, well, the first thing I thought when it actually took me back like when we had first kind of talked and you looked at one of my properties and then you gave me a little bit of criteria and then uh, then I started looking like you weren't really tied into me yet to start looking for you, because you were still in the process of, you know, looking at your own properties. And I did a little research and that was actually one of the I don't know, one of the the fifteen properties. That was the one only one that really stood out to me that that would be in your in your wheelhouse. And when you said that that was the property, it kind of like with a light bulb or like just like a I don't know, just something something went off, So like this is a this is a good property because you identified it. It was one of the ones that stuck in my head as it might be a good property for you because it was you know, when I got there, I was like one of the things I didn't expect was the rolling topography there, and I was like, I was like, wow, that was like an added little bonus to it, because you know, in like you said in the listing, the only picture you had there was an aerial photo and you really can't get a lot. All I got from that aerial photo was that, all right, there's a lot of brushy cover and there was a couple of five acre fields in there that were you know, separated, so it kind of gave me the idea, Yeah, you could go in there and plant food plots and kind of you know, paint the picture however you wanted there. But then there was a lot of natural cover. But when I got there and I saw the rolling topography and the layout, I was I was really impressed with it. I was like, wow, this is a really nice property. I'm surprise that it wasn't sold yet. Yeah, and then that was that was my That was my initial initial feeling. When I got there and I think we walked, I was pretty quiet. I was just kind of taking it all in. Yeah, although I did appreciate the fact, you know, you're pointing out things that I wouldn't have noticed, because one of the things that I'm that I'm going to use this property to hopefully improve on. Is like being able to identify different types of flora, different types of trees. Um, that's something I haven't gotten very good at yet, but I'm trying to. But you were telling me, Okay, that's a cherry tree, and this is such and such tree, and these are red oaks, there's white oaks, and this is some good stuff here. Um, that was beyond some of my my knowledge level. That was helpful. But but another thing that I thought was really interesting that again I was not when I was looking at properties by myself, but when you showed up, you had a folder with a whole bunch of information about it about this property that I had not had access to yet. Could you tell me what it was you came with that, um that we we looked at to learn more about the property before even walking up. Oh, let me see here. When I showed up there, I think I had, UM, I had aero photos. But then I know after the fact we got into the like some of the title work and I looked into, um, some of the tax data before I got there, and uh, the aerial photo that was there. This is what you're talking about the aero photo that we had the property. And then when I got into the tax data, there was information about multiple tax id numbers. Well inside that aero photo. Is that what you're talking about? Well, I was gonna say even before that, what about all the acre oh gosh, acre value website stuff or the soil you brought all these different soil maps that show the soil quality breakdown and a whole bunch of stuff like that. Yeah, there was acre value. UM. You can get a soil analysis map where prints out printed out what types of soil and how many how much of that soil was over what amount of the acreage, And it was a good tool to all, you know, know the soil composition and the layout. Yeah. I thought that was really interesting to see what kind of soil cloud we had. And then I remember, I'm looking here at the folder right now that you gave me. I've got the tax information, the g I s uh read out about the property. UM even had a sample by agreement that I could look at just to see you, Okay, this is what a potential contract would look like if we were going to do this. UM. So that was that was all helpful stuff. UM and I definitely felt just more confident after seeing that, And you seem to think, you know, after walking it, there weren't any There weren't any visible red flags, like everything looked good as we walked it. The only red flag was the fact that why is this thing still here? Like how come it hasn't gotten sold yet? Because it is almost seemed too good to be true? Right right? Is there is there any other I don't know going through that process, Joe, Maybe any things like when you're walking a farm with someone, are there any kind of potential red flags that you look for or specific kind of gotcha things that a lot of people miss because they're excited and they overlook things. Um in my case brought Sean out. We didn't see any red flags. But was there anything that you've experienced in the past that could catch someone up? Maybe? No, you know that you're seeing that those fields have gone follow. I want to know why those fields went follow or they're too small for the farmer? Wasn't expired to RP as it it a permanent use my program like w RP or crap because those all change the values of that ground. But Collins Sean having him walking with you and you probably knew the value. He probably gave you a really good idea to the procet in the market, or it's way over price, or here's what it's really worth or what it will praise for. But those those those kind of hidden things, uh, mineral rights issues that you're gonna find and we're gonna get to that. I imagine that the title work and stuff like that an easement issues especially, and looking at those fields, I want to make sure that they aren't in a permanentsement corrupt c r e P or w RP program or any other conservation easement where it may prohibit you from planting food plots or doing any habitat manipulation because a lot of those conservation easements are literally you leave it in the condition at jin and that's all you can do. You can't cut the timer, can't plant food plots, can't do anything, and you don't want to get into something that you may be get into it way cheaper, but it's worth less as you move forward, and you can't do with it what you want to do with it. So you need to make you need to be cognitive why those fields weren't were left flow. Yeah, and that that's kind of right in line with what right? Oh yeah, Like that's what we got into because the once we went back and we pulled the title work, a lot of the lot of information started to come to the surface. We we kind of, you know, that's all we kept thinking was why isn't this sold yet? And we got into it and kind of you know, figured some things out with with the reasonings, and we will probably get to that a little bit later. Yeah, I mean, let's let's talk about that now, because you know, I did the walk through the new and me came through did the walkthrough, and and I looked at you. I'm like, Sean, does this seem as good as I think it is? And You're like, yeah, I really do. Um, it's just like we need to understand the details behind it, like is there something we we don't know about yet. So basically, by the end of that day, we sat down we reviewed a potential purchase agreement. You I kind of had you walked me through what we'd be doing. Um, and this is something you know, I've never been through before. I had no idea what happens next. And that was a little intimidating, right, I'm glad it has someone to be there with me, because I you know, if I had worked originally like that first property I wanted to put an offer on before I was talking to you, If I had done this without a buyer's agent, that guy was just gonna have me like fill out some paperwork online and I was just gonna go with it and just trust this guy. Hope this guy. You know, I was working in my best interest. I don't know what else doing. I wouldn't have known all the things that you did after this would have been I don't know what would have happened. So walk me through if you can. What you told me once I said, Hey, I want to put in an offer, but help me understand what that process looks like and how do we make sure that we're protected in case there is some weird thing going on that we don't know about yet. Um that's what I asked you, and then you explained it to me. Can you explain it to us again? Now you're part of the part of the process of placing the the offer in in in the contract, there's different continuencies, and one of them is that they've got to provide all the like a clean sellable title and your title agency will go in and they kind of do some digging for you. And we had kind of identified a couple of things that were odd UM with the original listing UM because there was only to the the aerial photo on the outline that they were showing as the property for sale wasn't the property for sale according to the tax ideas, and we wanted to make sure that what we were what we were buying was what we were buying. So we we ended up finding out that one of the tax I d s wasn't included in the property, but there was an additional tax idea that was so when we wrote the offer, we we included the three three tax ideas so that UM was to make sure that we we bought all the property they are not just the two. We would end up with um less acreage than what was in the aerial photo. But then when that offer went to title, they were able to UM bring up some information which uncovered the the potential short sale which we needed to get approven from the bank, the seller's bank on ye um. Yeah, before we get kind of the biggest hurdle right there. Yeah, before we get to that though, there was another question too, which was um about easements and stuff, right, because there was like some funky things going through the property a little bit, uh, And you were able to I think this was in the title process, but I can't remember exactly in that in the in the offer, it was contingent that we were able to review this stuff. We could review the title work in the easements and everything. We had I think it was five days or ten days or something like that that we could review it all make sure that there wasn't something funky. Um, could you describe what what what? Some of those other things were? Right? There was several different easements that we had to double check on right. Oh. Yeah, there was an easement that one of the parcels was part of an old railroad bed and just to make sure that you had that there wasn't any um ownership the railroad what they could do to that, because there's some some places in mission where they turned the old railroad surreils trails. You wanted to make sure that that you had ownership of it and weren't they weren't. They didn't have any ownership to do anything above surface on it. There was also the electrical easeman on there and there was also the access easement that we weren't sure about until the end, where when we first viewed the property, we came through a driveway that was part of the easement to get to the original property. But then we we found out that that that didn't transfer and they created the they culvered up on the road for us. UM. So that was that was the three Easeman issues that we had. The one of the thing we questions about which which after we went to this process, you called me up and said, well, hey, here's here's what's going on the power line. Easeman's find the railroad, Easeman. There's nothing to worry about there. You would own that. Um. Then there was something and I can't remember exactly what it was called. It was like the crop lands we're in a program was like quality farm ground or or official or qualified farming. What was that qualified? It was? It was a qualified We want to make sure that it wasn't in a like a PA to sixty or uh. It was gonna qualify. It was qualified farm land, which gave you a different tax price in the property. But we wanted to make sure that it wasn't in a like a land bank program which prohibited you from from doing anything through the property if you wanted to, because some of them programs have different criteria and we wanted to just make sure that there was no restrictions on the farmland, which or something Joe talked about earlier. I think we'll find out what restrictions were. Yeah. Yeah, were are there any other scenarios like this? Joe Worth noting any other programs you mentioned that w r P, c RP. We just talked about the qualified farm owned. Um, any of the proms like that or we got touched on most of them? Yeah. Every every state different. Every every state deals with several different conservation easements. Uh. Some of them just prohibit they do lower your tax based they just prohibit the property from ever being subdivided, which generally in a smaller person doesn't make a big difference. But it's about hundred acres. Now, you want to sell twenty acres to your son to build a house. If it's in a conservation easement, A lot of times you cannot do that. Um. The biggest easement that I really worry about is ingress eat grass easement, so you may and it sounds like you went through that on this property where you thought the driveway was your ingress eat grass, but they actually put it in a call. But for you, those could all be shook out in title work. But I really worry about the property behind your property, possibly have an access through your property, because it happens a lot right down the center of your sixty acres or maybe a road going back to the neighbor's property. And if that is in fact a DA easement, that devalues that property to you, probably because you don't want to be in a chair standing somebody come driving by on your pickup at a half hour before dark. Uh So those things really can't be shook out most of the time until you do title work. But that's that's why it's important for to have somebody uh go through those contracts with you, because if you wrote a contract online or you hire an attorney the right to a contract, there's a lot of those things that could be missed. Um. So having somebody who's knowledgeable in the land base and land sales makes a giant difference because they're gonna make sure you're covered. So if there's an easy ministure or a clear title issue, or maybe you have a mineral rights, you know you're gonna survey issue or financing issue. There's lots of things in there are contenencies. A good agent is going to protect you with all those. So if something comes up out of title worker, something comes up in your due diligence period after the offer is made, that you still have an ability to get out of that contract without having to pay a help me based on the selling might be able to good time. Yeah. So so basically moving on, then we're able to clear all the title stuff right, all the Eastman's, all the programs that all seemed to make sense. Um, we'd already determined ahead of time that this is a good value. You'd gone ahead and done a pretty detailed even acre by acre valuation based off soil types and what the tillable would go for and what would the non tillabill go for and all that and everything matched up well. We felt good about the price preakre um. Those things all handled and it seemed like, okay, it's green light the offer. Um. We had a little bit of back and forth on the offer, but we can to a place that felt good. But then the last thing, and you mentioned the Sean was the fact that we found out that there was some language in the contract about uh, contingent on approval of a short sale, and I don't know what that was. Um, I don't know how that was going to impact us in anyway. It kind of got me a little nervous. Um, can you walk us through what that was, Sean, how we dealt with it, what it how it impacted us in a little wit. Yeah, it just it basically just slowed us down a little bit in the process. But we had to wait on the bank. There was the original owners um owned this piece with another larger piece, and to sell it, Um, the money need to go back to the bank and they need to they need to approve it because they weren't selling it for the full I think the full value of what they quote on it. Yep. So and once the bank okay that we're okay to go. But it was it kind of slowed us down and gave us a, you know, something to look at as far as what was really going on. Because the wordage did come up. It was something that was surprised to us. All. It wasn't anything that the agent talked about to us in the the beginning of the process. Are there any other things like that? Um, any other when it comes to the closing like this, when it comes to the final you know, details like after that point, like the short sale got approved right by the bank and once that was a proved and it was approved on our end, Um, we just had to sign on the dotted line, right. Um. Was there anything else going through your mind that you thought might have been a potential um hiccup, still it might happen, or was there anything you were thinking about or that somebody else should be thinking about. I guess if they're in this process and they're they're right about to sign and closing this thing, any final be careful or keeping out for this type of thing that we should mention, you know. I mean the it's limitless like a property can be like in a perfect world situation, so easy to go through this process. I mean in a perfect world, if it's a cash deal, it could go through in a couple of weeks. But I mean this can drag on with these types of hurdles get through over a period to three months or more not even happen. So Um, it's just it's each individual transaction. Ah, I mean, there's there's a limitless amount of things that could happen. Yeah, Joe, you got any Yeah, but you know went through which it went through is fairly common for an approval process by a bank. If if if it's in a state, or it's to trust, or it's a divorce, there may be attorney review. Uh. Some of states require a probate case, would require a probate court judge approving it. UH. Sometimes those take time, and if there's anybody in the estate that objects to it, they can extend that out. I had one personally that went fifteen months, uh, going back and forth in and out of court. Luckily the buyer was was very patient, uh, and he ended up buying it, and we negotiated, and the longer it went on, his price went down. So we made sure that he was he was getting the property for a price he wanted. But the longer it went on, because I knew it could be a problem going into with probate approval, UH that for every month the price went down fifty or a hundred dollars an acre. UH. So it motivated the estate themselves that hey, we need to get this wrapped up. Because literally one of the members of the estate was dragging their feet and would not show up in court and extend court and all that. That's why I took fifteen months. But it literally, it literally saved the buyers several thousand dollars in the end because we put those limits on it. And I probably if we wouldn't have had that decreasing amount, we probably would still be in probate court process waiting for that thing to get done. But we've seen a lot with the states. Like I said, there may be a state attorney needs to approve uh short sales like a bank approval, especially if they're taking uh like sixty acres out of a track that will have to be approved by the bank because I have to give you a lean release on that for that sixty acres because they can't pay off the entire league. They're taking part of it to pay off part of it. Uh So there's lots of things like that. So'll just be patient and and see what's happening as you go through title work and and hear about these things. You'll you'll learn about these things afterwards after you put approach of approaching, because a lot of times they don't get flushed out until that point. Yeah. Yeah, that was another big ha for me. I was. I was very naive. I thought that, Okay, we'll put an offer and you know, six days from now, I'll be able to go out there and we own it. And that was not the case. Um, and we were We were lucky that most of the stuff going on for us was pretty easy, like it probably could have been. Like you mentioned, you on some people takes months and months, so we're lucky. It was just I don't know a handful of week process. But um, but yeah, the the ending was a happy ending. We were able to close and everything looked good and we, uh we now own this. Uh. I think it's just about sixty four acres. I think it's the official total of it, and uh it is a super cool little piece with lots of potential and uh we even got a picture from the previous owners shared picture with you, Sean of a really nice buck that was shot on a neighboring property, which is another really nice uh confidence booster. So I feel like this farm has got tons of potential from a deer hunting standpoint, a lot of other cool projects we can do to help other wildlife, and uh, you have a lot of fun out there too, So I'm very excited I'm very thankful for all your help, Sean to this process. And uh, I guess before we wrap it up, though, I want to make sure that there's not anything else, um that we've left off the table here as far as I don't know, is there anything else Joe or Seawan thinking in your head right now, if someone's listening to this and they want to buy a farm and they've been listening to to understand you know here my example and hopefully apply that to their future purchase decision and process. Have we missed anything, We've left any important pieces of the puzzle out that you really want to make sure that we leave someone with anything for you, Joe that that jumps out right away. Look, I'm just gonna reiteract the fact, and I would basically, I'll call several agents to interview them, talk to them, look at properties with them, and jump find somebody comfortable with and I would engage with them because they will save you money and they will save you a bunch of headaches down the road. This is what they do every day. This is not a one, one time, once in a life trans time transaction, which is a lot. I mean, most guys make one big purchase in our life of land, and that's it. Someone makes several but uh, engageing somebody who knows that business to protect you. I mean, you wouldn't go. You wouldn't try to perform surgery yourself. Don't don't try to do real estate yourself. Although most of the time you get out of it all right, in a situation like this, with these easements and and uh and the short sale and the contingencies that you had, you could have got yourself into a real bad behind where you're forced to perform on that contract and buy that property even though it has some problems or some red flag that would give you the opportunity to get out if somebody would have wrote the contract for you correctly. So I can't I can't stress that enough. I think most buyers, I think it's gonna cost some extra money to have an agent involved. Just interview a couple of guys. Feel comfortable with somebody. If you feel comfortable, you have a bond with that person, feel they're going to have your best interests and their knowledgeable in the base and with the criteria, you want engage that guy and make him work for you, because I promise you it'll save you a ton of headaches down the road. Other than that, like Sean said, there there are in a million scenarios and there's no way we can go over those in any kind of conversation because literally, even at the office with two agents and listen to several scenarios a day, we look, we come up with a new scenario nearly every day. I mean just something that there's several of us there in the office. I have a ton of experience and we're like, we're all scratching our heads. We gotta figure it out, and then we'll have a we'll have a form to figure that out. So yeah, well that's that's definitely what it seems to be. Uh My big takeaway from this is, don't feel bad about getting some help. I wish I would have done that sooner, and I'm glad I finally did at the end because I would have been over my head. So so I guess that leaves us with the hero, which is Sean. Do you have any final final words, any final suggestions or anything for folks? Um. I would say, like, first, I'm not the hero, and uh, I would say that I bounced a lot of this. I really reached out to my home office, Joe and Joe and Kirk Kirk Gilbert and you know a lot of people at Whitehill Properties to help me through through this and some other some other properties that I've dealt with problems on. So that's one of the good things about being an agent for this company is that you've got such a great resource in Pittsfield of you know guys that you said, there's two hundred agents and they deal with this stuff every day. So whenever I run into a roadblock, I can always call them and and have them help me through it. So, UM, it's kind of I mean, we touched on everything good. Okay, I'm glad we were. We were thorough. I feel like this was this was fun to get to talk about this kind of topic, but with a happy story that I'm involved in. Um, that's pretty cool. So I guess the final thing would be for people that are listening and they want to learn more about what White Tail Properties has to offer in general, and then if they want to get ahold of you specifically Sean or you Joe, either one of you. Um, could you guys just explain to the listeners where and how they could do that go ahead, John, all right, Yeah, you can get on white tail properties dot com and you can get to um there's a list of agents, or you can click on the state and then find the agents through the website, or you can or you can email me directly at Sean and C H A W N dot Kelly K E L L E Y at white tail properties dot com with any questions or or concerns you might have. I can kind of try and help you out. Great and Joe at same go to white tail properties dot com called me at the office to one seven to eight five nine thoubum my personal seals listed on there. It's two one seven zero three three two. I I take calls, Sean will tell you I take calls all time of that hours a day, whether it be six am or or eleven pm. I'm always good about taking calls and return phone calls as this Sean. So don't feel just feel free to reach out to just just to have a conversation, even if you're not ready to mind yet, if you just want to talk about we have a lot of calls come into the oppossee that are like, hey, you know, I really want a recreational property, but I really don't know what I want yet. I don't know if I want a big deer, if I want to pawn. I don't know what state I want to be in, even I know I want to be somewhere in the Midwest. Can you help me so? Then you start working through values in that checklist with a guy and we'll do that as at an office. Then we'll pass that guy that buyer along to a guy like Sean or Mike or Tim Woods that you mentioned based on that guy's cripchiers. Hey, this is what this guy's looking for. Would your reach out to him if you've got anything that fits, because a lot of buyers literally do not have an idea where they want to be, just like you did when you started. You started at Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. Now you keep fine tuning that as you look through um. But you did that kind of on your own. But we can help through that for guys, either through the office or through one of the land specialists. Very good. Well, I'm really glad that we were able to do this. I'm glad um that we Luke you and Sean and the rest of the team. Everyone was was very helpful and uh it led to a really positive outcome that I'm excited about and thankful for. So so thank you Sean, thank you Joe both for all of your help during this process in this podcast. And hopefully we can talk again soon with with more happy endings about how this hunting season goes. Yeah, we're kind of interest doing the outcome and what your progress is with the have aitat manipulation and how the farm works out for your long term. Definitely keep you posted, all right, Thank you sir. All right, and that is they were at and that is it. Thank you for listening. As mentioned at the top, make sure you're watching the back forty video series over on the Meat Eater YouTube channel. All seven episodes are out, with one more to come this year and much more to come next year. Otherwise, Appreciate you guys being a part of the Wired Hunt family. Appreciate everyone who's picked up a copy of my new book That Wild Country. Uh. Support has been incredible. You guys are awesome and I appreciate you for it. So until next time. If I don't talk to you before Christmas or the holidays, Mary, Mary Christmas, have a great holiday season, enjoy the time with friends and family, eat some good wild game, spend some time outside, and until next time, stay wired to hunt.

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