It probably is. Except when it isn’t.
It’s happened to most of us.
You’re in the used car market and see something online that looks like a really great deal. You’re skeptical that it’s just a scam to get your info, but it turns out to be a real person. So you get excited, only to find out it has a salvage title. Or it’s been in three accidents. Or something. The seller wasn’t lying exactly. He just wasn’t volunteering.
We’ve all heard the saying and mostly believe it. If something sounds too good, be skeptical. Knowing that and acting on it in the moment are two different skills, and the second one is a lot harder than it sounds when you’re the one standing next to something you need and want.
Nobody falls for the Nigerian prince anymore. We’ve all had that training by now. It’s the smaller version that still gets people. The retirement account with a “guaranteed” return. The stock tip from a brother in law who heard it from a guy at work. The story about a politician you already don’t like, one that fits exactly what you expected to hear about him, so you share it before you check it.
There’s always somebody out there advertising a screaming deal on rural acreage, half the going rate or less. The honest question isn’t whether you can afford it. It’s why a deal that good needs to be advertised at all.
Most of the time it’s cheap for a reason you haven’t found yet. Floodplain. An easement running through the middle of it. Something next door nobody wants to look at from their porch. Maybe the listing agent knows. There’s a pretty good chance the neighbor who’s farmed next to it for thirty years does.
And by the time an obvious screaming deal reaches somebody two counties away with no history in the area, it’s worth asking why somebody closer to it hasn’t already grabbed it.
There’s a difference between a deal nobody’s found yet and a deal everybody already turned down.
Every so often, the real thing does show up. An estate that needs to close fast. An out of town agent who priced it off the wrong comps. An owner who’s been sitting on it since 2004 and never bothered updating his number. Those exist. They’re just a lot rarer than the other kind, and the little jump in your pulse feels exactly the same either way. That’s the part that gets people.
Whether you check first or get excited first is on you.
That’s why I run a screen through thousands of available tracts looking for the ones priced under what’s around them. And that’s only the first pass.
Most of what survives it turns out to be fool’s gold once I actually dig into it. Every once in a while, one doesn’t.
Usually I already know who the right buyer is for it. Depending on the area, the size, the timing, sometimes I don’t, and I end up sitting on something worth a look with nobody in mind for it yet.
That’s what the Buyer’s Short List is for.
When something actually clears the screen, I send a short note to a small list of people who asked to see them. No spam, no newsletter, nothing on a schedule.
They won’t all be a fit for you. And something being on the list doesn’t mean you should buy it.
It means I’ve looked for the reason it was too good to be true and haven’t found it yet.