You’ve just closed the sale on your land and the title insurance company is wire transferring the money to your bank. The funds will be available to you within hours. In 99 % of the time all goes smoothly, but, there are reports where it hasn’t! Recently, Lloyd Wurdack, President Franklin County Title Insurance […]
Question: Howard, my neighbor is buying 50 acres of my 200-acre farm. He wants a First Right of Refusal to buy the remaining 150 acres. I think it’s a good idea to have a buyer when we’re ready to sell. My wife doesn’t agree. How can I convince her? Answer: Your wife has reason to […]
Those are the not words I wanted to hear from the title company, but that was the message received just two weeks before the closing on this Franklin County farm. As it would turn out, there were a multitude of problems and to understand these problems we need to start in 1969. In 1969, […]
(From Land News & Listing Report – 03/15/2016) When business decisions are clouded by personal relationship, bad things can happen. Last week, I received an email from a landowner who wanted advice on how to sell his land. The land had been listed for two years and no offers had been received. He ended his […]
Among little known facts about the state are laws that are or have been on the books of the state or localities within the state. Here are a few of those that are most interesting. A law enacted in 1820 charged a tax on all single men between the ages of 21 and 50. The […]
Several years, I sold a farm that three brothers and three sisters had originally inherited from their parents in 1968. In 1975, one of the sisters died. She was a widow and her three children (we knew of only two at the time of the sale) inherited her 1/6 share ownership of the farm. A […]
A mother signed a deed giving 120 acres to her two daughters, or at least she and her daughters thought that had happened. After her death, the two sisters could not find the recorded deed; however, a stepsister found them. The two sisters now had their stepsister as a partner in the 120 acres. To […]
Many years ago, when I was growing up on a central Illinois farm, my dad and I developed a herd of registered Aberdeen Angus cattle. Like most farm boys my age, I was in 4-H and F.F.A, devoting most of my summers to showing cattle at county fairs and the state fair. A lot of […]
The Three Elements that Influence Land Prices In the late 1970s I knew a real estate investor/broker who owned several tracts of land in St. Charles County. The land was heavily financed and he no longer had the money to make the loan payments. His home was in foreclosure. It was a bleak time for […]
There is this collective opinion that land sells best in the spring. Well, this isn’t necessarily true. While many prospective buyers look at land during the spring, the serious buyers purchase land year around…the hottest days of summer and the coldest days of winter. Land buyers are not hindered by holidays either. Buyers have called […]
