Land Journal Opinion: Real estate mailers annoy me
Each week it’s likely I get a mailer that’s advertising some sort of real estate company, land that’s sold near me or land that’s for sale close by. They usually go straight in the trash can.
Recently, I got a letter from Texas. It was made to look like it was handwritten, and the letter inside looked the same way. It was printed and made to look like a yellow legal pad. Instantly, I was annoyed.
The letter explains Lloyd’s search for land to buy in Clark County. They “have talked to some good Kansas realtors in the area” but haven’t found the right parcel. It goes on to read, “The rougher and brushier the land the better. However, some farm ground is fine too. We started pheasant and deer hunting Kansas in 1995. Now we’d like to have a place of our own to run a few cattle, hunt and spend time together.”
I realize my address is attached to our property information on the county website. Anyone with an internet connection and the ability to find a county search page can find addresses of landowners. It’s likely a full-time job for someone or has a computer that can extract information from the internet.
Companies probably pay to have these organized lists sent to them, so they spend less time inputting the data and save money on postage. That doesn’t annoy me. What annoys me is that they dangle a carrot out in front of you and try to entice you to sell. Or even worse they find the right person who is ready to sell or has no heirs interested in taking the land over.
I did a Google search on the name in the letter and all I could find was an obituary and cell phone number (the same one in the letter) attached to a little different name. All the red flags started flying. I took a picture of it and threw it away.
If these out-of-staters only knew what it took us to get that land bought eight years ago, they might hesitate wasting the stamp and mailer on us. But they probably don’t care, and there might be many other landowners out there with the same story as ours. They don’t care if the land has been in the Scott family for more than a 100 years. They just want a place to hunt.
I guess the reason it annoys me so much is how sometimes available land is scooped up by developers or those only wanting hunting land. The verbiage on many of these mailers isn’t targeted to landowners like me who want pastures to graze cows on or farmland that would be suitable to raise a crop to feed cows. They’re talking about how there might be a creek running through the “ideal hunting property” or ample deer and wildlife populations nearby.
While it’s a person’s right to own land and do with it as he pleases, it just doesn’t make sense to me for it all to be devoted just to hunting. A person with recreation land may only spend several days or weeks out of the year at his property and otherwise it sits. Some people may have realized the income potential agriculture would provide to their property and let it be rented for grass or farmed. Others may let the fences rot, and buildings fall down because they just want a spot to put their deer blind.
People have had the notion of owning land for hundreds of years. Many were enticed by the homestead act, and some even followed through with the hard work and duration of it to settle the country. Back then everyone who wanted his own piece of the pie knew he had to work to get it. There were many folks who couldn’t make it work and left. But for those who stayed, I hope that hard work wasn’t in vain, and the land was passed down to future generations.
I hope the future generations don’t succumb to Lloyd’s tactics and sell the land that’s been in the family for generations. I hope generations like mine or my kids find a way to hold on to the family land.
Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or by email at [email protected].
