Bulletin Board
The following list
starts with my newest dated comments.
Older comments follow in reverse chronological order.
March 17, 2010:
Our auction in Kansas yesterday went well.
We had a large crowd and bidding was active on a farm southwest of
Wathena Kansas with lots of timbered hunting ground. It brought slightly over $2500 per acre and that was a
respectable price. We've now sold two
hunting tracts in the last two or three weeks.
These types of properties have not been selling well for the last couple
of years so its nice to see improved activity and interest in this type of
property again.
March 3, 2010:
Finally, a new set of bulletin board comments. We’ve been so busy I haven’t taken time to do any writing.
First things first: We’ve got several very attractive investment grade farm properties right now for sale; one contains almost 3900 acres (just listed), one has 2300 acres, and one has 800 acres. All are good quality income producing properties; properties that will always be easy to rent and that will produce a good rate of return on investment. Give us a call or check on our farms for sale page for more information on them and several others that we have listed (we just listed the 3900 acre tract and don’t have anything up there yet, but we will, soon. In the meantime, give us a call and we’ll get you the information).
Now for some general comments:
We are approaching farming season again. Land sales have been strong, driven by good commodity prices, low interest rates, and strong cash rents. The devaluation of the American dollar hasn’t hurt a bit either. Land prices are at all time highs, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t go higher. Our government is on a spending spree the likes of which have never been seen before. The deficit is rising at an unprecedented rate and it’s got to be paid back some day. There are only a couple of ways to do it: Pay it back with interest in real dollars (very painful and not very likely to happen) or devalue the debt by allowing the value of the American dollar to decay. That’s the most likely scenario. If you reduce the value of the dollar by 50 per cent you have effectively cut our debt in half without paying a cent. That sounds good unless your net worth is mostly in the form of cash or cash equivalents. That same currency devaluation cuts your net worth by half- not a good deal.
Then, if you’ve got money what are you going to do with it? Keep it in the bank and watch it shrink; all the while, getting about a half per cent interest on the old fashioned savings account, maybe 2 per cent on a CD, Whoopee!!
You can buy stocks. That was a really good strategy over the last five years, wasn’t it?
You can always buy gold, silver, or platinum. Bury it in the back yard and wait for the price to go up before you sell it. Only trouble is, you don’t get any return on that unless it goes up in value and then you’ve got to sell it to realize that return,
Or, you can buy investment grade farmland: It’s a hard asset, it will appreciate if the value of the dollar goes down, and even if it doesn’t, as long as the world population keeps growing and new shopping centers and subdivisions keep taking farmland out of production, I know you’ve heard that before.. As a final plus, it pays you a good solid rate of return each year in the form of rental income. That’s where I want my money to be, and that’s why land is at all time highs right now, most likely moving on higher.
Give us a call. We can help you find a good solid investment and then we can help you manage it.
December
4, 2009
Farmers are getting done, finally, and they are having a good year, a REALLY
GOOD YEAR! That's translating into a lot of demand for more land.
Good row cropland, that is. Give us a call if you've got something you
might be thinking about selling. I've never seen the market hotter in my
30+ years in the business.
I expect to see stronger cash rents, too. I'll have more on that later in
the season.
November 20, 2009:
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: I was talking to a local banker yesterday
and he made a comment that's worth repeating here. He credited it to a local farmer (I won't mention his name here,
but he'll probably know who he is).
Here it is:
Farmland is the only thing anyone can own
that produces steady, renewable income. You can mine gold, coal, oil, etc and
make money but once the product is sold, it’s gone, forever. Not so with land. If you take care of it, it will take care of you (and your
descendants, too) for as long as the sun shines and the rains fall. Just think of that! What other investment is like that?
We still have a few farms left to sell. Give us a call.
November 17, 2009:
Here's where the land market is going:
I attended a land auction yesterday. Missouri River bottomland, three tracts, all
were good, productive farms. The first
tract was the best
soil-wise.
It brought $8,100.00 per acre (no, that's not a typo). The second tract was good, too, but it had
some sandy soil and some non-tillable land.
It brought $5,400.00 per acre.
The third tract wasn't as good as the other two, but it was pretty good. It brought $5,100.00 per acre.
Non-contingent cash deals closing before the
end of the year.
I expect to see more of this as the harvest finishes up and the farmers get a little time to think about something besides running a combine and fall working land.
October 29 2009
I started out to talk about how to evaluate row crop farmland, wrote all that follows and realized when I got done that I didn’t talk about that at all. I’ll try to do that again on my next set of bulletin board comments. Just read this below and it will make you want to own some land!
Row crop farmland is probably the best, simplest investment in real estate that a non-farm, non-real estate specialist-type person can make. It generally appreciates in value, doesn’t require lots of “hands on” management (professional management is generally easily obtained) and it doesn’t require large amounts of cash to maintain, once the original purchase is made. For those of you with cash in the bank that’s earning less than nothing in real terms at this time[1] it’s a very good way to diversify your investment portfolio, and get a dependable rate of return on investment. In addition, it’s a real asset. You can kick it, drive on it, etc and its not controlled by some investment banker in Wall Street. Nobody can predict what is going to happen to the value of the dollar right now, but ownership of land will give you some protection against a rapid decrease in the value of the dollar. One of these days it may take $500 to buy a loaf of bread and if that happens, that farm will still be producing at least the same rate of return in real terms that its producing now, maybe even better as the population continues to grow and food becomes harder to come by, even here in the United States. Its there, its been there for a long time and it will be there when we’re all long gone and forgotten. As long as world population keeps growing and eating, it will become a more valuable asset as time goes buy.
[1]
Less than nothing is not an exaggeration.
In real terms, interest rates being paid are less than zero when you
consider the devaluation of the dollar as compared to other world
currencies. At the end of the year,
your dollar, plus all the interest it earned will buy fewer goods and services
than it did at the beginning of the year.
And that’s not counting the tax you pay on the interest you receive.
October 26, 2009
Cash rents, early results:
We’ve got a few early indications on cash rents for the next couple years: Steady to higher. I’ve seen nothing to make me think we’ll see any softness in the
market for next year. We’ve done a
couple of renewals now and the prices per acre have been up in both cases. One was up about 12% and the other was up
about 10%. In addition, we’ve got
several good farmers out there who are looking hard for more land and that
makes me think we’ll see higher prices too.
As a landlord, though, you’ve got to be careful; the highest cash rent per acre
is not necessarily the best deal that a landlord can make. Lots of factors make for a good cash rent
contract and price per acre is just one of them. That’s where we can be of service; we generally know the farmers
and know which ones to avoid. Even if
we don’t know the farmer when we start, we know how he needs to be doing his
job and it doesn’t take us long to week out those who are doing a poor job.
We also know how to set up a good contract that will take care of the land and
maximize the landlords income on the farm, long term. In the 25-30 years we’ve been renting land for other people (and
for myself, too) we’ve learned of a lot of pitfalls and things to avoid if at all
possible. Sometimes these lessons have
been costly, but they’ve been learned one way or the other and you’ll get the
benefit of that sometimes tough experience if you hire us to manage your
poperty.
October 26, 2009
First in the series of bulletin board comments:
Okay, you’ve ready my earlier comments and you’re interested in buying a farm,
only trouble is you don’t know what to buy or how to go about figuring out
which farm investment is the one you’d like to start with.
Well, I’m going to try to give you some information on what type of farm to
buy, see if I can help you with your decision.
It’s a fairly complicated decision to make and it will take me a while
to present some of the things I’ve learned over the years so I’ll just do a
little bit each time I update this bulleting board for the next few weeks. You
can read it in sequence or however you’d like and maybe you’ll bet some
insights into what and where to look.
Buying a farm? Where do you start?
The first thing you have to think of is what is your need.
A. Are you looking for a hands
off investment that you’ll never see or know much about or are you looking for
something you can get involved in, spend some time with, and use for personal
recreation and or enjoyment?
B. Do you like to hunt, boat on
the river, etc?
C. Do you
need income from the investment each month or year, or can you live on what you
make elsewhere or re-invest whatever income the farm will produce to pay down
debt or make improvements to the property?
D. Do you have surplus income
from what ever you’re doing for a living to invest on a recreational property,
one that won’t necessarily produce much income but will provide you and your
family with a lot of enjoyment?
E. Do you have the time and
interest to spend looking after a fixing up a run-down property or do you want
it to more or less take care of itself?
The answers to these questions will hopefully give you an idea of where to
start.
I’ll start my next bulletin board comments with some thoughts on the row crop farmland, then work on through the other options in later ones. Keep checking back.
October 23, 2009
Did you hear on the news today that the current administration tried to exclude
Fox news from some kind of news conference yesterday? What on earth is
that all about? Before long they'll be telling us what we can read.
This and a tax on flatulence of cows and hogs. What is next?
The older I get the less I know!
October 14, 2009
IF YOU'VE GOT MONEY IN CD'S OR STOCKS, AN INVESTMENT IN FARMLAND LOOKS LIKE A
NO-BRAINER TO ME!!
Consider the following things:
Interest rates are at all time lows. If you've got any money in the bank you're
getting next to nothing.
Barnes Realty has several farms for sale that
will pay 4-5 per cent returns RIGHT NOW!
Not only that, but the money is paid in the form of cash rent IN
ADVANCE, March 1st of the year. That
means you can invest your money and get a 4-5 per cent return on it in less
than two months, then earn that same
5 per cent each year thereafter (And that does not consider any potential
increase in land values due to appreciation and/or inflation).
It’s even okay if you don't know a thing
about farmland. Barnes Realty does farm
management, too, so we can look after it for you.
When you look at rising in government
spending and consider the resulting inflation that we'll undoubtedly see in the
years ahead, then consider all the stuff you've heard before about world
population growth and the shrinkage of the amount of tillable land every year,
(not even counting all the corn that is going into ethanol) It looks like land
is something you should consider. The
beauty of it is you can get in for not a huge amount of money and make land a
part of your investment portfolio. Give
us a call or send us an email.
Have we got a deal for you!
Rick Barnes
660-572-0018
September 17th, 2009.
I'm gonna start with an update on the real estate business, then I'll do some
venting down toward the bottom of today's comments.
We have several new listings right now:
1800 acres prime row crop farmland! Several tracts in three states.
Lots of good improvements and income potential.
240 acres prime pasture and hunting land in the Forbes, Missouri area. It
joins another 250 acres that we've already had for sale for a while, making
more than 500 acres of some of the best hunting land you'll find anywhere.
More new listings are coming in the next few weeks, too. So keep in touch.
We have several buyers who are looking for various types of land at this time,
too. If you've got something you are thinking of selling, give us a call.
Agricultural real estate sales have been only slightly impacted by the big
economic downturn of the last 16 months, commodity prices have remained high,
input costs have dropped and interest rates are reasonable. Good,
productive farmland has remained in great demand right through the whole thing
for several reasons:
Lots of people are afraid that we'll have runaway inflation once the economy
finally gets rolling again on account of the huge, unprecedented increase in
the money supply we've seen. Do you want your money in land or in the
stock market?
Between ethanol and world population growth demand for our products remains
high. Agricultural commodities are becoming this country's major sources
of money inflow from the remainder of the world. We don't seem to export
much of anything else anymore.
Interest rates are low, especially on certificates of deposit and passbook
savings accounts so no one is too anxious to convert good farmland into
cash. They're better off owning the land and earning the rental income
than having the money in the bank, especially if we do see inflation a couple
of years down the road.
In short, supply is down and demand is up. If you've got a farm that
you're thinking of selling, give us a call! We need the listings and we can
sell most types of land right now if it’s priced right. We're even seeing
an increase in demand for pasture and recreational land, which has been
terribly slow for the last year or so.
Now for my venting:
We're in a new world, a new one all right. Massive, unprecedented government
spending on all sorts of to me useless programs (I have yet to see one thin
dime of benefit for me and my family with all these programs, bailouts, cash
for clunkers programs, etc). Maybe I'd feel better about it if I was
getting some of the benefits, but you know how that goes. Actually, I
think I'm pretty happy just taking care of myself and my family, thank
you. It’s fun, it’s challenging, and it keeps me feeling young and in the
game, out of the beer joint.
I don't know what to think about the health care reform bill other than the
fact that I have a strong gut feeling that I don't like it. I'm in a high
risk group and I pay through the nose for my health insurance now, so a new
policy might save me some money, but I just look at every other program that
the government has dreamed up to help one or the other of us. Once they
get started they just grow and grow and get less and less efficient.
Before long everyone will be on the government's payroll and who's gonna earn
any money and pay taxes for producing anything then.
I heard Obama say on television in one of his speeches (it seems to me that he
is spending more time giving speeches than working. Has anyone else
noticed that besides me?) that he would never sign a health care bill that
increases the deficit even one dime. The office of management and budget
predicts that this bill will increase costs by some number like 2 trillion
(whatever amount that is) dollars, but the president says no increased
deficit. That means only one thing; more taxes and who's gonna pay more
taxes, the "very rich" that's who (I'm beginning to think of our
president as Robin Hood). Only trouble is that with inflation and both
spouses working just to get along, most of us are ending up in those higher tax
brackets paying more taxes than the rich used to. It will reach a point
one of these days when we'll all just give up trying to make any money and let
the government take care of us, too.
Somehow we've got to get over this idea that it’s the government's
responsibility to take care of every poor, disadvantaged person in the
country. That's not what the founding fathers had in mind when they
revolted from England and that's not the direction we should be going now.
And don't even get me started on carbon credits and windmills!
Rick Barnes
660-572-0018
July 3, 2009
The farmland selling business has been slow, like nearly every other form of economic endeavor, but we haven’t seen a crash like we saw in the stock market late last summer; as a matter of fact, I can’t say I’ve seen much of a drop in the value of good land at all. Good farmland is still in great demand, and there are plenty of buyers out there for a good row crop farm. We’ve had the opportunity to sell a number of the higher quality farms this year, and we had several “simultaneous offers” on some of these farms. That’s unusual; normally we’ll get one or maybe two such deals a year, but this year we had several. We also saw several auctions that brought simply stunning prices.
On the other side of the coin, we saw several “no sales” during the season, and very little pasture-hunting land has sold. We actually attempted to auction a conservation reserve program-hunting tract and only one person showed up for the sale. That’s right, only one person was there, except for a few bankers and some other realtors (Interestingly though, we ended up selling this particular farm a month or two after the sale and we had simultaneous offers on it when it sold). If you’re an owner of one of those farms and you want to sell, you need to be prepared to take less than you were thinking a year ago. Call me and we’ll discuss it.
The stock market is up from its low of a few months ago and hopefully it will continue to improve. The loss of all the value in the stock market is a catastrophe for those baby boomers from the city who were planning on retiring, living the good life on their 401K plans. Most of those folks are now deferring their retirement, deferring the purchase of a new car, and deferring repairs and maintenance on their homes. This is all bad and all those folks need to get a little of their savings back.
Things are looking up over last fall though and I hope they will continue to improve. Unemployment is above 10 per cent and that’s bad, but remember, 90 per cent of us are working and there are some real bargains out there in nearly everything we might like to buy if you’ve got any money to spend, and lots of Americans do have money, waiting to be invested in something.
I am currently looking for the following:
A good upland farm in the western side of Holt or southwest Atchison County, Missouri
I have several persons who are looking for Missouri River bottomland farms in Holt and Atchison County, Missouri.
I am working for a buyer from Colorado who is looking for a good row crop farm in Northwest Missouri, Southeast Iowa.
I have a couple of buyers who would like to find a good bottom farm in the Hamburg-Nebraska City area of the Missouri River bottom.
If you have anything like this that you would be interested
in selling, give me a call.
660-572-0018 is my cell phone.
A Couple of New Listings:
http://www.barnesrealty.com/brown_gordon/webpsheet_brown_gordon.htm
http://www.barnesrealty.com/Kurtz_Chris/webpsheet_kurtz.htm
02/19/09
We don’t normally promote other persons thoughts and comments but this link
takes you to something you absolutely have to see.
Listen/watch the video to see what Rick is talking about.
12/31/08
AUCTION!
AUCTION!
We've got an auction coming up in Missouri
January 14 at the Klub in Mound City. So far, we're selling four tracts: Two nice 80 acre row crop farms, a 20 acre
tract of native timberland north and northeast of Mound City, and a 72 acre
CRP-hunting parcel north of Forest City. All are good for what they are, and
all have motivated owners so take a look at these on our web site and feel free
to check with us for more information or to arrange a showing. Plan to come to the sale and buy some
land. These are good, smaller tracts of
land and they will all make good investment property. The
72 acres is subject to prior sale (we are
working to sell it privately, too).
Keep checking this site as we may get a couple more tracts before the
sale date.
My thoughts on the recession:
We all know that the economy is in the tank,
the car companies are broke and then there's that Madoff guy and the giant
ponzi scheme. Will the troubles ever
end? the answer is YES, YES, YES! We're all getting a huge boost in our weekly
income; you'll see it every time you fill up your car with gas.
Oil is actually below 40 per barrel and my
heart is bleeding for the big oil companies and opec. Like I said last month, every time I buy gas I end up with a
little money in my pocket that would have gone into the tank last summer.
With Obama in office and all the other
problems I don't expect him to mess with our farm programs too
unfavorably. He was a senator from
Illinois you know and I hope he's closer to the farm business than McCain was. Only time will tell.
We're seeing some rebound in our commodity
prices again thank goodness and I expect fertilizer costs to be way down by
spring.
Who wants any part of that crummy stock
market. This last deal finished me; all
of us out here in the "outlands" are the very end of the tail of the
dog; The only time we'll make any money in that market is after everyone who is
on the inside has made all they can stand and want to dribble out a little to
us. I'd lots rather own land! People have to eat, there are
more people every day, and guess what? They are not making any more land.
November 21, 2008:
Everyone talks about all these government bailouts. You and I don’t see any of that money but I sure see some every time I fill up my car. I filled up my gas tank last night. It cost $1.59 per gallon and the total bill was $23.00. That means I’ve got about $37.00 more dollars in my pocket than I did when I filled up my tank in August. What did I do with the savings? I went to a restaurant and ate a nice dinner with my family. Next time I fill up, I might go out and buy a new pair of pants. Who knows? This drop in fuel price is going to do us more good than all those federal programs put together.
I just heard a guy on television say that the markets had dropped over 50 % since the big government bail out and if that was a rescue, he’d appreciate it if the government would please stop helping him. Amen!
The farm sector seems to be moving along without too much distress at this time. Next year’s cash rents are already coming in at least as strong as they were last year, sometimes higher (I know, by saying this I’m driving up cash rents, see my October 18 farm management comments below). We have lots of interest in buying land from investors and farmers alike and prices seem to be solid. Not as high as they were this spring at planting time when commodity prices were at record highs, but there is still a good market and prices are strong.
I heard indirectly of a no-sale yesterday, but I don’t have any details. If I get any more information, I’ll report it here.
We have a couple of new properties for sale up in Iowa. Both are very good upland farms. Call us for more information if you’re interested.
November 6, 2008
Obama made it. First non-white president in history. This year was the toughest choice I’ve ever had to make. I didn’t like either candidate. On the surface, it looks like Obama is going to be pro-farm, at least. McCain wasn’t pro-farm at all. I guess we’ll wait and see what happens (like we’ve got any other choice now! We’re living in interesting times, for sure.
Stock Market, Banking Crisis, Commoditites, and how its all effecting the farm industry:
The stock market appeared to have hit a low and started up, but as I write this, it’s trending downward again. Obama’s election hasn’t done much for the overall market to date. It’s sort of like the $700 billion bailout that we “had to have”.
All the world banks have drastically lowered their published interest rates; the prime rate here in America is now 1.5 per cent, same as it was right after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. That should be good, right? Go talk to your lender and see what the current interest rate is! Rates for us common borrowers are HIGHER. Why? Nobody will tell me anything that makes any sense. They don’t talk about this too much on the morning business shows either.
There have been several public auctions of farmland since the crash. All but one have been really strong. And that one seems to be an exception, not the rule. There was only one buyer there that day, and about fifteen observers. Half of them were real estate sales people or bankers.
It’s a little early to report cash rents, but from the information I’ve been hearing, those numbers are going to stay high, too.
In summary, my world seems about the same as it was back in the summer before the recession.
October 18, 2008:
We got our first test of the market since the big stock market crash at a land auction today. Three upland farms sold at public auction in Atchison County, MO. Prices ranged from $2600 per acre up to $3250 per acre. They had less than top quality soils, but they were in good condition and the higher priced one had some improvements. One of the farms sold to a couple of neighboring farmers, one sold to two out of state investors who had other land in the area, and one sold to one of the heirs of the estate.
THESE FARMS SOLD FOR ABOUT WHAT THEY WERE WORTH BEFORE THE CURRENT FINANCIAL MESS! See my coments on the financial mess below, October 17, 2008
Most of you know that we do a lot of farm management. We maintain an email list of farmers who are interested in renting ground and we regularly send out emails to everyone on that list, notifying of new farms for rent and describing recent trends in the business. My son is currently working to rent his father in law’s land for the 2009 farming season. Last week he sent out an email notification to everyone on our list advising that the land is available for rent. Most of the responses that we are gettting back are from farmers with the typical questions like, location, soils, tillable acres, etc. Most of the time, but not always. Here are some direct excerpts from one my son got last week in response to his email notification:
dear sir-since corn is spiraling down towards $3.00 per bushel i am wondering what you are saying about cash rent levels? It cost around $3.00 per bushel to raise corn, so that makes land worth nearly zero for cash rent. You promote huge cash rents, and you just make it tougher for us legitimate farmers to make a living and to contract a fair cash rent. You are so full of it! We all see the quality of the farmers you contract with such as ************! I have relatives around Mound City, and they tell me of your worthless reputation! The farmers around here want nothing to do with you. Please take my name off your email list!
Sad to say, we get an email or a letter like this every now and then. In every case so far, its from someone we’ve never done any business with and the gist of the letter is always the same; there is no profit in farming; Barnes Realty is promoting “huge cash rents”; and we’re making it very hard for “legitimate farmers” (like them) to get land rented at a fair cash rent (fair to whom)[2].
To all of you out there who think this way I’d like to make a few points. No apologies, just a few points:
Anyhow, the guy is now off our list. He’s only going to get one more email from Barnes Realty and it will be a link to this bulletin board page.
October 17, 2008
Stock Market Crash? Banking Crisis? Steep slide in commodity prices? How’s that going to affect those of us who are in farming? Here’s my thoughts:
Stock Market Crash: This crash is not the crushing financial burden for us that it is to the city guy who owns only his own home and has his retirement savings in stocks, bonds, and other forms of paper. Most people in the farming business don’t own many stocks. There’s too many things to spend any excess cash on like tractors, fertilizer, terraces, land payments, etc. If they do own stocks, its generally with surplus cash, not life savings. For most of us, this crash hasn’t cost us a dime.
Banking Crisis: Nearly everyone associated with farming including their bankers almost went broke or did go broke in the early eighties thanks to a whole bunch of things that were totally out of our control. Things like the grain embargo; record high interest rates, retroactive changes in the tax code and on and on. We emerged from that mess a much smarter and conservative group. As a consequence we’re now one of the strongest sectors of the economy. Farm debt is extremely low as a percentage of net worth. Most of us bank locally or with one of the Farm Credit Banks around the country. These lenders were not in the sub prime loan business. Furthermore, the bad times had made them all cash flow lenders: Not only did you have to have net worth, but you had to be able to demonstrate that you had sufficient income to pay back the money they were loaning you. In short, most of our lenders are solid and money is available for the farm sector, if you’re a good credit risk.
The steep decline in commodity prices: This is the hard one: Last summer, we witnessed the biggest run up in commodity prices ever. World food demand, ethanol, and the generally hot economies in Asia an elsewhere, plus institutional fund investment all worked together to feed the run up. This feeding frenzy has ended for a while and we’ve got commodities more in line with their historical trends. That’s the bad news. Now for the good: A month ago, we were all complaining about input costs. These will be affected by the crash too. Crude oil is less than half its high price last summer. That will translate into cheaper fuel and fertilizer costs. World population is not declining and all us people gotta eat. Last but not least, its just before harvest and it seems like prices always get driven down just before harvest.
My guess is these markets are at their lows right now and that they will start working back up after the harvest is in. We may not see prices at levels like last summer for a while, but we’re not going to be squashed like a bug on the windshield either.
In short, we may come out of this mess better than any other sector of the economy.
October 1, 2008
My thoughts on this current economic crisis.
I don’t understand.
For the last ten or more years numerous shady mortgage brokers have been originating some of the dumbest loans I’ve seen in all my years in the business. I’m just a backwoods country broker; certainly not as smart as some of these “suits” in the banking business think they are, but it was obvious to me that lots of these loans were very shakey from the day they were made. I was on the opposite side of these deals (Its my job to sell the property for the seller, not worry about whether or not the buyer can pay for it.) but I knew that lots of them were bad.
If I knew they were bad, why didn’t the people in the financial business, those who were responsible for the quality and security of the loans that they were making know it, too? Well, I think that they did know and just kept right on making more and more. It was like a giant pyramid scheme.
Now all that’s coming unraveled just like I figured it would and these big banks are failing right and left. Not all the banks mind you, just the ones who made or participated in these really dumb loans. Our leaders are on television telling us how bad off we’ll be if these lending institutions fail and telling us we need to bail them all out by having the government assume this bad debt.
This is where I start getting confused. Maybe I’ll be less so if someone can answer the following questions:
These leaders are trying to tell me that the government is going to assume a majority ownership in these bankrupt banks and companies, in return for its efforts and that the public will therefore be a participant in the profits when these companies “turn around”. What is half of zero?
What in the H___ is the government going to do with all this bad paper and all the foreclosed houses?
How is the failure of Washington Mutual going to affect me? Shucks, I’d never heard the name until a couple of weeks ago.
Why should the American taxpayer “rescue” these idiots?
Where were all these leaders and smart guys while all this bad stuff was happening?
Why should we listen to these folks now when just a few weeks ago they were telling us how good things were going?
If I go broke out here selling real estate, will the government come in and assume all my obligations? (this isn’t a fair question because I know the answer to this one)
Like I said, I just don’t understand.
Land sales continue to be strong. There seem to be multiple buyers for nearly any kind of good land. This circumstance can make a public auction a good way to sell a farm if you’ve got a marketable tract of land or if you’ve got an immediate need to move a property quickly.
Barnes Realty sells land at public auction, and we do it differently than most of the competition. No need to go into all the details here, BE SURE YOU TALK TO US BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING. There’s no obligation, and we won’t steer you in any direction, we’ll just discuss what may be best for you in your specific situation, and it’s completely confidential. That’s all we do around here, LAND SALES.
DO YOU HAVE LAND IN A “C” CORPORATION THAT YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO SELL BECAUSE OF THE TAXES YOU’LL OWE?
We can help you sell the property in such a way that you will minimize the taxes.
[1] Less than nothing is not an exaggeration. In real terms, interest rates being paid are less than zero when you consider the devaluation of the dollar as compared to other world currencies. At the end of the year, your dollar, plus all the interest it earned will buy fewer goods and services than it did at the beginning of the year. And that’s not counting the tax you pay on the interest you receive.
[2]This particular writer was quite a bit more vitriolic than most though, he went on to run down every farmer who has ever rented a farm from us, even named one specifically (we left that name out) and ended up smearing our reputation, telling us how nobody wanted anything to do with us. I think he’s wrong. One thing that is pretty certain; it doesn’t sound like I’m going to make any more money from him in the future than I’ve made from him in the past; nothing; zero.