Brad Neihouser | Commercial Broker

When the Auctioneer Says “Sold,” the Job Is Only Half Done You own a beautiful 160-acre farm. You hire an auction firm to sell it. The advertising runs for six weeks. The signs are up. The promotion is done. The crowd shows up. The bidding happens. Then the auctioneer says, “Sold.” You had a good sale. So now what? My philosophy has always been, when we say “sold” at an auction, we are only half done. There are still several things that can go wrong, or at the very least, make the process harder. Can the buyer get their money together in time to close? Are there title issues that unexpectedly show up? Are there survey issues that jump up and bite us when we were not expecting them? All of these things, and more, can usually be handled carefully and gracefully by an experienced real estate broker and auctioneer. But if the broker does not have the experience, the process can start to flounder. Then you have a real mess on your hands, especially if the buyer says, “I’m not closing until...

Cash Rent: The Third Rail of Farming If there was ever a third rail in the farming business, it would be this: the amount of cash rent someone is getting for their farm. Cash rent is an incredibly hot topic, and it is usually kept very quiet. There is no public database where you can look up exactly what every farm is renting for. Most tenants do not want to disclose what they are paying a landlord because they are afraid their other landlords will find out and raise their rent accordingly. And understandably, most landlords do not want to disclose that information either. They may be afraid their rent is too low, and they do not want to find out that a landlord down the road is getting $50 more per acre. So what is one to do in this situation? I specialize in helping landlords determine the right amount of rent for their farm. You might ask, “What is the right amount of rent?” The answer is not always simple. Land value is driven by soil quality. Rental value works much the same way. ...