The Best Way to Sell Farm Land: CLHbid.com Vs. Realtors & Auctioneers Feat. Henry Vos

Devon Davidson: 0:00

The Farmland Exchange, the official podcast of CLHbid. com. Expert insights on buying and selling farmland in Western Canada.

Devon Davidson: 0:13

Welcome back to the Farmland Exchange podcast. I'm Devon Davidson, your host and digital media strategist for CLHbid. com. On today's episode. We've got an exciting topic here, lots to dig into. We're going to talk about how we are different the CLHbid. com difference between realtors and auctioneers and to help us do that, we brought on our very own Director of Sales, henry Voss. Henry, how are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for joining us. And also on the show, as always, roy Carter, ceo of CLHbid. com. Roy, how are you, roy? How are you Good? Thanks, Devon, thanks Henry, thanks for being here. Guys, and also to our listeners, please make sure you take a minute to subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice and also, if you have some time, leave a five-star review. It really helps us out with the algorithms. So, guys, it should be a fun topic of conversation. You might want to start, henry, by giving us a little bit of some background on yourself professionally.

Henry Vos: 1:04

You spent some time as a realtor for five or six years. Yeah, I'll back up a little bit further than that. Um uh, we uh grain farmed in northern alberta. We used my wife and I uh for um more than 30 years. Actually I think I have a certificate from the seed growers that says, uh, 35 years of seed production. Okay, so did that.

Henry Vos: 1:24

And then we decided we didn't want to continue that. Our two daughters we weren't sure quite what they wanted to do with their lives, and so we wound down our seed business and then our farm operation. And at that point in time, well, during that period I had a chance to serve on many boards of directors, including the Canadian Wheat Board and the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange and various commodity organizations, so learned a lot about governance and representation of farmers and that sort of thing. So in this transition period then after farming, I decided I would take my real estate course and my real estate license. And then in my transition phase of life, I decided because I knew so many farmers around the country, I thought I would practice as a realtor and see what I could do for farmers. So I did that for about five years.

Devon Davidson: 2:23

Okay, so you know that helps for this conversation. Obviously, you're well-versed on both sides of the table, having understood how realtors work for farmers and then also on our side as well. So, on that, we're going to jump into CLHbid. com a smarter way to sell farmland and the first thing we wanted to talk about was exclusive representation and seller control. So I know that's something that we're big on and, um roy, I don't know if you want to tackle this first or henry, but we're talking about solicitor client privilege, so we only act for the seller right sure I can take on the privilege part.

Roy Carter: 2:56

Just going back to henry, uh, I actually bought seed from henry. I sort of knew him before, but first time was in his yard with my grain truck picking up seed and I'm sure that'd be over 30 years ago Got a ton of respect for Henry and his horsepower and egg and definitely was a standout agriculture realtor in Northern Alberta as well. Going to privilege, so yeah, where we differ from realtors and auctioneers is the first, second, first phone call. We're bound by solicitor client privilege, which is a high standard by the law society. So clients are assured any communication is privileged, cannot be used against them, them and cannot be disclosed and aside from there's really two areas there to cover. They have privilege in that first phone call. Plus, we're bound by solicitor client confidentiality. So anything that's discussed or anything that we learn about our client can never be disclosed or we're sanctioned by the law society. So it's a high standard.

Roy Carter: 4:12

And farm real estate is unique. In that urban real estate the vendor seldom knows the buyer. It'd be under 1% of cases. So it's not nearly as important the confidentiality as it is with farmland.

Roy Carter: 4:25

You know, I don't know what the number would be if Henry took a guess, but I would say you know, in 50% of cases, at least in agriculture, farm real estate, the vendor will know the buyer, and sometimes really well you know it might be a relative, a neighbor, the tenant. So, uh, you know, uh, the confidentiality becomes super important as far as if you want to negotiate, you know true top value. The more your buyer knows, the weaker you are as a seller in negotiating. And you know, in our experience in town you know you can tell your listing realtor quite a bit. Often it gets to the other realtor who's actually acting for the other party and then goes down the chain to the purchaser. You know, in the case of ag real estate that would be horrendous because often it would be people in a know a neighbor a mile or two away opens the door to collusion, etc.

Devon Davidson: 5:27

So so, henry, for you, and going back to exclusive representation, you know have in your experience as a farm realtor, did you see situations where sellers assumed the agent was fully working for them, only to realize later that they weren't?

Henry Vos: 5:43

that's a. That's a complex question, um, and and I I would break it down into uh, three parts and then I'll get to why it's a complex towards the end, the um. First of all, there's the selling side. A client approaches a realtor to help them sell their property. Then there's the buying side. Somewhere out there there's going to be a party interested in the property maybe several and generally in the in the real estate world there's representation on both sides. There's a selling agent and a buying agent. So that's that's the selling side. On the buying side, as I just mentioned, there's often in, at least in urban real estate, there's often a realtor representing the buyer, separate and different from the seller side. The third part is the. Before I get to the third part.

Henry Vos: 6:41

So the seller wants to sell this property, the selling agent signs an agreement with him and it's really a brokerage agreement where the the seller signs off on the details of the property, the specific legal title and any conditions that he might have. For example, he might want to finish harvesting his crop or move grain out of the bins before the possession. So those things will be in this brokerage agreement that's signed. Then they sign another agreement which is representation by this individual. And realtors are independent contractors. They're not employees, they're independent contractors who basically work for themselves. They're affiliated with a brokerage the big names you'll see on the on the signs but they are, they're independent contractors very distinctly. They're independent contractors and so they sign their own agreement that they'll represent the client. And most of these agreements both the brokerage agreement and the agent agreement somehow in there it says exclusive, exclusive representation and so or that brokerage is exclusively going to sell the property, nobody else is going to interfere with that sale. So that's the two parts that seller signs off on, thinking they've got representation for their interests.

Henry Vos: 8:07

I just mentioned the buying side. Often, at least in typical real estate transactions in cities, there's a buying side realtor as well. So that's the buying side In that brokerage agreement. There's a few lines in there that talk about what the seller is going to pay for commissions. You know the total commission rate for the property. There'll be another part of the agreement that has a statement about how that commission is going to be split. And typically what happens is the commission is split half between the selling realtor and half between the buying realtor. So that's that's the classic split. Commission rates are negotiable, but the split is fairly common at 50, 50 or something close to that. So that gets to the third point in this is the commissions and, and I just mentioned how they get split.

Henry Vos: 9:07

So when? If you think about typical practice in rural areas, the there's not a lot of realtors in. In rural areas, the first thing the realtor does when he lists a property and maybe it's on the way out of the driveway when they when they take the listing is they pound in a sign and guess whose phone number is on the sign? The listing, the listing realtor. Yeah, so anybody that sees that property and then sees it later on in advertising will be phoning the seller's realtor to find out information. So this is all the neighbors. So the neighbors want to know what's going on, what's happening and most likely fairly high in the list of potential candidates to to buy the property. So right away the realtor's in a in's, in a bit of a conflict Is he representing the seller or is he representing the buyer?

Devon Davidson: 10:09

Yeah, yeah. So what do you find happens in those cases? Like dueling, like conflicting interests, right?

Henry Vos: 10:16

Yeah, yeah, absolutely Good question. You know, if you carry on, the buyer continues his conversation with the, with the listing realtor, and may even get to the point of um, maybe they don't have a realtor. Farmers don't buy land every day um, there's not a lot of people in an area that that practice. So he continues on his conversation with the seller's realtor or the seller's agent, and can even get to the point of writing up an offer with the seller's agent. Yeah, so then the next thing that happens, the seller's agent has this offer and he's got to take this offer back to his client. Mm-hmm, and there's the conflict. Is that, um, is he representing the buyer or is he representing the seller?

Henry Vos: 11:13

So the first, first piece of paper that comes out on the table, when, when this offer comes to the table, is a, an agreement that now says something to the effect that the realtor is no longer working for the seller. He's going to simply facilitate a transaction between the buyer and the seller and essentially, the seller's on his own and the buyer's on his own. Obviously, the realtor is going to do whatever he can to make the deal happen, because he gets all the commissions. That's right on both sides of the transaction and, um, I think, um, if you'll think about the logic of it, they got to get that agreement signed that they're no longer representing their client the fellow that thought that they were going to be exclusive to them before they can present the offer, otherwise it is officially a conflict of interest. So it's a really tricky position. It's difficult, and the seller that thought he had exclusive representation all of a sudden find themselves without any Well, and now that selling agent?

Devon Davidson: 12:20

in his best interest, he wants to make sure that first offer gets signed, so he gets his commission right. He's not concerned about price discovery.

Henry Vos: 12:27

Well, the uh, no question, Um, the pressure's on. There's an offer there and, and, um, uh, the agent is, uh, um, you know, suggesting to the seller that here's a, here's an offer and then, whatever the differences are between the numbers or the details, um, uh, they're generally working on the seller to reduce their expectations and they're working on the buyer to increase their offer. Back and forth between the two to try and complete the deal. So it's very significant pressure at that point, neither one having official representation at that point.

Devon Davidson: 13:04

So that goes to another big difference with CLHbid. com right, eliminating that duplication of listing and selling agents right and just ensuring that there's no conflict of interest Right.

Roy Carter: 13:14

Yeah, totally Exactly what Henry talks about. I mean they have an offer. Even if they got another offer from a selling realtor, a different realtor, they know they're going to get double commission if this one gets signed, that they're on both sides on right. You know, we had a just last week we had a call from a pending seller and got talking to her. And we got talking and about options and and, uh know, real estate. And she said, yeah, I know the drill on that.

Roy Carter: 13:48

And I said what you guys sold some land by real estate. And she said no, we were realtors, my husband and I, and she said, it's sad to say, but you know, the drill was kind of overpromised Get the listing and then basically an offer comes in and then you go with the story that this might be it, you better take it. And uh, you know we're not. Definitely. You know somebody like uh, henry, there's lots of good realtors out there, lots of ethical realtors, but there's a tendency, because of money, to sometimes, um, that goes on, does it go on Totally? And this lady they'd actually been in business themselves and got it and said it doesn't work right For sure.

Devon Davidson: 14:31

So just going back to duplication of agents here, Henry, in the US they're changing that right, or it's already been changed. Do you think Canada follows suit?

Henry Vos: 14:41

Well, I read the information on the US, and both sellers and buyers have to have their own representation. That is now the case in British Columbia as well.

Devon Davidson: 14:51

Okay.

Henry Vos: 14:51

Except for rural areas, you know, recognizing the challenge with finding people to represent both sides, I think, but certainly an indication of the challenge of this situation of realtors being caught in the middle and challenged to make the deal, but motivated by the fact that there's commissions to be had. So always, you know, working, you know, and certainly I think everybody attempts to work within the rules, but it's a really conflicting situation for people. So I think it's likely to continue getting more attention. In Canada, I hear it talked about in various magazines that I see. Obviously I watch this topic closely.

Devon Davidson: 15:41

Yeah.

Henry Vos: 15:42

But BC is the first province that I know of that has switched to having agents on both sides again, except for rural areas.

Devon Davidson: 15:50

That's good to see. The next thing we want to talk about here, roy, was we set the terms of the offer right, not the buyer. So we control the terms and the narrative and we keep the sellers in control and, as you said, I think, henry, we exclusively represent the seller. That's important to us, right? Yeah, how much influence does the buyer in traditional real estate have in shopping the terms of the sale, roy?

Roy Carter: 16:14

Well, they drive the bus. You know, in conventional real estate they draft the terms of the offer, they put the conditions in everything and then the vendor. All they do is they're always responding right and if they're doing a counter, you know, I've seen cases where an offer comes in and the farmer says you know, it doesn't work for me. And the other realtor calls and says, well, aren't you going to counter? And it was like no, and it's like well, you got to counter. And it's like no, you don't have to counter. Right, there's no such law that you got to counter it. He can say I don't like it and if you decide to send one, I like. You know, maybe I'll read it, but they're in this system where it's just once you get in the game, they just expect here's an offer, be countered back and forth a couple of times and it'll get over the line, sometimes with a nominal deposit. There's this misnomer too that, well, let's not ask for too big of a deposit because it might be onerous and it might not get signed. We require 20% within 24 hours. Yeah, and there's a big buffer because of this list selling situation where on the owner's side, he never gets direct information from that buyer. You're getting it fed from the purchaser to his agent, to your agent, and there's about three people in there. So what really happens? Right, and in our situation at CLH Law, we have direct drive. We only act for sellers, but the buyer's got to deal with us. There's nobody in between.

Roy Carter: 17:59

And a couple of weeks ago we had a sale and the guy called and I was out, come back to the office and the receptionist said so-and-so was high on that sale, but he wants to talk to you because he can't close. So I said, put it through. So, um, you know, the call comes through and they know we're a law firm where you know, I think it, I think they, they kind of wonder you know what we might do, or whatever. Anyway, he, uh, I said hi, and he said, uh, yeah, I was a bidder on that sale. And I said, no, you weren't. And he said, yeah, no, I was. And I said, no, you were the buyer and there's a difference. And he said, well, I don't have the money. And I said, well, you're not going to have a very good summer, right, and that's what's going to happen. And he's. So we're talking.

Roy Carter: 18:48

Put that in the context of you know, ask that other agent what his buyer said. And you know, if you want to hold that guy's feet to the fire way tougher, right, you don't have direct access to him, right? Yeah, you know, I could hear on the guy on the other end of the phone, right, I think he was going to go find his money, right, yeah, and so from that point of view, direct drive, nobody between start to finish. Um, I think makes a big difference in the end as far as delivering for your client. You know, why should these guys control an offer when it's your land? Yeah, you know, maybe your grandfather homesteaded it. Um, should be able to you to set the terms. So we, you know our vendor will. I don't want to move off until a certain date. I want to be able to sell my equipment a bit later. You know, does that work? And it's like you own it? That'll all be factored into the price, but you can set your terms. And again, even, from a tax point of view.

Roy Carter: 19:50

you know, aside from the capital gains exemption, they have primary residence, so you can allocate it has to be reasonable. But you don't need to get in that fight later. It can be allocated in the offer, that's it. So under CLH bid they bid both price and the terms of the offer, which cannot be changed. So we give the seller a way more control.

Devon Davidson: 20:10

Right and certainty. So that's you know. We've talked about no conditional offers. That's another thing we want to get into here is is we don't mess around with that. There's no right, it's just the seller sets the terms and and, and now there's peace of mind for the seller Right.

Roy Carter: 20:23

Yeah, often it's a case of, as Henry knows, town. They want to make a commitment on a, you know, an urban residence or move. They need to know dates, and tax is such a big deal on the farm exit. You know, when you don't have a set date, uh, don't spend money with your tax planner because that changes, as we know. And so you know, if you can have a set date, you can.

Devon Davidson: 20:50

You can deal with the tax and, you know, minimize your net tax as well, right, yeah, and Henry, for you, just in your experience as a farm realtor, what sort of conditions did you see on sales and how did that put the sellers at a disadvantage?

Henry Vos: 21:07

Yeah, you know. I think Roy should tell our listeners what a condition is, because you know a lot of people are not sure about the word when they hear it in terms of the real estate context. But essentially it's a I call it an out clause.

Devon Davidson: 21:26

Whoever?

Henry Vos: 21:27

sets a condition, has the privilege of getting out if that condition is not met or waived. And I was just partied to a discussion about a commercial transaction here last week and the question was well, you know they're going to do this on this side. What do we have for out clauses on our side? And it was oh, we have lots of out clauses. So so if, if a buyer can write in a number of conditions, out clauses, you know, and a classic one is financing you know the buyer's got to go off and see if they can get financing. Yeah, so they'll make an offer on a property. They give 30 days or even six weeks to achieve financing and then the seller signs off on that. Essentially, what it does is it takes the property off the market for that period of time.

Henry Vos: 22:24

In the meantime, the buyer may have the money in the bank. The buyer may need financing and can get financing without any problem, but decide that the financing or the use of the funds that they have available have a different purpose or, for some reason, they have decided that the financing available does not suit the sale as they're looking at and move on. The meantime, the seller's sitting there for a month or or more, waiting for a condition, so that that's a. That's a condition that's often. There's other ones, um, you know about, uh, sewer systems and all that sort of thing checking that out, but um, that's, that's a classic one.

Henry Vos: 23:07

what it does, though, for the seller, though, is it leaves them in the air. They can't make any plans. Their hands are tied. The property is essentially off the market for that period of time. Neighbors all think it's sold, but maybe it isn't really sold, so it can be a real challenge for sellers. And so you know, as Roy mentioned, we set the terms with the seller at CLH Bid, and things are very defined. The buyer is bidding for the price and for the set terms.

Roy Carter: 23:42

Yeah, like Henry says, park, you know. They park the vendor for their six-week conditional period or whatever. He could get other cash offers even better in that period. Can't touch them, they go elsewhere, elsewhere. The guy uses the out clause and um, you know, then he's stuck with the land type deal right, yeah, I've seen it happen.

Devon Davidson: 24:03

Uh, the other thing I want to talk about was we pass we must pass on what we know right and and roy, is that part of solicitor client privilege?

Roy Carter: 24:10

Yeah, so yeah, exactly, I mean it should be. The level should be the same for real estate. I'm sure a lot of again a lot of realtors are super honorable. They will pass it on. We don't have an option. Anything we know our client is entitled to know. So you know, if we get any information, whether or not it may not be beneficial to CLH bid. We don't have an option to sift through that and say you know, we wished our client didn't know this. Our client, we stand in their shoes and they need to know everything. So everything's passed on Right, which there's absolute, total transparency, and it makes for a lot stronger and a better relationship.

Devon Davidson: 24:55

Yeah, I agree. So, henry, on the flip side of that, have you seen in traditional real estate where information was selectively disclosed and it negatively influenced a deal for a seller, and do you have any examples you could share?

Henry Vos: 25:10

Approach that in a couple of ways, and and one of the parts of the real estate training that I took was about the necessary disclosures in real estate, and there's laws about this and I'm sure roy can can explain them way better than I can. But one that I recall very clearly was, uh, related to material latent defects on a property and, um, I I put those into the category of things that might hurt or kill somebody. Um, these, these are serious things, and I'll give you an example uh, there's an old well with a pump jack on in the back. It's kind of falling in and the grass is growing over it. If you know about that, you are required to disclose those kind of things because they're you know they're affect people's lives for sure. Yeah, absolutely.

Henry Vos: 26:07

Other things, though you know the shingles are curling up on the roof. The seller might say, yeah, I got to change the shingles in a couple of years or something, I don't know for sure. You don't have to disclose that. It's a buyer beware. If the buyer can't see the shingles are curling up, then perhaps the buyer should get some help with their side of it, their side of it, but the? Um, if all of a sudden the realtor is representing both sides or essentially representing themselves and nobody it's not necessary.

Henry Vos: 26:38

They disclose that. No, um, but they're in the middle of the transaction. So you can see, the incentive is to to leave that be, not create any barrier to the to the transaction. So those kind of things are um, you know. I think um in terms of uh, you know, honorable people doing the right thing. There's, there's lots of examples of good, good people doing that and and the defects material in defects. You know everybody's got to disclose those. If the seller disclosed to the realtor when they had an exclusive arrangement that the lowest price they could accept on this property was X, then the realtor should not be disclosing that to the buyer. That comes to the table later. And you know, because they signed that agreement, that it was going to be exclusive, they were going to be exclusive agent. But you can't help but think that the uh, if the buyer says, well, where do I need to be on this uh to get this property? Yeah, there's going to be, well if you're somewhere around this number, maybe the agent yeah, might work, yeah so it.

Henry Vos: 27:48

It gets to quite a conflict of what you disclose.

Devon Davidson: 27:53

Okay, Next topic here, guys, is due diligence and maximizing land value. So, Roy, you said it many times, but one thing we do is we drill down on title and registrations in advance and issues are resolved before the sale, reducing risks for sellers and buyers. What kind of title registration issues have you seen derail a farmland sale? How does CLHbid. com prevent those issues from becoming a problem?

Roy Carter: 28:17

Yeah, you know we drill down as a law firm. We're used to it. Before we started CLHBid nine, ten years ago, you know, we would sometimes get offers in our office where the land had actually not been searched by the realtor. They just put the legal in and you search it as a law firm and it was like did you know about this? And I was like, no, do you never search that title? No, um, so you know, we do, we drill down, and for a couple of reasons. One is we want to make sure we can sell what we've been asked to and we don't look like idiots. And the other one is we want to make sure we can sell what we've been asked to and we don't look like idiots. And the other one is we want to make sure our vendor keeps his money, that there's no surprises and no issues down the road and they don't get sued over it. But you know there'll be a common one and know what you don't know is a bit of an issue.

Roy Carter: 29:09

You know, and again, not all realtors are like this, but I've, I've asked, you know, is there access to a realtor right? Um, and it's like, yeah, there's, there's a road there. It's not that good, or but maybe it's not all weather, but it's a road, and it's like, no, I mean, is there legal access? No, it's, it's there. You might get stuck on it and it's like, no, I'm talking about something different. Yeah, I know there's a road there, but is it a road plan or how do they get there? Right, and you'd be surprised the number that don't know the difference. Right, and you'd be surprised sometimes about the amount of land that doesn't actually have legal access.

Roy Carter: 29:48

Another good example sometimes is some quarters can't be sold alone. They're tied to another quarter, and that varies from province to province. But you know, you'll see an offer for a quarter and it's like, yeah, no, you actually can't sell this as one quarter, it's tied to another legal right. So, from that point of view, we'll drill down on all that to make sure this can be sold. No subdivision required.

Roy Carter: 30:13

You know the SLR surface lease revenue. You know we have staff that deal with our client and we need to know if you've ever got notice to abandon a. Well, any notices need to be passed on, right, we're not interested in playing games, not interested in a purchaser saying you know, they said they wrote to your guy six weeks ago or two months ago. So from that point of view, we have staff that works just to flush it out and you can solve some of those problems. Maybe you know, if there's no legal access, maybe an easement works and we can do a legal easement. But we definitely shake the bushes rather than sort of ignore the bush. And you know, just hope and there's that saying hope's not a good strategy and yeah, so we don't take that route.

Devon Davidson: 31:02

Just for anyone that's listening. Roy, maybe do you want to talk about the differences between legal and physical access.

Roy Carter: 31:07

Yeah, totally Legal access could mean you can't see a road but you're entitled to go over it. It's public, yeah, but you know, maybe there's no tracks down it and there might even be bush on it, right. But then there's also old roads out there, and often they're, you know, oil company roads or whatever that are used, but they could be put to bed, abandoned, and they don't give any purchaser the long-term right to use it. So the fact that you see a road there doesn't mean there's guaranteed access for a purchaser down the road.

Devon Davidson: 31:40

Okay, and Henry, for you. How often do buyers assume that they have legal access to a piece of farmland, only to find out later they didn't.

Henry Vos: 31:51

Well, interesting question and I'm glad you sent me some of these questions beforehand because I made a few notes here.

Devon Davidson: 31:59

Well, that's perfect. Yeah, Appreciate that.

Henry Vos: 32:03

I think when it gets to that stage, most of the challenges have been worked out. When a buyer has signed the papers and has a title in their hand, most of the challenges have been worked out. But the um occasionally I've, uh, I've seen it hasn't happened to me and and I'm pretty during the time I was pretty diligent at uh, digging out titles because there was quite a bit of information on them that was important prior to going and signing a listing. But occasionally it's happened where the sign goes up at the end of the driveway and the tenant comes over and says oh, I've got another 10 years on that agreement, or my 10-year agreement's not finished yet. I have another two years, and so then it's up to the owner and the tenant to resolve that in in some way.

Henry Vos: 32:55

As when I was practicing as a realtor, I tried to stay out of all of the legal issues and I would refer things to the tenant's legal counsel. I said you need, you need to hire yourself a lawyer on this one, because I'm not in a position to help you. I'm not a lawyer and realtors aren't. They're not allowed to give legal advice on anything. So I think most realtors follow that. But there's some interesting stories out there. I had a client ask me to come look at some property. Yeah, quarter section, I can sell it. I want to take an acreage off of it and sell the rest. And so I pulled the title on it and there's a. There's a one line on the back page after the power line right away and the gas line right away. And it said and I don't know if I even got the words right because I haven't heard anybody use them lease pendents. And it was registered about 30 years previous to the date that I looked at this property. So and I said, what's this all about? He didn't know.

Roy Carter: 33:58

He had to go and check with his lawyer and maybe, maybe, roy, you can tell us what that word means yeah, somebody else is making a claim normally it's an ex-spouse, but yeah, we we had one a while ago here where it was an ex-spouse that had died and had been on there for like 40 years, right, uh, so then you need a court order to get that off, but uh, it may still be a pending action. So it's basically just notice to the world that somebody else is making a legal claim on that. So so if you see that on there, obviously you can't sell until it gets cleared up.

Henry Vos: 34:35

In this particular case, grandpa's will hadn't been settled and Grandpa had given his son a life estate on the property and now the son had passed away and the grandson was trying to sell the property. Now the son had passed away and the and the grandson was trying to sell the property. Okay, and so the whole family had to agree to some resolution to grandpa's will from 30 years ago.

Devon Davidson: 35:01

Well and roy, this is another example where the expertise at clh just as a law firm can can assist with that right. I mean there's all sorts of family dynamics to deal with around the legalities of it right yeah, and definitely you know nothing better than a senior paralegal.

Roy Carter: 35:17

You know most in my experience know more than a lawyer about land and registrations and that. So we have a team of that that go through it. They're much more diligent than most lawyers too. On your access deal, henry and I years ago had a common monsanto rep and I still recall him. He called me doug was his first name and uh, he was told he could buy this quarter and it had no physical access but it had legal access. There was a road allowance to it, uh. But he was told, yeah, then just call the county or rm afterwards and get your road built right. And uh, he called me and it was like, yeah, who do I call to get the road built right? And it was like not happening right. Uh, you know, to my knowledge there's not one in western canada you can force to build your road, wow. And he said, well, I was told there's a road allowance there and they got to build you a road and it's like, yeah, no.

Henry Vos: 36:12

So he later resold that quarter, but yeah, and and his uh potential buyers were very limited, as in the neighbor yeah, I know exactly, totally, yeah, yeah yeah, all right.

Devon Davidson: 36:26

the next one we want to move on to is is packaging. We've talked lots about this, roy, in previous episodes. I think, henry, we talked with you maybe on on your last episode about packaging at some point, but it's intended to maximize value and we actually had this conversation with Hallie earlier. It was just how important that is. So maybe, roy, just press upon our listeners how does that impact value when you're packaging things properly?

Roy Carter: 36:50

Yeah, it's huge. And where we saw it it was common with real estate to say here this farm's for sale at Russell, manitoba, there's 12 quarters or whatever. And the reason it was done that way is that, farmer, he didn't want to be left with one rubber boot. You know he had equipment for 12. He didn't want to sell six and be stuck with the other six and have too much equipment. So it was problematic and so it was always packaged together. But what we saw is, you know, for every person with money to buy those 12, there's 10 to buy one of those quarters, 10 people to buy one. There's multiples and often they'll pay a premium for the one across the fence.

Roy Carter: 37:35

And you know, as you know, in Saskatoon, if you had 10 houses, you would never say I'm only selling to one buyer. You know nobody would do it. And we always use this stupid analogy. You know, if you had a Dodge Ram truck with a Harley in the back and a livestock trailer with a goat and a roping horse in it, you probably wouldn't sell it as one package. You know somebody wants the Harley and somebody wants the goat, but you can always leave it there at the end and have a second round, in case somebody does.

Roy Carter: 38:03

So that's really what we focused on when we set out to build CLH bid 10, 11 years ago.

Roy Carter: 38:10

You know, we looked at systems around the world, how to maximize and we knew if we ruled out the smaller buyer that would pay a premium. We were just going to hand it to the big guys at a discount which didn't seem fair. So basically we come up with a two round system. We'll look at packaging seriously as to how it's farmed, you know, is it a a half, is it a quarter or whatever. And then we'll put it in different parcels. And then, but if it's 20 quarters, it may get sold as 11 or 12 parcels, right. And then, but at the end we have another round, called your 'En Bloc' round, where as long as you bid bin, met certain parameters and are willing to pay a premium, we let you bid into another round. So then you can deliver a value for assemblage right, and which nobody can put a value on in advance, where people you know for a big assemblage what they'll pay, that's a wild guess, but it can be a big amount in a lot of cases. Yeah.

Devon Davidson: 39:11

And then Henry, for you. Did you ever see sellers leave money on the table based on how their property was packaged? Or maybe it was. It was 40 quarters. They're trying to sell and it just there wasn't enough demand or interest.

Henry Vos: 39:23

You know that's an interesting question because you never know precisely what could have been. You know you got a deal that's done for sure and you don't know. You know what it might have been. But, uh, one of the one of the things I've seen, and I actually saw this as an auction sale two quarters across the road from each other, one quarter wide open from end to end, cultivated 155 acres. Out of the quarter the other side of the road there was a yard site again good quarter a couple of big bins house, the shingles were curled up on the edge and and the doors were coming off, a couple of the shops and and um, but there's probably um 15, 000 bushels of storage in the yard. I think maybe 20 acres taken out for the yard site. The quarter with the yard sold for less than the open quarter. Yeah, and so you know Roy talks about a rubber boot, but sometimes we're talking about home quarters.

Devon Davidson: 40:23

Yeah.

Henry Vos: 40:26

And there's a lot of, you know, attachment to home quarters. Most people would love to see their farm go to a young farmer, starting out and the whole package and take it. But let's face it, young farmers, they just can't get the financing for that type of purchase. So what happens when an agent lists a property is that they list the whole property for X number. Very seldom is it split out by the quarter because the um, the condition of that they sign with the realtor is that nothing sells until the home quarter sells. And so you know, then you're you wind up dealing with the big guys yeah, that can buy the whole place, or maybe two people that get along, a father and a son or something, um, and then the place gets discounted to the point where it works for this big operation and maybe a son that's coming in to take it. So you don't necessarily know what it might have sold as. But it's sold as a package but not necessarily available to the neighbors at their individual premium on each quarter. So you wind up somewhat discounted from what it could have sold for, but it's selling as a package with that home place and so I think at times they get discounted in that respect.

Henry Vos: 42:01

You know CLA's been got some great experience in terms of subdividing yards, subdividing quarters, changing property lines in order to meet up the needs of one buyer versus another buyer. At the end of a sale you might have the yard go to somebody that just wants an acreage out of town. You might have some land over the hill that goes to a recreation person you might and then all the rest goes to the farmers in the area. So those are the kinds of things that I've seen happen at clh bid that are very rare at with the, with realtors it's unique, for sure we appreciate that.

Roy Carter: 42:36

Yeah, and you're a big part of the team at clh bid. You know what we do at the start is drill down there too, and if we think there's two buyers, like if you're selling two different things, we go to that subdivision, you know, investigate that, talk to them about that. Uh, sometimes there needs to be a property realignment, like Henry talks about, you know, and we always say anybody can sell land. It's another one to maximize value and that means starting. How do we package and do we have to change some titles, like the subdivision route?

Devon Davidson: 43:08

Yeah, well, this feels like a good place to jump into price discovery then. So our online tender that lets the market set the price rather than guessing at a list price. Roy, how does our online tender platform provide true price discovery for sellers?

Roy Carter: 43:23

Yeah, I mean. So we're escalating tender. It's escalating legal tender. You know, when we got into the space as a law firm I had taken quite a few clients in the past to auction because I believed in price discovery and I saw the problems with list. But then, once I took enough to auction, I also saw the inherent difficulties there. But list, most people see it as just a wild guess. Somebody's put a number on that and they assume it's overlisted and they wait for it to drop. Where we find that, you know if you can give them confidence, the value's there and that means when they're out tendered they have a right to go back. They get 100% confidence when they're out tendered that somebody else is willing to pay it. It's probably not coming up again. I'm going to go back and you know that's been a game changer. We've taken land. You know that was in one example appraised at $843,000. If you would have listed it for a million probably doesn't sell. It sold for $1.88 million on our site and it sold. It was competing farmers but they stayed on it. They had 100, 100 confidence that the value was there. And I think I mentioned it maybe in another podcast.

Roy Carter: 44:40

But we had another case of a court-ordered sale. It was listed for 500 000 by the court and then not sold not an offer on it. And the court came to us with the lawyers and said we see, you guys do this as a law firm and we took it on our site. It sold for a million or double what had been listed out without an offer. And we called the purchaser and it was like what the hell's that about? You're like, why didn't you buy that for half?

Roy Carter: 45:09

And it's like yeah, I'm good, I thought it was. I was waiting for the listing to drop they normally drop and then you guys got the damn thing right and he said I'm good, I thought it was. I was waiting for the listing to drop they normally drop and then you guys got the damn thing right and he said I'm good, I knew somebody else is willing to pay 990. I got it. It was right next to him, so it is mind boggling. But if you, you just need to give people the confidence and they don't get it with a list price right.

Devon Davidson: 45:32

So, henry, for you drawing on your experience again as a farm realtor, how often did you see the for sale sign wrought off the fence post without a single offer? Well, none of my signs did they were maybe or maybe someone you knew. He had him pressure treated the um, um you.

Henry Vos: 45:51

You know the first offer that comes in is an important offer and if you miss the interested parties right at the start, in other words you can't come to an agreement. Property can sit for a while and, as Roy just alluded to, the neighbors all think it's going to come down. They're waiting for the big reduced sign stuck on top of the sure the realtor sign, and so that that that's a challenge and it's hard on people that are expecting a sale.

Devon Davidson: 46:23

Yeah, all right I think we've already touched on this, guys was was set exit date um. So, unlike listings, we do have that, that certainty, right, so you can help with the state planning. Um, henry, we chatted with you previously about transition planning. How does knowing the firm exit date change the mindset of a seller compared to waiting indefinitely?

Henry Vos: 46:43

uh, it's. It's a game changer for lots of people. Knowing with relative certainty that they're going to be able to move on with their life on a certain date is is huge. Making the decision to sell is difficult and we talked about that in the last podcast I was involved with. You know decision to sell a farm. When you make that decision you want to move on and you want to move on quickly. And sometimes you know CLH bid gives that certainty, some of the other options don't, and it's really important for most sellers.

Devon Davidson: 47:18

Roy, just quick, from your perspective, how many clients or sellers have you had say to you? You know that was really important to me that you guys did that.

Roy Carter: 47:25

Oh yeah, many, you know they're planning their life around it.

Henry Vos: 47:28

Yeah.

Roy Carter: 47:28

And again, because we're a law firm, you know there's a set exit date. They know they're going to get funds so they can do interim financing. So as a law firm we'll do an assignment of sale proceeds. So the proceeds we control. The vendor doesn't they go to the other purchaser's lawyer so they can piggyback purchases, so they can totally plan. It's not like they got to go live with their kids for six months after the sale. They can actually totally piggyback those two transactions and they like it. You know their ability to facilitate financing with interim financing is huge.

Devon Davidson: 48:07

Let's talk about the difference in that we're not regional so I know that's a big one, roy and we market land across Western Canada. It's critical, as farmers are looking to buy beyond just their locales. How important is that? I screwed up this question, guys, sorry. With farmers expanding beyond their local areas, how does CLHbid. com that Western Canadian reach benefit sellers?

Roy Carter: 48:34

I'll maybe let Henry talk on it afterwards too. But you know, it's not only farmers expanding their reach, but sometimes they're setting up a son or a daughter that's getting married in another area, western Canada, where the economics work, whether it be for cattle or grain, or maybe it's too heated in their area. You know, maybe they're in the Bow Island area where there's pivots and area. You know, maybe they're in the bow island area where there's pivots and you know, um, they got to move them someplace else. So, yeah, you know, over the years, clh bid, we've kind of come uh, become a clearinghouse of real estate across western canada. I don't know if you've ever tried to look for a listing on realestateca or whatever it is, but they're impossible to find right. And you know, unlike auction houses, we don't sell lawnmowers or, you know, weed eaters or whatever, they go to our site and they can see it across Western Canada. Right, yeah, and they like it and people will move. There's no such thing as a Saskatchewan Alberta border Manitoba. Yeah, they uh that. There's no such thing as a saskatchewan alberta border manitoba. Yeah, they want farmland and so, yeah, being in some of our last sales in 2024, you know, as alberta's buying in manitoba and manitoba's buying in alberta. You know they're, they'll go all over.

Roy Carter: 49:50

Real estate is regional quite often for two reasons one is licensing and the other one is marketing. In my mind, um, because to not be regional is expensive and uh. But we think our whole goal is to bring value and, uh, you'll see real estate offices a lot of them don't know what we do for sure, and they tend not to call us uh, so, but you know, some will come after us on fees and say, well, we're cheaper. Right, you know. And there's that old saying that you know, price is a determining factor in the absence of value. Right, totally. So to go market across Western Canada is a game changer for investors to get people on. You know, you'll get a couple at Strom with Strom Alberta, with some kids that want to get into cattle, and maybe Manitoba is the only place. So you know that works from that point of view. So I would say the fact that we're not regional, total game changer as far as ringing out the sponge.

Henry Vos: 50:55

Henry, I was thinking about value there and we used to sell pedigreed seed oats and they were pretty pricey and some people complained about the price. But I always said well, you know, if you want the ones that have been through the horse once, they're a little cheaper, oh okay, oh okay. The market for farmland is fairly transparent across Canada. On a platform like CLHBid, people can look back on the history of the sales. They're all online there. They can find out what things sold for. Fcc's got good information on farmland values in the province and how things have appreciated over the years.

Henry Vos: 51:38

Uh, I've known farmers that have uh farmed in uh southern Alberta, moved, moved to northern Alberta and then moved to Saskatchewan because the economics and each time increased the size of their size of their farms. So yeah, the um, the the website that's used to market properties, I have written to the organization a number of times in the past suggesting that they should split rural properties from the residential properties and from the commercial properties, and had absolutely no uptake on it. I was licensed as a rural realtor, in other words I sold farmland. So the question became what is a farm? And so here's the complication Can I sell an acreage Because the guy wants to raise a few horses on it? But the same issue is on the website you have a choice of commercial or residential. So is the farm an acreage commercial operation or is it a residential operation? Right, answer me that question.

Henry Vos: 52:51

You tell me nobody knows exactly so, anyways, there's, there's things that can be done there. But that that gets to the next question you got written down for me about marketing.

Devon Davidson: 53:03

Yeah, well, this is a really nice segue, right? So we're talking about marketing and what we do to maximize exposure and to maximize value In traditional real estate. Henry, how much effort is is actually put into the marketing process, and how does it differ with what we do here at CLHBid? Because I know that we pride ourselves on what we do in terms of marketing. Right, You've called it world-class many times.

Henry Vos: 53:24

Yeah, the best way I can describe the difference between a traditional real estate agent and their marketing program and CLH bid is they are complete opposites. The realtor pick me, for example. Their objective is to maximize their commissions and to do that they want to minimize their expenses. Now, realtors, agents, are in charge of their own advertising of properties, so they pay the bills for advertising the properties. So the classic example to get the maximum commission is minimize the advertising costs.

Henry Vos: 54:08

So what do you do? First you phone all the neighbors and perhaps before you get back to the office, after you got the listing and if you can make a deal with one of those people before you get back to the office, you have no advertising expenses and all the commissions. So the opposite of that is that when a client signs up with CLHBid this world-class marketing and I'm absolutely adamant about that, it is world-class, and I'm absolutely adamant about that, it is world-class, no question, no question about it. The full marketing team goes to work, puts together a full program on the property, does all of the, the, the social media, the videography, the, all of the details, and I can't even describe all of them because there's lots of them. Well, you're part of it, so you know more than I do.

Devon Davidson: 54:56

Yeah there's a team of us and actually for anyone that's interested, we do have another episode where Mike and I and Roy actually really dove into some of those topics Because, yeah, there is a lot that goes into it and there's a workflow that happens the second that we have a sale on the site.

Henry Vos: 55:17

A, b, C, d, a b c, d, e, f, g happens right and it's. It takes a team to make it work yeah, so you can see the the opposite nature of these two types of marketing programs full blast, team effort right to right, to the nth degree uh minimum is possible to get the sale okay. Well, I didn't get those sale on the first few phone calls. Well, I guess I've got to put an ad in the paper.

Devon Davidson: 55:34

Um you know, yeah, try to amp it up a little bit.

Henry Vos: 55:36

Yeah, the advertising moves up and then you move more extensively across the country into national papers and things, if you don't get the local community. So they're completely opposite.

Devon Davidson: 55:48

Roy, I'd like your perspective on that too. What have you seen in your time, just the last 10 years?

Roy Carter: 55:52

Yeah, I mean, I uh, it varies in other countries. I think canada lags behind. I think the whole 50 to get the listing is broke. I think it should be skewed, uh to the seller. But then how do you get it marketed again? But the marketing is often chosen on.

Roy Carter: 56:13

You know, it's my wife's cousin, or I went to school with him, yeah, or I did this right. And you really need two things to sell real estate to maximize value, you need the right team and the right platform, and henry and I have both flown. Henry still flies, but I always look at it. You know you, your buddy you went to school, was standing out there by his old uh airplane that you know. When he starts it up, it's uh, there's blue smoke coming out and he says it's burning a bit of oil, whatever.

Roy Carter: 56:45

And you want to go to vancouver. You know, are you gonna? You jump in with somebody you know with maybe a substandard airplane or the guy standing next in his um, you know, pilot suit, um, maybe two of them, two up front with a twin and a nice looking airplane, right, um, I might get in that one, right, yeah and uh. But there's a tendency sometimes to go with the cousin of a cousin and the whole deal is broke in my mind and I don't know if that analogy makes any sense, but you're probably better going with somebody that you didn't go to school with, that does it full time and has got the right platform.

Devon Davidson: 57:31

Yeah, producer Mike and I got into this conversation about nepotism the other day and it's like that's not always the best decision. Right, like you need to select people based on merit and, yeah, the way you market your property should be based on merit as well. Um, okay, we also want to mention serious buyers only. So clh and roy already mentioned this, but clh requires a 20 deposit right, ensuring that there's buyer commitment. You know how do we differ in our deposit policy from traditional real estate. Maybe, henry, you want to talk about that first.

Henry Vos: 58:02

Yeah, I could actually have a personal story about that, the you know. My view now is that deposits need to be significant and they need to be a deterrent to skipping out on a sale to be significant and they need to be a deterrent to skipping out on a sale. My wife and I built a house along the river and this was in 2008, the height of the financial crisis. There was all kinds of contractors and prices were decent for building Beautiful house just a few miles out of town and look over the. You had to stand up to see the edge of the river from the windows. It was right down below us.

Henry Vos: 58:44

At that time I wasn't a realtor and I didn't sell houses anyways, but we hired a realtor and got an offer on this property and the realtor convinced us that a $5,000 deposit was, you know, adequate Adequate and hadn't had any experience with it being an issue. So we packed up, moved out of the house and the day before closing the buyers decided they want to have another look. And so here's my wife and I looking at each other going. Is there a problem with this sale?

Devon Davidson: 59:28

are they?

Henry Vos: 59:28

going to walk away from five thousand dollars. Well, if you think about it, though, five thousand dollars on a seven hundred thousand dollar house is not very much, and easily could have happened, so I got a very personal lesson that deposits need to be significant. We'd spent more on moving moving our stuff out and yeah and, and getting ready. Then that deposit would have covered.

Devon Davidson: 59:55

Roy, any stories from your side deposit horror stories you've seen.

Roy Carter: 59:59

Yeah, you know, us versus auction. You know I've definitely had clients go to auction and big auction houses over the years and if the buyer doesn't come through, it's like come and pick up your 10 lowboys, right, yeah, and it's like what? And I, 10 low boys, right yeah? Um, there's and it's like what. And I had one client it was, the market was pretty hot it was a numbered company that was clearly on a flip. They didn't come through, picked up all his equipment and then the oil patch went south and took a big, big hit on it, right. So you know, when we built clhHBid, it's like we're really a function of what didn't work in real estate auction and it gets easier to build something when you know what doesn't work.

Roy Carter: 1:00:42

So we have privity of contract with these buyers as well, not just the seller who accepts that tender. But when they register with us, we're under contract. They're under contract to us too. When they register with us, we're under contract. They're under contract to us too that you're going to get sued if you don't come up with that deposit and close, because it's going to hurt our credibility, because we've all seen, you know, whether it's a ring man at the front with the old flip phone and you wonder if he's really on. Or you know people getting called that they were second but the first guy doesn't want to close. You know we never want to make that call. If that happens, they're going to think the first guy was you, the house. So again, our minimum penalty is $100,000, even on a small deal, and then it goes up from there. It's a percentage directly to the bidder if they don't come up with a deposit right.

Devon Davidson: 1:01:41

So again, it keeps people a lot more honest if they know they're looking at getting sued by both the seller and us, right, roy, do you want to maybe talk about how we're able to facilitate real estate transactions, the Real Estate Act and do you see the real estate industry trying to make changes in response to the disruption CLHbid. com has kind of put across Western Canada?

Roy Carter: 1:02:00

We just sold some land in central Alberta where the guy called and said take it. And we got talking and he said I said where'd you get our name? And he said my sister's a realtor in our hometown and she said farmland should go to you guys.

Devon Davidson: 1:02:13

Wow.

Roy Carter: 1:02:13

So, uh, you know you're getting realtors that aren't just afraid of the disruption and fear us and want us to go away no-transcript.

Henry Vos: 1:02:27

You know, sellers look for expertise. Selling real estate is not the average person's normal course of business, or even knowledge, and so they hire someone to help them with that knowledge, with the terminology, with the details, with the timelines and all of those sorts of things. And so people attempt to fill these roles the best they can. People attempt to fill these roles the best they can, but these conflicts occur especially in rural areas and farmland, and so a system like CLHBID just takes that all away. We work for the sellers. We make it very convenient for buyers to buy. Buyers know up front what all is involved, and so it's very straightforward, and that's why I kept bugging Roy to see if he would. He would have me have me help out a little bit or get in the way. Maybe that would be a better thing.

Roy Carter: 1:03:22

Didn't have to bug us too much Serious horsepower.

Devon Davidson: 1:03:25

No, we were lucky that you were so persistent. Well, so with that, Henry, I think is it fair to say that some of that conflict is due to the compensation side of things, and is there or are there better models for compensation?

Henry Vos: 1:03:39

Yeah, I don't know. I haven't engineered a better model. You know, I think CLH bid is pretty straightforward. It's obviously filled the need with the size of the market they've achieved in Western Canada. It is fairly straightforward for sellers. The compensation model where you have the seller paying for the agents acting on both sides seems a little off. The buyer essentially should be paying for their own hired help and the seller. Now there may be examples out there where you can list a property but the seller's got to pay all the advertising costs and then the buyer's got to pay their own person. That I'm not aware of those, but there's probably. That's probably been approached. This has been the traditional model in the real estate world. So I'm struggling to say that I know there's a better system other than CLHBIT. This one works Okay.

Devon Davidson: 1:04:44

So, roy, we've covered a few different things here, but I want to talk about realtors. Will claim that they're often cheaper, but is that actually the case? Because once you consider that the additional services that CLHB offers the marketing side of it potentially there's hidden fees or things that the clients aren't aware of. You know, things can stack up fairly quickly.

Roy Carter: 1:05:04

Yeah, I mean, I think they're cheaper. It's easy to be cheap. The whole deal is about what you net in the end. Um, the whole deal is about what you net in the end. You know, there I've seen some advertised where, you know, for a fee, that is way less than our marketing expense. But we do know how to market and we know how to maximize value and we know what's that what that has brought in a lot of cases.

Roy Carter: 1:05:26

So, and we're turnkey, no extras, no front load. Um, you know, basically it's it's uh, listing, selling, legal, everything all in and it's a set fee. I think if you ask prior sellers, um, you know, a lot would say we're actually no net fee at all. That's a function of how much more you get in the end with true price discovery and true marketing. Um, so, yeah, I, I think you know, just on the face of it, you'll see ads now where some of them keep dropping monthly almost. I don't think their business is going up and I think people read through that. You know it's a case of it's a big deal selling the farm and they want, just like we talked about, maybe the right team with the right airplane or the right platform and they're willing to pay for it, right.

Henry Vos: 1:06:17

Let's keep it to agriculture. Do you want the good, high-quality oats that grow, or do you want the ones that have been through the horse?

Roy Carter: 1:06:23

Okay, that's better, I get it better. It's a good example. There you go.

Devon Davidson: 1:06:28

So I guess kind of in a similar vein, henry sometimes we've talked about this a little bit is realtors over-promise to get listings right.

Henry Vos: 1:06:35

Sellers are often misled about expected sales prices, just to sign a contract and do you think sellers are often given unrealistic expectations in terms of final sale price or the number of potential bidders that they can line speak for other agents. But my approach was always to present the sellers with as much information as I could find on comparable sales, where I thought the market was going, what the financial situation was of farmers in the area, in other words, their capacity to buy. For me, there was always a balance. There was always a balance of um you know, if you, if you over promise, how are you going to deliver on that? On the other side, if you, if you tried to present them with a low number, um, you know, maybe the low end of the range so that you could execute a sale quickly, neither one of those did you good in the long term, right, and so, um, you know, clh bid, we allow the, we allow the buyers to decide what that number is. As a realtor, though, you, you got to put your, your flag in the sand and say, well, I think, I think this would be the number. But to me it was always a balance, trying to find that sweet spot that you thought might be achieved in the market, and then you maybe take the top end of that understanding that bids would come in below that number. So there's another part to this as well, and I've got to tell you this story because I think I've shared part of it with Roy.

Henry Vos: 1:08:17

But often farmers will ask you, or executors or people that own land that's come down through the generations, what it's worth, what's it worth, how much is it worth? Them down through the generations uh, what it's worth, what's it worth? How much is it worth? Um, as a realtor? Um, we could not give appraisals on land. That's a designated profession. It's, uh, you got to be a certified land appraiser to provide an appraisal that's the words used in that, in that field. And so, uh, we could, we could provide an opinion of value. That that's what a realtor could do, an opinion of value. And so my approach was always to provide a range. You know, here's where I think the high would be, here's where I think the low would be.

Henry Vos: 1:09:05

And this happened right about the time that I was bugging you a little harder about, about coming to work with CLH Bid and a client, a potential client, a person I wanted to be a client had asked me for an opinion of value on property, and the family had three-quarters of land they wanted to sell. And I knew this fellow. I roomed with him at university. Anyways, he'll know who he is and I know who he is, so anyways, I'll leave it at that. So I gave him an opinion of value and fairly shortly after that I saw CLH Bid had the client.

Henry Vos: 1:09:49

The end result was nobody really knows what the actual value of property was or is going to be, except the buyers on CLHB, an open platform where people can decide amongst themselves what the value is. My opinion of value was close to $200, dollars per quarter less than what it sold for. Wow, um, by the time it was all said and done, that family probably went home with a half a million dollars more than. And then if I'd and I can't say that if I took the listing and sold it, you know it might have got bid bid to a number above the listing price, which occasionally happens, but not very often so is that sort of a turning point for like did you then?

Devon Davidson: 1:10:35

you were really bugging roy. Like you know this, I really believe in this system and the uh, I think I signed on prior to the sale.

Henry Vos: 1:10:42

I think I signed on on july 1st and this, the sale, happened about mid-july or something like that. So I didn't know the answer to that, but it uh, you know the ability of uh clh bid, and I'm not saying this just because I'm I'm here now at clh bid. I'm saying this because I observed this from the outside. I I saw what was going on and I said this this this is working clh bids ability to present a property to the market for a reasonable length of time. Fixed date of sale, get all of the interested parties to the table through the marketing advertising programs that are done, and then, with the escalating tender system, you know the sellers get market value. Yeah, we can't give them a number, but there'll be a number on sale day and that'll be the market value all right.

Devon Davidson: 1:11:29

the next thing we want to talk about and I think this is we're kind of approaching the end of the podcast here but the problems with unreserved auctions, so lack of seller control and the risk of collusion. And, roy, we've had lots of conversations around this. I've heard some pretty interesting stories. But at unreserved auction the seller does lose control. Once the land is on the auction block it's going regardless of price. You said that no control factor at unreserved auctions put sellers in a vulnerable position in terms of final sale price. How does our platform differ? And I we've probably covered this, but I mean yeah, no, I'm not sure we have.

Roy Carter: 1:11:59

You know, we use a starting bid. Uh, it's not zero. You know unreserved is zero and you get four quarters going to unreserved auction in an area and four farmers that coffee together. And, uh, you know, do have I heard of some? Yeah, totally. Have I talked to some farmers that have been part of it? Yeah, you know, it works really good.

Roy Carter: 1:12:21

Four or five quarters, small auction house and in a pretty tight area and yeah, they just agree to stay off each other's quarters and even after online now they'll be on the phone with each other. Uh, you know, making sure that's you on and they know what's going down the chute that day. They know the farmers left lost control of it so they can actually control that purchase, right, yeah, we take that away with our starting bid and we really take it away with our on block because they could collude all they want, but then somebody can trump at the end, right? So, um, again, we're really a function of you know we got to fix a collusion because we knew collusion was there, right? So that's part of clh bid.

Devon Davidson: 1:13:05

Do you have any interesting examples or stories you could share about collusion and how maybe a seller was negatively impacted?

Roy Carter: 1:13:12

no, not other than you know it. Yeah, it's. Uh, it's not. You know, you kind of hear. I've heard bragging about it afterwards and it's like man, that's, that's pretty close to stealing right yeah that was somebody's farm that they'd built up, um, but yeah, they almost are proud of controlling that market.

Devon Davidson: 1:13:31

So, yeah, you basically have to have a platform that takes that away from them, but yeah, All right, guys, before we wrap up, we've got a few questions here before we get out of here. Henry, for anyone who's still unsure about using CLHbid. com, what would you say to them?

Henry Vos: 1:13:48

Well, I think I mentioned it a few times. You know, clhbh bid, you get full, unconflicted representation as a seller. It's um, it's straightforward. And then I talked about the, the process, the marketing, um, I guess, the um. One of the things I haven't mentioned is the huge team behind the scenes that looks after all the details and keeps everything flowing smoothly. You know, I, I, I knew, I think, three people on the team when I came to work here and and they just keep coming at me as, oh, you haven't met so-and-so yet, yeah, and it's, you know, it's a huge team. If people really understood, uh, what went on behind the scenes to keep everything flowing smoothly, all the documents, everything, everything done right time, right place, um, it, it's a, it's something that people don't necessarily see up front, so that's a big thing, okay uh, okay.

Devon Davidson: 1:14:44

Well, thanks guys for being here. Really appreciate your time, henry. It's been a pleasure, as always. Thanks for being here and I'm sure we'll see you in another episode. Um, that's gonna do it for another edition of the Farmland Exchange podcast. Thank you for tuning in. We really appreciate your support. If you have any questions or if you have topic ideas for us to discuss, get in touch with us through email info at CLHbid. com or give us a phone call 866-263-7480. If you want more information on the podcast or on CLHbid. com, check out our website, CLHbid. com. Slash farmland exchange. Thank you for tuning in. I hope this has been a positive exchange for you. Take care.