If you are fairly new to being a Realtor^® or even if you have been around a while, one sure way to learn about the quality and skills of your fellow Realtors^® is to sell some of your own property and be present during the showings. This story will tell you the case in point.

Since most Realtors^® are more comfortable showing homes located in subdivisions or closer to the cities in their areas, listings with homes on acreage or vacant land listings often present special skills that are not practiced everyday. Those skills may require an understanding of environmental concerns, well and septic needs and governmental regulations, knowing how to really read a survey, and being aware that the countryside has many more free thinkers and folks very likely to have their own ideas about zoning and land use regulations.

People living outside of the cities here often do so because they can have large animals, dogs and cats that may not always be constrained, four wheelers, tractors, and other noisy pieces of equipment, shoot guns or hunt or just plain don't want to live in crowded conditions.

The skills required of agents also include the necessity that you ask more prying questions of the buyers.

Asheville has, because of constant articles exclaiming the virtues of our area, attracted more wealthy buyers. For some odd reason many of these buyers believe every piece of vacant land here has long range, unobstructed views of the mountains, water running deep enough to have trout, that there will be little or no mobile homes in the area, each piece will have the exact blend of trees and open space they fantasize about and that the neighbors all have similar homes to the dream homes these folks want to build. They also seem to have this uneducated belief that they can get all the land they want for $20,000 to $30,000 per acre within 10 or 15 minutes of downtown Asheville and the Interstates and that they will all have easy year-round access on wide roads.

 Sorry, but this is not the reality, in most cases.

Why then do they look at so many properties that just don't meet their needs? Answer: The agents that bring them to these properties are no more prepared than the buyers in many cases. The reason so many buyers that think they will find their dream property don't buy is because it does not exist in the same way as their fantasy does and many of the agents have been unable to break that fantasy open with facts based on the questions they should have asked.

This is my unique observation since I have had several pieces of property for sale in a country setting outside of Asheville and I have been present for every showing. I have heard the comments of the agents and seen the reactions of the buyers when they take a look. I have sold several parcels, but it has been fairly obvious, on many showings, that the buyers and their agents are not on the same page. The buyers had one thing in mind and the agent just didn't get that far in the questions during their interview process. Why that is, I'm not sure, and if I gave my deepest thoughts as to why, I would probably offend some of the agents, so it is best that I just suggest that agents showing listings that are not the "norm" or involve acreage in the countryside, had better become more skilled at getting answers to questions that will allow them to not waste time and money and have buyers leaving town saying, "Well, we didn't find what we wanted this time, you keep looking and let me know what you find. We'll take a look next time we are in town."

By the way, I have a beautiful 6.36 acre parcel for sale at $217,000. It has long range views, some wooded areas (most trees lose their leaves in the winter for even better views), mobile homes in the area (but not a negative in this case), horses and cows on adjoining properties, surrounded by homes of all price ranges (but none really expensive), and a 3,600 acre conservation area/game lands with a trout stream as our neighbor. There is a new survey, underground utilities including DSL, and a driveway to the property. Oh, there is some water (a very small creek), but no trout. One other thing, we are 25 minutes to downtown Asheville, but only 15 to the tiny town of Marshall. We are NOT Biltmore Park, Biltmore Lake, or Fairview Downs, we are in the country (Leicester) and love it. And we are not $100,000 per acre.