"30,000 Foot View": A Bird's-Eye Look Into Purchasing Land

[00:00:08.010] - Chris Griffin
Welcome to Back To Your Roots, a podcast that provides insight into all things farming, financing, and farm life, guiding you Back to Your Roots. Thanks for joining us today. I'm your host, Chris Griffin.

[00:00:20.590] - Jordan Turnage
Hey, guys. And I'm Jordan Turnage. Thanks for coming back and listening to us here on the Back To Your Roots podcast.

[00:00:26.110] - Chris Griffin
Today is just going to be the two of us and it's a little bit different. So we're going to put our knowledge together and hopefully educate our listeners on some of the things that they need to look into on purchasing land when they're acquiring that land, and questions to ask, and just information they need to obtain. Buying land is not easy. I know that.

[00:00:47.810] - Jordan Turnage
No, we're in a semi-hostile rate environment right now. We do have options that other banks don't, and those are options that we're going to try to key up here today and show you the difference between working with a bank or versus working with us and kind of give you the farm Association side of purchasing real estate. We're going to kind of throw this all at the wall at you. It's kind of a 30,000 -foot view. Kip Ellington our CCO, when I first started working here, he was the territorial manager here for River Valley when I first got hired. And that was kind of when we sat down and we're going over stuff. That's how he always began a lot of speeches with me like, this is a 30,000-footoot view. So we're not going to get down into the details on this today. We just want to be a source for all the folks that listen to this podcast as a helping hand and guide you through what it takes to get from the soup to nuts on ordering real estate, property, mortgages, title, and appraisals. It can be kind of a monstrous task, I think, to some of our clients, especially ones that have not gone through the process before.

[00:02:13.770] - Jordan Turnage
But I feel like it's our job as loan officers to make everything as painless and as seamless and produce a package for our clients that is shiny and new and is custom-tailored to them. And we're not exactly greenhorns in the Association anymore. We've got a little bit of experience under now with ordering real estate orders and ordering appraisals and title work. And I think that we're able to kind of make things tailor-made to our own clients every time we go through this process because there's never been a loan that I've done the same way twice.

[00:02:59.610] - Chris Griffin
And that's one thing from the previous place I was. They didn't love land, they didn't love bare dirt. And so the terms that they offered there was just a lot different. They didn't offer fixed rates for up to 30 years. And here it's a completely different narrative. I mean, the narrative here is, hey, if it's dirt and it's land, we love it. And the terms we typically offer compared to in contrast to our competitors, is vastly different most of the time. And these are things I'm going to throw out. Maybe the listeners are like, what is that? So you're looking at balloon notes where it may be ten years, and after ten years it comes to maturity and you've got to refinance that. Or you're looking at arms where the rate might be locked for the first three to five years, and at the end it's going to go to an adjustable-rate mortgage unless you refinance that again into another arm. And so from a costly perspective, having to do that, you're not locked in. And so I think when it comes to that, it's just a lot different for the borrower. And to a borrower who's not maybe used to that or have heard those terms before, not that they get in over their head, but they, oh no, maybe this is the best I can do.

[00:04:19.220] - Chris Griffin
And it isn't until they, you know, call River Valley or call somebody else and let's see what they can offer you. There's a lot of things to consider when you're buying land. What's the purpose of the land? Is it a spot that's buildable can you build a home on it someday? Is it tillable? Is it going to be used for recreational purposes? Is it going to be an investment where you're going to park some of your assets, some of your money? You could look at it as a vehicle, and I don't know what your opinion is on this, but I mean, I've had people that literally, if they need to offload some money for tax purposes, sometimes they will buy land and they will park that money in that land. And that's an investment that goes into their portfolio. It goes onto their balance sheet. It's just a long-term asset. It's no longer an intermediate asset, like a mutual fund or something like that. So there's a lot of different things when it comes to land since I've been here that I've learned, and I know that just from picking Jordan's brain and working in the same office, we've collaborated together on a few things and kind of gained some knowledge from each other.

[00:05:21.900] - Chris Griffin
So let's just break down each one of those purposes, and I'll let you kind of maybe I'll take the home side and kind of talk about it, since I'm also a home lender as well, and we'll kind of talk about that first. So you get people a lot of times that want to buy the land. So a lot of times I'll do the ag loan and let's say they're a year or two down the road from building the house. And then in the meantime, while they're sitting on that land or waiting to figure out what they want to do, they're meeting with a contractor. They're testing that land to make sure it's able to have a septic system. Is it going to have sewers, they're going to have water, can they run electric to it, all those type of things. And then in the meantime, they're gaining knowledge from a contractor on their bids and what they're going to do. So that's kind of the first one is kind of buy that land, set on it, hopefully, build your dream home someday, and then I'll let you kind of handle more of the ag side, the tillable, the recreational property, hunting property, things like that.

[00:06:20.220] - Jordan Turnage
Yeah, that sounds great. I think the one misconception that a lot of our clients, people that come to us off the street, think that everything that we do has to have a minimum ag background or purpose. We do look for that in our scope and eligibility that we do with our clients. And what that means is where we take a percentage of their overall income and their assets, and we take that in into a percentage of their ag income that they would be taking on or have. And that spits out a number and that lets us know whether they're a full-time farmer, which is 50% or more. 10% to 50% is less than full time. Those are our two main ones that we work with. Our full-time, part-time, less than part-time folks. Those are our three hoops that we have our farmers jump through. But we don't at the end of the day, have to say, if this is not an ag-purpose property, we're not just going to kick you away. We are going to try to find a way to make that loan work out.

[00:07:35.010] - Chris Griffin
15 acres is kind of the golden number most of the time, 15 acres plus. We typically can do that as an ag real estate loan, no questions asked. It doesn't matter whether you're a farmer or not. I mean, I've had people say, hey, I'm buying 30 acres just to do some recreation, drive my ATV or drive my four-wheelers on or whatever. Just take their kids on sometimes just for a weekend, just to mess around and play in the mud. And those people, they have no ag income at all. No. And that's something I think, like you said, is a misconception a lot of times on the ag real estate side is people assume that they have to have some type of ag income.

[00:08:16.980] - Jordan Turnage
It has to be like a row crop.

[00:08:18.440] - Chris Griffin
You're going to be tillable, yeah. Or something like that. And that's just not the case. And another good one, my dad owns about 65 acres down the flooded timber in Ballard County. I think about it. Now if my dad had needed a loan when he got that 65 acres, even though that is flooded timber, it is only used, it is only good for one thing, and that is timber duck hunting. And that's it. We could have done a loan on it.

[00:08:46.010] - Jordan Turnage
All day.

[00:08:46.520] - Chris Griffin
And we see a lot of property that goes to auctions, and we just had one just recently that went to auction down there that actually butted up against our land that we own. It would have been a perfect ag loan as well.

[00:09:02.030] - Jordan Turnage
All of our land loans that we do, we can go 30 years fully fixed and just kind of explain what that is to folks when it comes to looking at a 30-year fixed mortgage on a home. We can do the same, exact same thing for our land real estate loans that we do. The only major difference is when we do a loan for one to ten years, we can fully finance 100% of the loan and we can go 30 years on that. From ten years to 20 years, we finance 85% of that. So we try to get 15% down out-of-pocket cash. Or if we can do a dirt, for dirt swap and collateral to help our collateral position in security, we can go up to 20 years fully-fixed. And anything 20 years to 30 years, we go in the same route, but we try to get 25% down and River Valley finances a maximum of 75%. The big kick on that, the biggest sell point on that is with it being what we call a fully-fixed amortization loan. And what that means is that your interest rate, your principal, and your actual rate itself is all locked in for the life of that loan.

[00:10:26.800] - Jordan Turnage
So we can go 30 years, say, today with our rates, we're in the mid-eights on a 20-year. That eight and a half percent. We'll call it eight and a half percent today for 20 years. That's fully locked in, that payment that you're going to make, and you can choose to do annual or semi-annual monthly payments on that property. We custom tailor our loan packages to fit your needs to be able to give you the easiest repayment abilities because we want to give you a loan that is lined up, secure, easy to make, back on the payments. And another thing that I think we can kind of put a feather in our hat versus banks, and it's shown in the past, is that we're going to stand beside you, good times or bad. We're going to help you get through that struggle if you're going through it, but just knowing that your rate is locked in, it will never go up over the life of that loan. And we do have the opportunity to do in-house note modifications, which are just our in-house refinances. Chris and I have done several of them since we've been here.

[00:11:46.550] - Chris Griffin
Definitely not. And as a listener, do not when he says an in-house refinance. Yeah, it is, but it's free.

[00:11:53.720] - Jordan Turnage
Yeah, you sign two pieces of paper.

[00:11:55.530] - Chris Griffin
It doesn't cost you any new. You don't have to do a new loan. No new title work, no new appraisal.

[00:12:01.500] - Jordan Turnage
Don't even have to come into the office.

[00:12:03.340] - Chris Griffin
And so that's something, yeah, it is similar to a refinance, but it's not. And something I was going to say jump in real quick, is something we're able to do, especially on the land side, that people should keep in mind is let's say let's just take a million-dollar piece of property. Well, let's say you're going to do that over 30 years and 25% down. Well, that's a large chunk of money. But let's say that you own some other land free and clear. We're able to cross-collateralize that with that other property where we could actually take a lien against it, combine those two together and you could actually get to a point where you don't have to bring any money to closing. Just your 30-year loan with a 75% loan, max loan to value, an cross-collateralize that with another piece of property that you own. Maybe you owe very little or you don't owe anything on it. You could buy a million-dollar piece of property. You could increase your portfolio and your long-term asset portfolio without bringing a dime to closing, except for some closing costs. Those are things that other lenders aren't going to do.

[00:13:06.410] - Chris Griffin
And then one thing we talked about and I mean, we were just talking about hunting property a little bit. I hope the listeners know this one. We're kind of just spitballing back and forth here and I think just trying to give you guys as much knowledge as we possibly can. So when things come up, I'm trying to think about it, but even hunting property, for example, does it have access?

[00:13:24.130] - Jordan Turnage
Those are the big...

[00:13:25.730] - Chris Griffin
Even when you're going to buy it, even though it doesn't really affect our loan, but even as our hunters out there.

[00:13:31.330] - Jordan Turnage
You have to have easements.

[00:13:31.860] - Chris Griffin
If easements or numbers, right, if we were selling our duck hunting place right now, I guarantee you people want to know how many ducks we'd killed, right? Are there blinds on it? Is there improvements to it? A lot of different things that go into that. That's something to keep in mind as well. Especially, the easement access, I think is a big one. I think people buy land, they don't realize it. They get into it and they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that I don't have a great easement. Or maybe the person I'm dealing with, with the easement isn't the greatest to deal with.

[00:14:06.670] - Jordan Turnage
It can be a make or break on some of these situations. So having those conversations on the front end and knowing those kinds of questions when you go in and talk with a loan officer, I hope that really helps out with kind of really singling things into when you're ready to put pen to paper on getting numbers and starting to talk financing on these properties. Because we're only as good as the deeds and the mortgages that we get back from our courthouse and from our title work people. We have a great relationship with all the folks that we work with, but there can be caveats in having to deal with sellers and neighbors of sellers more. So specifically when we talk hunting properties, I've run into that a few times myself. It's just making sure you've got all your T's crossed and your I's dotted before you get to that big table to sign on the loan to keep all those hiccups from happening. That's where we as loan officers try to do our due diligence to make sure that we see these possible unforeseen instances that can happen to you guys out there. We don't want us to get almost to the end zone on this and not push it over.

[00:15:34.940] - Jordan Turnage
That's probably one of the worst days you can have as a loan officer. I'm lucky enough to say in my short time I've been here, I haven't had an issue like that. But I have had situations that have popped up. Another big issue, just kind of thinking about things when it comes to more so on purchasing property too is if you have a group of individuals that you're looking to group into this to purchase this property, more times than not it's going to be to your advantage to get this set up in an LLC. If you don't have one already set up. We have in-house attorneys that we work with on it. I'm sure if they couldn't do it themselves, they could get you pointed in the right direction on getting an LLC set up and that is just getting your basic LLC named. XYZ LLC. Get that set up with the Secretary of State.

[00:16:35.060] - Chris Griffin
Just a level of protection. My wife owns a business. Just one more thing like you said, it just kind of sets up a little padded protection, extra protection from some personal liability in case anything happens on that piece of property.

[00:16:48.660] - Jordan Turnage
Or just another thing, another shield for you individually if things were to happen because things happen. And then getting those articles of organization sent to us, those are all big things that we need on the front end to get loans done, especially with multi-members. But that's not going to stop us from doing a loan. We do loans with guys that can have multiple partners on there and they all go individual on it. We'll do what we got to do to help you guys get what you want. But those are just kind of the things that as far as security and protecting you long term are options that I would consider when looking to purchase property.

[00:17:34.260] - Chris Griffin
Well, I mean even my brother and I, who we own that acreage down in Ballard. Now you're going to be surprised. It's a real original name. It's called Griffin Duck Hole LLC. I know we really went out on a limb there and my brother and I were real smart guys and real good marketing. So we really got together and came up with something real. I mean, even on that aspect, even though it's just my brother and myself, it's a situation, we've got it set up like that because obviously we still invite people to go hunting with us and some other things and it's just a level of protection for us on personal liability perspective. But one thing I would say is you were talking about the fixed rates. Just kind of layman's terms on that. The easiest way to put it is don't get off in the weeds about the interest and all that. It's just if you've ever had a home mortgage, it's going to be very similar to a home mortgage. I mean, home mortgages are typically fixed rate never goes up. You can refinance it or rate note mod it and come down payment, never changes.

[00:18:34.050] - Chris Griffin
And that's kind of how it's normally set up. And so for most people, I'd say the majority of people have had a home mortgage in their life at some point, a fixed-rate home mortgage. And that's basically what it is. It's just a fixed-rate mortgage is all it is on a piece of property. Now, we don't collect escrows like most people do on homes. And so typically you're responsible for that on your own. So the property taxes on there or anything like that. But yeah, there's a lot of things too and something to think about too, right now, land I know, especially in know, west McCracken, west Paducah area, the closer.

[00:19:14.760] - Jordan Turnage
You are to our around here, the guys that are closer to your city.Your more metropolitan counties.

[00:19:23.330] - Chris Griffin
And even really not in McCracken. I mean, just the price per acreage.

[00:19:27.390] - Jordan Turnage
I would say, overall, West Kentucky as a whole.

[00:19:30.120] - Chris Griffin
Yeah.

[00:19:30.580] - Chris Griffin
Has gone up significantly in the last couple of years, even since I've been here for just over a year. And just in the time that I've started some of the properties I've seen that sold at auction and just even been listed and sold by a realtor, it's crazy how much more per acre they're getting now, just even from a year ago, that appreciation. And so even from that aspect, even from an investment standpoint, doesn't mean it's always going to continue to appreciate at that same percentage. But, it also goes to show you that, hey, you buy something today, if you keep that piece of property long enough, you're going to get a pretty good return on your investment. Typically, your ROI on a piece of property, not much maintenance. Typically, unless you're farming it or there's a house set it there, you're paying your taxes on it a little bit, but other than that, it should have a decent appreciation over 15, 20 years. And then retirement comes around and that just diversifies your portfolio anyway and you've got some in land, some in market, some in retirement accounts, whatever. But it's a really good investment.

[00:20:38.770] - Chris Griffin
The ROI is really good.

[00:20:41.650] - Jordan Turnage
You bringing up talking about land appreciating right now, I've yet to go to an auction in West Kentucky this past year that the land for multiple acres didn't go for over $8,000 an acre. And that can be a caveat that you run into with working with River Valley as an ag Association. We do have an $8,000 per acre cap limit that we work with. And what that means is if your property does sell for $10,000 an acre or appraises for $10,000 an acre, another big point to make on this is when it comes to us doing the loan on a piece of property, we're going to take the lesser of the two when it comes to looking at the overall collateral value, we're going to look at the contract price or the appraisal price, whichever two comes out less. That's just a conservative point of view that we take when it comes to doing collateral. And also in that, that kind of goes in that same vein of why we go $8,000 per acre. I know that I've been here going on three and a half years, and within the past year and a half, we were finally get it pushed from $6,000 an acre to $8,000 per acre.

[00:22:15.710] - Jordan Turnage
And what that means going back to that is if the property appraises for more than $8,000 an acre, let's say you buy a farm and it goes for $10,000 an acre, you're going to have to make up the difference of that $8,000 cap that we go at out of pocket. Or like Chris was talking about earlier, going with a first lien position on a piece of property that you have free and clear. We can use that to cross-collateralize the property to help you out in a security position and also help you out to not have as much to put down at closing just than your outside closing cost. But we go one or two routes on that with that $8,000 cap. That can be a determinant for some loans that we've had in the past since we're running to the appreciation of land, which is a great thing for folks out there that are trying to sell property.

[00:23:15.870] - Chris Griffin
Not great for the buyer but great for the seller.

[00:23:17.130] - Jordan Turnage
I wouldn't say that's really that big of a deal. Yes, it can be a problem for somebody if they don't have the land free and clear to put down, but at the same time, you're putting that little bit of equity back into it yourself. You'll see that come back over the life of that loan in your interest and your patronage checks that we cut back to you every year. So, I mean, it could be essentially a wash by the time the land comes up or you're going to come out ahead either way. Because now you know for sure if you're looking to move that property, what you can sell it for and then make your money back and make a little bit over it if you're looking to sell.

[00:24:01.600] - Chris Griffin
Yeah. And that's where with the rate, note modifications and stuff, let's say right now on the ag real estate side, on more of our commercial side, let's say in the eights, right? Well, it's not going to stay like that forever. So your rate is fixed, you gradually get that down. Like I said, it's free, so it doesn't cost the borrower a dime, which is obviously a huge added value-added benefit to our members. And so then at that point, as that interest rate starts coming down, well, you're paying a significant amount less in interest and so your payment is going to come down, you're paying less in interest. And who's to say you don't go, well heck, I'm going to make a little extra payment on that or I'm going to pay it off a little quicker. No. So you're going to gain equity in that fairly quickly. And I think sometimes people get a little bit hung up on not everybody has the down payment. They may not have if they have to make up that difference, they may not have 35% instead of 25%. But they do. I think a lot of times people get hung up like, oh my gosh, where's that money going?

[00:24:59.330] - Chris Griffin
You're not really losing it. You've just basically moved your own assets into your current assets into that property or intermediate assets or whatever. So that's something to keep in mind. And then the biggest thing that I see too is a lot of times I think borrowers, when people looking to buy land, they get a little bit ahead of themselves as far as what that process is. And it's really important to call us and make sure you talk to us and talk about what those financing options are, look at what the rates are, let us look and see if it's not a full analysis, which I won't get off in the weeds on that. We kind of have two different ways of going, but let's say most of mine is AgScore because my portfolio is smaller and I kind of deal with, I would say not small to some people, but small to compared to some small potatoes, compared to what Mr. Jordan does on some ag real estate. But I do AgScore and I mean, a lot of times just a tax return and a pay stub is all I need. And just giving me that 30 minutes before you go to an auction before you throw an offer at a land that's listed or a private sale of land, takes 2 seconds, I mean, it really doesn't take me any time at all.

[00:26:11.320] - Jordan Turnage
No.

[00:26:11.720] - Chris Griffin
Until that point, you know, you're confident making an offer, you know what's going on, you know what the options are at that point typically if it's AgScore, which is not full analysis between title work and appraisal, a lot of times we can get those things closed and I've had a few closing 20, 25 days.

[00:26:29.850] - Jordan Turnage
I try to shoot for a 30-day close.

[00:26:31.230] - Chris Griffin
 A lot of times, and I tell most people with anything I do, the home side and the ag side. On the home side, just like anything else, it's all at the mercy of the appraisal and title work, right? So, I mean, if the title companies are backlogged or the appraisals are backlogged, but typically those are going to take about two, two and a half weeks somewhere in there.

[00:26:50.260] - Jordan Turnage
And if you have survey, survey. 

[00:26:52.310] - Chris Griffin
Survey is s a big one. The survey is the big one. And that's the big kicker. You don't really know sometimes until you get that title work back if there is an issue and you need to get surveyed. So that's something we try to look ahead and I think we try to look upstream on that a little bit. But sometimes there's just things that pop up that are just unforeseen. As far as the lender and the person buying the land and the seller, I mean, sometimes the seller was completely unaware, too. I mean, I've had situations where people are selling a home, they're like, I had no idea, or I didn't know that that wasn't a recorded easement. I've always been using it and the landowner next to me let me use it and I thought it was recorded and well, lo and behold, it isn't. It's always fun. That opens up a whole can of worms. That's a process there. I would say call your lender, call us, number one. Yeah, you can go look, but call us, talk to us, let us pre-qualify you. Let us talk you through rates and options and what we have to offer.

[00:27:50.040] - Chris Griffin
And then now you can make a confident offer and then at that point you can get the ball rolling.

[00:27:54.640] - Jordan Turnage
And to expand off of that, as far as getting the pre-approval for folks, that isn't us pulling credit, just so you guys know, like when we're trying to get a pre-approval done for you, that is us trying to just look at your tax returns, balance sheet information, and that's a credit desk email conversation that we have with our credit desk approval, folks. It's not until you guys are ready to pull the trigger that we really get the ball rolling on starting that loan process and getting you to closing. I know that pulling credit on folks can be an issue. I have lots of folks ask me all the time, like, hey, do you have to pull my credit to get a pre-approval on this? And I try my best to give them a fair judgment before they go into that and then try to get them that pre-qual letter giving them that confidence of going in there and placing that bid and getting their best opportunity to get the loan.

[00:28:55.270] - Chris Griffin
Well, not to bounce on the home side, but the home side is a lot of times at least on the land side, if somebody's selling that piece of property, it's not them, hey, I've got to sell this to buy something else. A lot of times the home side, I've just always taken the stance of just spending a little bit extra time. Don't let somebody rush me. So hey, listen, an extra 30 minutes, if I can 100% tell you that you're definitely good to go and I feel confident that you can make that offer. It makes me feel better that I'm giving you accurate information and it may take an extra 30 minutes, but that's just me just being a little more diligent, and a little more detailed. The same way with the ag side, I mean, just taking a little bit extra time asking a few additional questions. Sometimes I think people get a little confused because I start asking questions and I'm not asking questions because I doubt them. I'm just trying to paint the picture for myself on a piece of paper. I'm trying to connect the dots on, hey, if it's an LLC, well, who are the members?

[00:29:54.110] - Chris Griffin
Or if it's a business, are you going to be a guarantor on the loan or whatever? I'm asking those questions because I want to ask it on the front end and not go, oh, whoops, hold on, on the back end. Hey, I meant to ask that and then it mess up your deal because that's when I feel like I've dropped the ball for the borrower. Because I feel like when borrowers call you or people who are interested to get a loan, you're the expert on that and they are trusting you to guide them through that process. And if you misguide them, I take it pretty hard because I feel like that I've told them the wrong information or whatever that is. And I know you do this a lot too. It's just your personality. It's not just a transactional deal to us. You're building the relationship. Obviously, you're closing a loan. You're hoping that they're happy not only at the end when they close, but then through the entire process the communication was good and that they're not just a borrower that's going to close that transaction and never deal with you again. You're hoping that it's going to turn into a long-lasting relationship, right.

[00:30:56.400] - Jordan Turnage
Aim for retention business.

[00:30:57.840] - Jordan Turnage
But at the end of the day, my goal, all of our goals is to make sure our borrowers are happy and confident in knowing that they are with a premier lender. And I think that they get that when they come to us. Not knocking the banks. There's a lot of great people out there but we just are able to open up more doors and give you better options that other banks can't necessarily do. And they may get us on the rate on the first draw when it comes to talking rate versus rate. But I'm going to tell you straight up, there's hardly anybody that we go up against that we can't outmatch them, especially from our loan servicing standpoint that we have, that we offer folks. I feel like that we have a great program here. I'm proud to work here. I know that.

[00:32:02.660] - Chris Griffin
So to kind of wrap things up and I think is really important, especially for people who maybe aren't familiar with purchasing land or going that route, is definitely establishing some type of relationship. Just like I tell a home buyer, right, go find a Realtor that that's their expertise and they know what they're doing, or an auctioneer or whoever that is. And so there's a ton of good realtors, there's a ton of great auctions out there a ton of brokerages out there that strictly deal with land and farm and that's it. And so where a realtor, let's say a home realtor, knows what that price per square foot is, or know what those typical comps are when they're looking at homes that you're wanting to make an offer on. Those realtors that are in the land and farm side, they can help guide you and say, hey, I really feel like this is priced well. Or if they go to sell it, even.

[00:32:55.320] - Chris Griffin
Right?

[00:32:55.590] - Chris Griffin
I mean, if you go to sell it, I mean, they can say, hey, I could pull comps on acreage and tillable acreage, and if it's flooded or if it's hunting or if it's recreational or where that is.

[00:33:05.850] - Jordan Turnage
We've got guys that we work with in this industry that, like you say, that specialize in land purchasing real estate, whether it's an improvement purchase that you're doing, or overall bare ground real estate for farming or a hunting property. The guys that we work with more than, I mean, ten out of ten times I'm going to say, have already walked those fields. They already have a pretty good layout of the property. It's not somebody that you can just click on a website. They're like, oh yeah, it's out here. Need more information, let me know. Nine times out of ten, these guys that we're doing these purchases with that are selling the property or help fostering the real estate purchase, they have pictures that they've taken of the property. They've gone out there and filmed themselves on the property. And that helps out not just security for yourself and making that purchase. I would say that it helps speed up the process. Especially when you're dealing with 1031 exchanges with folks where you're trying to swap dirt for dirt to help from having to make those capital gain tax payments, having folks that know where the property is to get you, and for us to aim for that 30 to 45-day closing.

[00:34:31.790] - Jordan Turnage
The more information that they have that they can give us to help speed up the process, that's just going to help you out in the long run too. And our appraisers are usually one and the same in that as well. A lot of our appraisers that we work with have been here for years and know a lot of the property here in Western Kentucky like the back of their hand.

[00:34:54.080] - Chris Griffin
Well, we have some good relationships with some of our appraisers where we can call and ask them, hey, what do you think about this? Know, what do you think? It'll price.

[00:35:01.890] - Jordan Turnage
Yeah, like we're trying to get a pre-qualify for somebody. We'll make sure we'll ask those appraisers, those realtors, hey, these guys are looking at this price. What do you think? Just to have a second opinion on that where it doesn't just sound like, hey, we're trying to get the loan, get you in here.

[00:35:17.400] - Chris Griffin
And I actually had a meeting with a realtor today that kind of deals with land and farm and homes on large acreage and stuff like that. And he was kind of telling me a story about a situation where somebody kind of left some money on the table, a seller, because the realtors that they used to list their property didn't really have a lot of knowledge in large acreage. And so they left a little bit on the table. And what it actually appraised for and what they sold it for was vastly different. And so even a good thing there is, even if you're going to sell a piece of property, let's say you're selling yours to try to buy another piece of property somewhere else, maybe a better location or maybe just fit your needs better. Well, you don't want to leave money on the table because you're undervaluing that property and people are going to jump all over that. I mean, there's enough people there who are knowledgeable buyers and realtors and things like that, that if they see somebody that's got it listed and it's undervalued, I promise you, you're going to have people beating down your door.

[00:36:12.130] - Chris Griffin
They're going to buy it because they're looking at, man, if I buy it for this and I could go around and sell it in a year from two years or whatever, I'm going to make a decent amount of gains on it. And so I think anytime, just like us on the lending side, make sure you get a professional opinion, have somebody go through your pre-qualification, talk about the loan options, talk about what the process is going to look like. Same deal when you're going to buy the property. If you go to buy it and you go to make an offer, you want to use somebody that knows what they're doing, that sees it every day, that knows what the price per acreage is at this moment in time. And I think it just puts that borrower and that purchaser just in a better it just puts them in a more confident position and a more confident.

[00:36:53.900] - Jordan Turnage
Try to take that buyer's remorse.

[00:36:55.480] - Chris Griffin
Yeah. And that's one thing you were talking about earlier, kind of the easement situation and making sure that we look at things. We want to make sure as a borrower that you're buying a property, that you're not going to come back two years from now and be like, oh my gosh, what was I thinking? Why did I buy this?

[00:37:09.550] - Jordan Turnage
Yeah, why did you make me do this?

[00:37:12.190] - Chris Griffin
We want to make sure that they're in a good position and we're never going to tell you, I can't buy something if it's really what you want to do and that's what our desires, then we'll do the loan. But at the same time we're also going to give if you want our input on it and our advice and you ask for it, we're going to give our honest opinion. And I think the most important thing in our job is I tell people, I just try to treat people just like they're my own family. If they came to me if my brother was coming to buy hunting property right now, I'm going to tell him the same thing that I would tell Joe Schmo off the you know, and I'm going to guide them as best I can. I know this was a lot. I think that when we kind of came into this one, it was a little bit different. We're kind of bantering back and forth and talking about some things that we do on a daily basis and try to like Jordan said that I think you said 30,000-foot view on kind of what home purchasing looks like or excuse me, land purchasing looks like.

[00:38:09.640] - Chris Griffin
Sorry, my brain is on home today because I've been doing a lot of home stuff on land purchasing and the questions that need to be asked what that process looks like from start to finish. Some things that you can put into place as a land purchaser to protect yourself, whether that's the LLC, whether that's using a realtor, whether that's asking us our opinion on what we think about the property based on things that we've seen in the market as of late. Anything like that I think are good steps for that borrower to take, like you said, to alleviate that buyer's remorse, which is the most important thing, I think.

[00:38:47.990] - Jordan Turnage
Oh yeah.

[00:38:49.050] - Chris Griffin
But hopefully, this segment, which is a little bit different, we didn't interview somebody hopefully sheds some light on maybe some questions that people know. I think Jordan and I both, if anybody has any questions, we have some really competent professional loan officers at River Valley throughout Western Kentucky and East Tennessee that will be willing to answer any questions that you know. So feel free. Know, if you can find us on our website at rivervalleyagcredit.com, go there, look up an office that's closest to you, and, you know, I'm just looking at getting some answers on some land or looking at purchasing land and be more than happy to kind of dig into that because obviously, the other thing is land in East Tennessee and Western Kentucky.

[00:39:38.480] - Chris Griffin
Western Kentucky is us.

[00:39:39.580] - Jordan Turnage
Right?

[00:39:39.900] - Chris Griffin
Yeah. East Tennessee may be completely different. I know it is. From what I have heard. So, you know, even know, talking to a loan officer that's close to you, there would be a great route for you to so,

[00:39:50.240] - Jordan Turnage
Yeah, I completely agree.

[00:39:52.350] - Jordan Turnage
And just want to say thanks again, everybody, for listening to the podcast. Really appreciate your time and coming in and listening to this every time. Join us next time when we'll have our director and farmer from East Tennessee, Mr. Don Massengale. He's going to talk to us about what it's like to farm out there in East Tennessee. Thanks again for listening and we look forward to seeing you again on Back To Your Roots.

[00:40:15.110] - Chris Griffin
Thanks for tuning in to Back To Your Roots, where we dish the dirt on all things ag. Be sure to never miss an episode by following and subscribing. While there, leave us a review about what you want to hear next. Stay in the know between episodes by following us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and TikTok. For more resources, go to our website at rivervalleyagcredit.com.