Bill wrote:
wrote in message

I'm ready to tell him that my $$ offer is now $40K instead of $50K.
What do y'all think of that?


Good idea! Might want to link price reductions in your offer to purchase to
his demands for easement/deed restrictions. An easement can be quite wide
and you can't ever build on it. So you would not really own the easement
land, thus no reason to pay for it! If he wants to have an easement, then he
should reduce the price proportionate to how much land that easement takes
up.

What he wants in the way of an easement is a 15-foot wide strip that
runs behind my current garage and eastward across the new property. The
highway is the hypotenuse of a right triangle that runs from southwest
to northeast, and his 700 acres sit to the east of the property I want
to buy. He can just as easily run down one of the legs of the triangle
to the highway as come from my pole. The thing is my pole is already
there, and he can probably get one of his guys to do a quick and dirty
job. This idea is completely unacceptable at any price.

So far as deed restrictions, if this will keep you from building certain
things you might want to build on the property in the future (or someone
else might want to build), then the land might be worth less to you. Link a
reduction in price to his insisting on having deed restrictions. So very low
offer if he wants to keep control of the land. Full price if there are no
restrictions or easements and you get mineral rights. (i.e. You are buying
the property and can do with it what you want.)

Another option is to walk! Say you are no longer interested if he wants an
easement, deed restrictions, and wants to keep mineral rights. Bye! Then the
ball is in his court and he would probably come back with a better offer if
he *really* needs the money.

An option might be a limited time contract between you and him (outside of
the deed) where you agree not to build anything on the property that would
not meet his deed restriction requirements. Say for 5 or 10 years. He may
want to keep you from building anything which would lower the value of his
development next door. But he would only care about this until his
development is sold off. After he is gone, he would care less (unless he
intends to live there himself?) But with this plan, in the long run you
would have full control of the property.

As for deed restrictions, you're right that once the subdivision is set
up and the lots sold, he won't give a rat's a$$ if I put a pig farm AND
a sewage treatment plant on that land! BUT I might want to immediately
sell off part of the land to help finance the loan. And I don't want
deed restrictions stuck to it like flypaper, because, frankly, the
people I have in mind to sell it to will want to use it as a hunting
lease, and one of the deed restrictions is that there can't be any
dwelling on it smaller than 1,500 square feet. I think it's tidier
overall if there are NO deed restrictions at all. Well... take that
back-- I will agree to one deed restriction, namely, that the property
cannot be used as a garbage/trash dump, even temporarily.


Might want to do a little communicating with him. Find out why he wants
certain things. Tell him your feelings that with the restrictions, etc. you
feel you would be a *sucker* to buy since he would retain control of the
property. That buying land to you means you can do what you want with it.
And resale value in the future would be higher if there were no easements,
no restrictions, and it came with mineral rights. (I have seen people walk
from a home purchase because there was an easement. People don't want to buy
a property with an easement on it if they can buy something similar without
an easement.)

In the beginning I tried "communicating" with him and explaining why I
wanted what I wanted, but I didn't get his attention until I started
sending him terse emails with no frills and no explanation. My
impression is that my reasoning makes no impression on him at all. He
didn't feel my iron fist until I shut up and took off the velvet glove
(thanks to my coaches-- LOL!)

Basically you will pay for what you get. If he wants to give you something
less than full value, then the price should be adjusted accordingly. This
would be fair. (If he is the type I think he is, he will scream like a stuck
pig at any reduction in price!)

Let's find out what is more important to him. His restrictions or cash....
I'll bet he wants the cash!

Well, having no restrictions is more important to me than getting the
land-- LOL!