Deciding To Sell The Farm Feat. Henry Vos
The Farmland Exchange, the official podcast of CLHBidcom Expert insights on buying and selling farmland in Western Canada. Welcome to the Farmland Exchange, the official podcast of CLHBidcom, where we bring you expert insights into the process of selling and buying farmland in Western Canada. I'm Devin Davidson, digital media strategist for clhbidcom and, most recently, the host of this podcast. Today we're going to dive into the complex and emotional decision to sell the farm. Four key considerations for our discussion are going to be the emotions, the family, the details and the transition to life after the farm. But before we get into that, I would just like to ask that you please consider following us on your podcast platform of choice. This podcast will be made available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your podcasts. Joining me today.
Devon Davidson:Welcome back, Roy Carter, CEO and founder of CLHBidcom. How are you Good? Thanks, Devin. Yeah, thanks, it's good to have you here. And also, for his first time ever, Henry Voss, Director of Sales with CLHBidcom. Henry, how are you? I'm doing well. This is a new experience for me. Well, that's great. I'm excited to talk to you. We just met each other in person for the first time about 10 minutes ago, so it's good that we get to sit down and have a chat about this stuff, Maybe our listeners a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you do and maybe one fun or interesting thing that people may not know about you.
Henry Vos:Oh sure. Well, I grew up in a small town in northern Alberta, the peace country. The nearest grocery store was about 110 kilometers away, along with all the equipment dealerships and so forth. So I was in a remote area, you might say, of Alberta, went off to school and then from there came back to the farm, came back to farm in this small town and spent some time there, then moved, changed farms, moved to another location and farmed there for a while, and now I'm in a transition phase of my life.
Devon Davidson:So you know all about today's topic that we're going to talk about.
Henry Vos:Well, certainly close to home for me. Much of what we're going to talk about today applies to me personally.
Devon Davidson:Okay, great, you did mention that. It was close to your heart, so I'm glad that we got you in here for this conversation. Uh, roy, we're not going to make you give us your spiel and your your uh special bit of knowledge, just because we've gone through that with you in the past episode. But uh, yeah, let's get into it here, henry. So let's talk a little bit about the emotions. And you know, as a farmer, how do you try to reconcile that deep emotional connection with what might be a practical decision to to sell the family farm?
Henry Vos:Well as anybody that farms knows, a farm is more than a home. It's where your family, where you grew up, perhaps in some cases where you've raised your family, it's your community all around you. It's essentially the essence of your life Rotate around that farm, and so there is a lot of emotion, you know, particularly when you think in some cases it's your parents, your grandparents and even, in some farms in this part of the country, your great-grandparents home piece of ground and if you think back to all the memories involved it's pretty significant. So anytime it comes to selling that, it becomes very personal and emotional to people.
Devon Davidson:It does. So I mean, what would be your advice to anyone who's sort of dealing with that transition right? I mean for yourself personally. How did you approach that as you were moving into that next stage?
Henry Vos:Yeah it. You know. Obviously most farms are partnerships. There's family members, spouses involved, and you all have different priorities in life, different things that are important to you, and so, while the emotions of my attachment to the land were much more significant than my wife's, it's a balancing act. You got to find out what's really important and, at the end of the day, make a decision that works for everybody in the family, and particularly the people that have true ownership in it. So, reconciling the different views with those emotions it's tough. I understand it. People make different choices. We chose to sell that initial land that we had that belonged some of it belonged to my dad and family members and then move away and buy some other land. So it was very raw at the time, very, very difficult.
Devon Davidson:Yeah, I mean, as we're sitting here recording this, roy, we're on the Carter Homestead, correct?
Roy Carter:Yeah, totally. I mean, we've talked about that in a prior podcast. But yeah, totally, get it like Henry does. Henry's quite modest when he talks about his background. I think you had. Certainly your grandmother was kind of the famous doctor from northern Alberta. Is that fair to say?
Henry Vos:Yeah, she was a doctor in our community for 45 years. That was pretty significant. It's interesting. She took the job because they were looking for doctors to serve in rural areas and that was almost 100 years ago now, 95 years ago Wow, interesting. We're still looking for doctors to serve in rural areas. But in addition to that, my grandfather and this is my mom's mom and dad was a farmer in the area. He raised purebred Angus. He initially settled on some land. My mom and dad homesteaded their land. So it's real close for a lot of people in Western Canada because these things are very close to heart. People made a new start in this country and people looking at selling land or sometimes selling that land. People move from another country to make a new start. That's right.
Roy Carter:You know, you often look in the house and it's hard to explain unless you grew up as a farm kid. But I almost see it as another person, another family member, and if you look in the house, usually the kids are on the wall in the picture of the farm and that might sound crazy, but if you grew up that way, that's really what it is and I know in in this case here. Uh, my mom was 17 when she married my dad. He rode uh horseback and it was kind of offside. Uh, he was a catholic kid and he went and found this kind of the hot blonde norwegian. She was 16 and married her when she was 17. They lived in a greenery across the road here from where my grandfather homesteaded and so her roots run pretty deep and she was here at 59, lost my dad and I farmed with her and you don't take it out of her blood. You know she would go to town and come back and say you know, roy, you got wild oats there on uh Phillip's half, hey. And it's like, yeah, I know, I got wild oats and I know how to get rid of them, but it's a financial deal, right, you know you can get, as Henry knows a hundred percent. But, uh, she would go for parts for me, you know, testing grain, whatever kind of thing.
Roy Carter:But when the day came, um and Allie had just been born who was on the prior podcast to move her to town, I mean, that was uh, it was basically like losing somebody. I remember, you know, her walking out of the house for the last time, right, and uh, it was, it was crazy. And then I still farmed in the yard. So we had this house and we rented it out and I still recall like getting gas, you know, doing something one night and I get gas in my face, and I went running and opened the door and the tenants were there and it's just like human nature. It's kind of your safe abode, right. Or there's days I'd walk half the way there to get a chocolate cookie.
Roy Carter:She made some awesome ones and it was like, oh yeah, she's not there anymore, right, yeah, it's not dirt. And I think that's where you know we got lucky with henry. Um, you know, we kind of had a common interest. We actually flew the same plane as stinson and, uh, ton of respect for henry and his horsepower, and egg sat on the wheat board, even though a lot of people don't necessarily agree with the wheat board, but I mean he was a director at the time. Somebody had to be a director and uh, director of UFA and we got lucky with his background and respect for agriculture. So thanks, henry.
Henry Vos:Yeah, 100% Interesting.
Henry Vos:You mentioned some things that, yes, I've had an opportunity through my career and actually a real credit to my wife because she picked up the reins when I wasn't home.
Henry Vos:I had a chance to serve on quite a few different farm organizations over my career and it's because my wife picked up the reins and carried on at the farm when I was away.
Henry Vos:I served on the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange, actually before the Canadian Wheat Board, and you know it's interesting looking back, we've got a whole new generation of farmers that didn't have to farm with a weed board Brand new group of people. But one of the things that I learned as I served with these various boards of directors one thing that was really exciting to me and it applies directly to today and about selling a farm was I was really excited when we had a chance to to develop new visions at these organizations, went through strategic, strategic planning processes, uh, develop plans to execute new strategies, and really that's what this is about. When you get to the bottom line of people, making a decision to move on from from the farm and to a new stage of life is really about setting up a new vision and a new plan for their life, so there's a lot of similarities between that and I find it really exciting talking about it in that light.
Devon Davidson:Well, we're going to dive into that in a second. I just wanted to bring it up again. Roy, you mentioned the family farm. Being like another person, and I can absolutely relate to that. My grandparents still live on the same farm, same yard that they built in the late 60s, early 70s, and so I go back there for christmas and stuff like that and all the grandkids photos are up there and, um, they don't fill the pool anymore, but they had a pool that they built way back when. So I have a lot of memories from a very young age, you know jumping in the pool. That was the yard where I learned how to drive tractors and you know combines and all that kind of stuff. So I can absolutely appreciate what you're saying about it being a person.
Devon Davidson:When they move out of there eventually, that's going to be a really tough situation, right, yeah? But yeah, let's get into planning, henry, and being a little bit more strategic. So how can farmers prepare themselves for when that time comes? Where? Now okay, I'm going to move on how do they start prepping that strategy, that next stage of life?
Henry Vos:Well, I think the first words you said I'm going to move on. Those are really key words in this whole thing because typically my experience in talking to other farmers and my own experiences, there will be one of the parties that are involved in something like this that says that first, yeah, and then it takes a period of time for the other parties to warm up to the idea that, yes, it's time to move on, whether that's for health reasons, whether that's for economic reasons, whether that's a change. In our case, it was looking at the community and where we wanted to raise our family, the services that were available, and we decided that a different place. But it was a process of time to decide, to make that plan, and I wouldn't say weeks, I wouldn't say months, I would say years, as in three or four years in our case to do that.
Devon Davidson:And that makes sense To make that plan? Yeah, because it's always in the back of your mind, right as you get closer to it. Now you're going to start thinking about it more and more.
Roy Carter:Yeah, and it's fortunate if you have the time to plan. We of course have run into situations where there's health issues or one of the spouses have passed and all of a sudden it's a different clock that they kind of answer to right, yeah, it's not, I can't wait three or four years. They want to set exit data a lot sooner.
Henry Vos:Yeah, I can. I can certainly see that and in some cases that's unplanned. Some cases, you know, we all all know that we have a clock and some plan at different rates and some are happy where they're at. So this is a dynamic thing and I've said to people making a plan is great, it's a great place to start the next plan.
Devon Davidson:Well, and that's probably a nice segue into the next segment of this, and that's family, because that is a key component of the planning process, and once you've decided that you're moving on, there's going to be some of that to take into consideration, right? So how do you manage the family dynamic when you've made that decision and you're thinking about it?
Henry Vos:You know the open communication information critically important piece. There's so many assumptions out in the farm community about things like taxes and the impact of those things like legal requirements. People have maybe read something in a magazine and figured that that's the gospel and that applies to them, and so I think for anybody to do the planning and for anybody to talk to their family members about their plans and what they'd like to do is really make sure they've got good, accurate information about what is correct and what. The accounting side, the financial side, the tax side all of those things are really important to have a good discussion. If you're having a discussion based on a bunch of assumptions, it doesn't work very well with anyone, and particularly with family.
Devon Davidson:No, that can go sideways in a hurry for sure. How do you initiate those conversations, Henry? You know what I mean. How do you approach that person that you need to tell first what's in your mind? How do?
Henry Vos:you, yeah, I think, being open, frank and honest and talk about your reasons why, why it's important to you.
Henry Vos:In our case, my wife was real clear that she wanted to raise a family in a community a bigger community that had a high school, for example, like we didn't even have a high school, that the grocery store was more than an hour away and that anytime you went to town you checked your list three or four times before you came home from town to make sure you had everything on it, because you knew you wouldn't be going back for another week. So she was pretty clear about that. But I was of the opinion that we could manage and get through. So it was only through a process of back-and-forth communication of what was important to me, why it was important, what was important to her, and to get to a point where you finally say OK, I see your point of view, I understand your point of view, I'm OK with your point of view. So it's a back and forth thing in many cases to those decisions, Cases like Roy mentioned. Then those become a little bit different conversations.
Devon Davidson:Yeah. Are there any strategies in your mind that can help initiate or facilitate that conversation to make sure that you're strengthening the family bonds as opposed to potentially harming them?
Henry Vos:Well, I think there's quite a few specialists out there I shouldn't say quite a few. There are a few specialists out there If you're really concerned about family members, stakeholders, that may have some say in what you do, what you can do, how you do it. If you're concerned about that, I'd certainly advise people talk to a specialist, a counselor, lawyers, because they can give you some tips. They've seen quite a few different things I know in my own experience. We've spent quite a bit of money on advice from various parties.
Devon Davidson:How would you say that CLH Bid sort of facilitates that transition, Like Family Remains Family is something we talked about in the last podcast. We've seen it in some of our advertising as a platform. How would you say that CLH can help with that?
Henry Vos:Well, I think my experience and it's coming into the organization. They have a lot of knowledge on this subject. They have specialists in-house that can help individuals. They can work with your team of people. If you've got your own lawyer or your own accountant or your people that you've worked with in the past, clhbid has people that can help advise those members of your team. If you'd like to choose, there's a lot of expertise in-house. It impresses me every day to see the talent pool that's here at CLHBid.
Devon Davidson:Yeah, I agree for sure, Roy. Anything to add to that point?
Roy Carter:No, I mean there's the old saying around the farm to be fair is not equal. We like to see, as Ali mentioned in an earlier podcast, the family farm survive, you know. So we will be involved on that aspect as a law firm on ways to make that equal, whether it be in wills, with carrybacks. You know, if there's one, it has to be an economic unit. And this farm I'm sitting on now you know that wasn't the case. My dad was 16 and there was eight kids when his dad died and there was nine quarters left to eight kids down the road from my grandmother. And you know, my mother used to say and I didn't understand as a little kid, but she used to have a saying that there's no farm big enough for two families. And the reason our bins aren't across the road which would have been logical was they were owned by my dad's sister who lived in Edmonton, who wouldn't sell that quarter right. So I mean you can learn a lot from what didn't work, that you had to move augers from across the creek. I didn't know why we had bins over there. It was because that was our land and we couldn't just go. We as a kid thought it was all our farm right. So there's some ways to fix that. You know alley in our office deals with that a lot. Where there's better ways to do that, you know, keep it as an economic unit and the non-farm kids can still get their equity out and that type of deal.
Roy Carter:We definitely look at that and and try and solve those issues. You know one thing what henry's talking about there I think a bit it's quite one thing if they're exiting and machinery and everything in one day and leaving. We see probably 80 of the time they quit farming and the equipment sold and they lease it out. So that's an easier transition. And one thing we see there often it's guilt. What stops the land from being sold. It's like, well, you know, we just kind of share this land.
Roy Carter:It came down from my grandfather and was my dad's and I hate to unload it and where, if they really sat down at the table, you know most of the kids would say, look, we don't go out there anymore, we had good times there, but why don't we sell it? We could all use some money and really opening up the discussion. If that makes sense and we do find that, you know you'll go to that farm and it's like, yeah, but man, this came from my grandfather and should we really do this, right? Right, but really, when they have the discussion, it's like the ease of entry is so difficult. Now they know that special grandkid, he can't go grain farming where, you know, 30 years ago, maybe, because you were only talking five, six quarters, right, so the easy entry isn't there and so they know those dreams are pretty much not possible.
Roy Carter:So, yeah, we deal with that a lot and, uh, we often find, if they talk about it, everybody likes the let down on the land. Um, you know, and basically you can share in the benefits and go do their own thing, as opposed to keeping these kids tied together at the hip by willing them land, which we all know can be problematic, right, yeah?
Devon Davidson:Well, it's a complicated process, right? Yeah, so maybe just to jump into some of the details now. Henry, what are some of the important steps that farmers should take when preparing for their exit strategy? What does that look like to you?
Henry Vos:I think you know, as you look at the clock of life and people think about the future. You know Roy mentioned the cost of entry and how it's difficult for people not farming to get into farming. And looking at that clock and eventually where it's going to go, earlier is better than later. Yeah, it can help everybody. And and then, um, listen clearly to what people's concerns are around, uh, around the issue of selling the farm. Quite often it's, uh, financial, financial security. They're absolutely, they're concerned about their future, their, their place, um, so I think that that's critically important to understand where people are coming from.
Henry Vos:And then, as I mentioned earlier, look at where you can get some expertise to help in the decision. Obviously, everybody likes free expertise and there's people at CLHBid that are very generous with their time and their expertise, obviously with a hope that someday will be considered as part of a sale process if it happens. But there's other people that are experts in the fields various fields around this and call on those people because they can guide you and take you away from some false assumptions that I see regularly. Yeah, most people have trusted advisors.
Roy Carter:It's just a case of talking to them. You know we encourage that. You know, on those issues, sit down with your longtime accountant and lawyer and talk about that, right, and we, like people that you know, trust advisors and those are good people. So that's usually. It's communication, like Henry talked about. That's the key. You know, we often see the elderly parents or one of them again that guilt and it's like can we really pull the trigger? But when they really start talking the kids will say, yeah, you should, let's go ahead and time moves on right.
Devon Davidson:Yeah, well, to both your points, one, financial security. And then, just talking to your advisor, how important would you say it is for a landowner to understand the value of their land before they sell it?
Henry Vos:I think most farmers today are pretty comfortable with the equity that they have in their land. So the actual number is not as important as the process and the plan. After the number Okay, and we know no one can give you a precise number, I was going to say I should have prefaced that by saying we don't know right, but it's because appraisals and assessments can't really always be trusted.
Henry Vos:But yeah, so, um well, I um, you know, I think people would like to know a number, but really it's only a exposure to the market and price discovery. As we talked about right the buy the buyers that are going to determine what that is.
Roy Carter:You would be shocked at the number of farmers that totally will say I don't know what it's worth. We get very few that, yeah, I know my land's worth. This I would say 90% say yeah, I really don't know what it's worth. And that's the right answer. We always say if anybody tells you what your land is worth, stop listening, okay good, sorry, henry, go ahead.
Henry Vos:No, I was agreeing with that. We've seen surprise after surprise in the marketplace, and in my career I've seen surprises the other way. You know the surprises we're talking about today have been pleasant ones, because the last 20 years markets have generally improved. But I have seen surprises the other way, and so you know, as people move forward, we don't know where the marketplace is going to go. It has gone up pretty steadily over the last, while Farmland is a hedge against inflation, but it's also subject to commodity prices. It's subject to political influences and there has been times in the past where it's gone the other direction. So we need to be aware.
Devon Davidson:Well, you set that up perfectly for my next question. So is there ever a perfect time to sell? What sort of considerations need to be taken into account before you do make that move?
Henry Vos:Yeah, I don't think there's a perfect time to sell. There's a time for you in your life. If this is the way your life is playing out, you know, I think most farmers would like to see their legacy carry on into the future with another generation and all that. But that's just not for everybody and that's not the way of agriculture in general. Worldwide Farms are consolidating. They're getting bigger, equipment's getting much more efficient. I saw something here a year or two ago. New Holland had an advertisement one. One of their machines could could harvest as much in one hour as a 30 man crash. A thrashing crew could harvest in a full day. Yeah, and so that's. That's just a fact of life that things are getting bigger, more efficient. So not everybody is going to carry on, not everybody's going to be interested in carrying on. So there are going to be sales in the future as far as you know, when the time's right.
Roy Carter:Again, I think it goes to when it's right for them, but we, we do like the discussion you know they will ask us about. Well, maybe I should sell a quarter a year for 10 years or two quarters a year for six? You know our answer on that is no know. An assemblage is always a big lift. It brings in people from a lot bigger radius. I think you know, within five miles of one quarter there's 480 other quarters. If you double that radius, you got the quadrupling. So you know we'll help them with and we all.
Roy Carter:You know we don't know, we don't profess to be smarter than them, but we've, after eight years of selling a lot of land we have, we have learned what works and what doesn't. So you know we could say no, don't sell two this year, and bridget will probably talk our cfo later. There's also tax issues, clawback and old age security, amt, etc. You know. So stuff like that. We can help them and say no, if you're going to have an event, do it in one year. Here's how we would do it, but still as far as what that date is.
Roy Carter:One thing we do allow them, though, is once they decide, we give them the set exit date. That's huge, you know. It's kind of like if, if somebody was sick and needed treatment. Once they decide, it's like, well, wait for the phone to ring, nobody likes that and it doesn't work very good, right? Uh, well, we give them the set date. You know, basically here's the operation date, right off the top right, and we control that exit. And if you can control that letdown, I think it's a lot more stress-free then well, let's list it and see if the sign rots off, right, or get an offer for two quarters, or you know whatever.
Devon Davidson:Right, yeah, and uh yeah so what role would marketing play in that roy like how, how critical is that to the selling process? And what would you say like what are buyers looking for? If so, if I'm selling my land now, what do? What can I do in preparation for my sale.
Roy Carter:Yeah, I mean, as Henry knows. I mean if there's yards involved in grain handling systems, obviously they bring value if they look good. You know it's one business, farming, that you can't hide how your business is doing. If you drive by a farm, right, Henry, you can kind of see who's doing it right and who's not, and you know their crops. So from that point of view other than that, though, for marketing, you know our shortest sale, we wouldn't recommend it.
Roy Carter:But we had a couple by Fort Saskatchewan called us two, three years ago on a Friday. I was out of the office. I called them back on Saturday and they said it's over a 100-year-old farm and we want to sell. And I said when? And they said two weeks of Monday and I we want to sell. And I said when? And they said two weeks of Monday. And it's like what? And? But there was a another distress sale by a bank close and we looked at it and Monday we had the Peterbilt there with a van, we had the videography crew there and we sold it in basically 16 days and it sold well.
Roy Carter:So you know, time, that's a game changer nowadays. You get it out so quick, Um, and most of the buyers are getting a hundred percent, or a lot of the buyers are doing a hundred percent equity uh based upon their equity takeout uh with banks and AFSC, farm credit, et cetera. So it's not like, you know, I need to sell the grain or I got to. You know the wheat board quota's got to open up like it used to be, or you know I got to get my canola advance. These guys are, you know, a lot of these quarters are kind of the price of a combine or whatever, or less so, and you, like Ali alluded to in another podcast about vendor takebacks, if you get squeezed, so there's lots of tools to make that happen. You know, if they say we want to and this couple I talked about there was some health issues um, they wanted to get to fort saskatchewan and, um, you know, that's when you can sort of look in the toolbox and, yeah, this can work right. Yeah, from.
Henry Vos:Uh, from my perspective, having bought and sold various parcels of land, whole farms in a number of cases I think it's fair to the buyers to give them a reasonable amount of time. And so what's reasonable? And I'd encourage people, if they're doing their planning, to plan for some time for a sale process, because you want to first of all expose it to the market, but second of all, give people time to think about it For sure, and then third, to arrange for their financing. And if you don't give enough time, sometimes the younger people that may be in a position to expand their farm but just not ready that moment, need a little extra time to, to, to find financing and so forth. Just as you make the decision, plan for a bit of time for the process, you'll certainly gain from exposure to the market yeah, from from our side it's, it's critical and I understand bridget's reminded me many times.
Devon Davidson:We we need to make sure that they have time to line up financing and things like that. So it's like you said, more time is better, for sure, you gotta be careful.
Roy Carter:I was listening to an accountant there though devon, but you can uh yeah I, I agree, um, you know, time that never hurts.
Roy Carter:We always say get it out and then you can park sales. We know, if we know, if we have some nice land coming up and your start bids are where they should be, you can sort of stop sales around there within a certain radius until that sale day. So that's key. Don't have these guys go spend their dry powder someplace else on further away land. So time is good. I'm not suggesting that at all. We would never do anything to hurt people. You know, like that one at fort saskatchewan. Again, we don't recommend that, but obviously we wouldn't have went if we didn't think it didn't. We went an hour ahead of the foreclosure sale, right, and it worked um. So, um, I'm not telling people let's do two week sales.
Devon Davidson:Yeah, uh, for sure at time time's good okay, yeah, well, let's, uh, let's do two-week sales, yeah, for sure, and time's good, okay yeah.
Henry Vos:Well, let's move on then to transitioning to afterlife on the farm. I was going to go back just for a second because on one side I've got a lawyer, on the other side in the office is an accountant. So you know, in the middle you kind of get it and they go back and forth on things.
Devon Davidson:But in defense of accountants, so seeing how we've got a lawyer next door here.
Henry Vos:When we made a major transition actually after 40 years of farming, we downsized the farm and doing some other things like this we spent a fair bit of time and money, uh, with our accountant and, and in the tens of thousands of dollars to get advice on various issues. Um, wound up buying buying just about two million dollars worth of cattle one year to uh move, move things around a bit, bought some more cattle again the next year, but had major savings in our tax issues. That would have been front and center hadn't we got that advice In terms of value for money. I'll put my money on the accountants, but then I'll. Then I'll get a lawyer to help me keep it.
Roy Carter:You better be careful henry, we're all gonna fit in this room.
Devon Davidson:Pretty sensitive, pretty quick here uh I've heard the exact same thing from friends of mine. That farm as well. Right it's. Uh, an accountant is some of the best money you'll ever spend oh yeah, for sure.
Henry Vos:yeah, uh, good, I, I stopped you there. No, that's good, thank you.
Devon Davidson:That's. That's a good point. All right. So the transition to life after the farm. Henry, what are some of the biggest challenges farmers face when transitioning away from the family farm? Because I think it's. It's such a an integral part of who you are, your identity as a person. When you're a farmer. That's all you do every day for decades. So you know how do you. What are the biggest challenges you face?
Henry Vos:Well, I think for me, and I think for many other farmers, the very biggest one was and and and. Before working with CLH, I had a period of time that I was doing real estate work with farmers in a different capacity. Biggest challenge is and I ask this question every time I sat down with farmers and their wives okay, you're thinking of selling the farm? Oh, yep, yep. And I'd ask what are you going to do to fill your day? Yep, how are you going to spend your time?
Henry Vos:and here's a. Here's the answer I got back. Quite often we're going to travel and I said, okay, after a couple months of that, then what are you going to do? Yep, and I knew that they weren't ready to sell when they didn't have a plan to fill their day. So that's really a major obstacle for a lot of people in making the decision is how to fill their day. So I would really encourage people to think about their life, think about their family, think about where they want to spend their time, think about travel, if that fits. If you're going to stay somewhere in a warm climate for part of the year, think about all that. Work your way through what a year might look like after the farm, because that's a key part in selling the farm.
Devon Davidson:Thinking about that time. So, based off your own experience's, what's some advice that you would offer to someone who's in that transition phase?
Henry Vos:uh, think about your passions, think about, think about what excites you yeah and I had a.
Henry Vos:I had a friend, and this is part story, part part, uh, I would say realistic. So you're in to see the doctor and the doctor says okay, I got some news for you, some good, some bad. Bad news is you're not going to live, but the good news is you've got three years. So what are you going to do in those three years? And so you go home and think about it and you go back to see the doctor in a few months and the doctor says I've got a new diagnosis for you. Good and bad. The bad you got three months. Good, you got three months. Sure, what are you going to do? What's your priorities in three months? They change, yep. And then the next thing is you do go the same thing and he says you got three weeks.
Henry Vos:Yeah, so think about what you're going to do in those periods of time. What's really important to you? Yeah, for me it was flying an airplane. So I went and did more than that, more of that, lots more of that um, family, critically important. So as you work through those things, then you can figure out a plan for your life and and that helps you move on things that that you're passionate about okay, um, what would you say are some of the biggest mistakes you've seen, whether it's for yourself or someone else who's made that transition to life after the farm?
Henry Vos:Oh, I think the biggest mistake is not getting enough advice. Sure, being too economical, being too not wanting to spend the money to get good, solid, practical advice from experts in the field yeah. And then making plans for the future yeah, those are things. And including and and then including family as well in in all your discussions and your plans and why you're doing things okay, right, anything else from.
Roy Carter:I one of the biggest mistakes I think you see is um, procrastinate, don't do it, and they sort of have to haul them off the farm, kind of thing. Yeah, and you know, if they do move to town or they sort of get you know interested, you know, god forbid, maybe even pickleball or something.
Devon Davidson:I'm not a pickleball guy.
Roy Carter:But there must be something to it. But, you know they do find stuff, as opposed to sort of just being on the farm, which is then usually rented out, you know, and they're in the farmstead or whatever. Yeah, but waiting too long is a problem, because then they often end up by themselves. One of them too, right.
Henry Vos:Yeah, that's really important. I knew that I had a number of things in life I wanted to do other than go up and down the field all day. We weren't sure where our daughters were going to wind up with their careers. Would have loved to have them farming beside us. One is currently farming and the other one's involved in the grain industry Great positions, so that passion that we had for agriculture is rubbed off on them.
Devon Davidson:That's great, but delaying too long is going to stop you from doing some of those things you might be passionate about too. Henry, tell me a little bit about your decision to jump over to clhbitcom. Was it the dynamics, the structure, the platform? What drove you to join the team?
Henry Vos:Oh, good question and it fits with, you know, part of what I saw as a strength I had moving away from the farm and what I wanted to do, and I wanted to share back with the farm community some of my experiences in transitioning from that family farm, where we spent 10 years farming, to a new farm two and a half hours away from our family and then buying farms there and selling farms there. I wanted to share some of that information back with the farm community so I got involved with the real estate industry and was helping people buy and sell farmland. That was my specialty. What I worked on, did that for a period of time and found some real gaps, some real challenges, some difficulties and put clients in really tough positions because they wanted to sell their farm. We were marketing the best we could, locally, generally and maybe on a national platform, but wrong combination of markets, of marketing the product, trying to position it, with people and people not having dates they could count on for, moving on with their life. And so I watched CLH bid for a number of years, bugged them a few times about what they were doing and finally pushed a little bit more and a little bit more, and somebody pushed me and finally, looking at the platform, looking at, uh, you know, I call it world-class marketing.
Henry Vos:It's just absolutely incredible. It's in front of me wherever I'm looking for material information. I'm involved quite extensively with agriculture, so it's front and center all the time. So absolutely world class. Um, just there's no comparison. And then, um, with that fixed exit date, uh thought this is, this is a system that'll work for for farms anywhere. It's fair to the buyers and it works for the sellers. It covers off a couple of key uh components that they're interested in. So, uh, fortunate to be here. Thanks, Henry, appreciate the comments.
Devon Davidson:We're lucky. Thank you, yeah, absolutely Thanks, henry. All right, thank you to our listeners for listening. That was another edition of the Farmland Exchange podcast. If you enjoyed it you heard here today, please consider leaving a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice. It helps us in the algorithm get found by other listeners.
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