Mike Browning

Tag: Landowners

  • Things Are Headed South

    Things Are Headed South

    And we plan to get there first.

    Yesterday I talked about how things seem to be getting worse and worse in the world, and how people tend to want to put things off until the situation looks a little more stable.

    It’s not just having kids, it goes into things like changing jobs, starting or expanding a business, or doing anything that involves risk (that is, anything at all). But if you wait for perfect conditions to arrive to do something, you’ll likely never do anything at all.

    Most of the time, the “right time” is now.

    If you time it perfectly, great. Most of the time you won’t. But if you learn to succeed when circumstances aren’t ideal, you’ll be that much better positioned when they improve.

    So in the interest of taking our own advice, while everyone is saying things are headed south figuratively, we are heading south literally.

    To Hillsboro.

    Introducing MBR Land Group, our Hill County-based land brokerage operation serving Hill County and the surrounding area.

    My brother Matt lives in Hillsboro and is the guy to talk to if you’re looking to buy or sell lots or land down that way. Or pretty much anything but residential.

    Matt can be reached at matt@browningre.com or by phone at 254.324.6969

    If you own land in the area, you’re probably not looking to sell today. Or maybe ever. But between data centers, wind farms and future growth, things may be starting to look a little different than you expected.

    Things change, often quickly. It’s better to have information and know how things stand before you need it instead of scrambling after the fact.

    The MBR Land Reality Check gives you a clear eyed view of what’s going on in the area around your property and helps you know what it might be worth today. You get real comps, real analysis and insight from people who handle land for a living.

    Not house sellers moonlighting as land agents.

    It’s free. Better yet, there’s no obligation or pressure to list, and you won’t end up in a buzzword filled presentation just because you wanted some basic information.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Give yourself permission to look!

    Check it out here.

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  • Sign Your Own Checks

    Sign Your Own Checks

    We all need advice, but don’t turn over control.

    I saw an article about Kathy Ireland last week, which said she was suing her longtime business managers. The suit alleges they used a power of attorney she’d granted them to take out loans and open credit cards in her name, and quietly ran up something like $100 million in the process. Ireland says she only found out about this when she and her husband were trying to help one of their kids buy a house, and the mortgage application was denied.

    Probably not much fun to wake up thinking you have a 9-figure net worth, only to find out you can’t cosign on a smaller mortgage.

    I also saw a press release where the managers’ attorney called the suit frivolous. So who really knows? I don’t pay a ton of attention to the news, but maybe one day we will see how it shakes out.

    You see it all the time with athletes on a smaller scale. They sign on with a management firm, give them too much authority and trust, and find out one day that all their money is gone.

    It’s a good reminder that handing someone the pen isn’t the same as getting good advice.

    We all need advice in some areas. So get advice. Get a lot of it. But if the person advising you tells you it’s easier if you just let them handle it, that you don’t need to be bothered with the details, it’s time to find a new advisor.

    Anyone who is my client knows the deal. I will put in the work. And I’ll get you the info you need (good and bad). I’ll explain to you the pros and cons of whatever decision is on the table. And try to help you get where you want to be.

    But you’re going to be the one who makes the decision. And the one who signs your name on anything.

    You don’t need to know everything about your land or your business. You just need to be the one who’s still deciding.

    P.S. Most landowners who request an MBR Land Reality Check aren’t planning to sell. They simply want to know where they stand before they ever need the answer. It’s recent comparable sales, current market activity, and my opinion of what a reasonable buyer might pay today. No obligation to sell. Is it a bad idea to know?

    [Request Your MBR Land Reality Check]

    P.P.S. If you want more like this, I write regularly about land, markets, and what’s happening with growth here in North Texas.

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  • Sticktoitiveness

    Sticktoitiveness

    Didn’t happen fast. But we stayed with it.

    Finally!

    Last Friday we closed on a lot.

    If you’ve been reading here awhile, you know why that feels like a bigger deal than it would have a few years ago. The lot market has been slow the last 2-3 years. Mainly interest rates. Someone building a custom home is usually taking out a sizeable loan, and the rate makes a real difference in the monthly payment.

    So fewer people are building. And if you’re not ready to build, you’re not ready to buy a lot.

    Lots are more extreme than houses that way. Everyone needs somewhere to live, so there’s always some demand for existing homes. The price might have to come down a little to get it moving, but it moves. Nobody needs a new custom home, no matter how much they want one. If a buyer isn’t ready to build, knocking $10K off the lot price doesn’t change that.

    So you wait. And keep doing what’s worked before, because it works again. Just a question of when.

    This one had its fits and starts. Fell off the market twice, came back a month later as a new listing both times. A couple of price reductions. A builder who wanted to put a model home on it, until the HOA told him no. Another builder who made an offer, then decided he couldn’t stick his neck out right now.

    We kept going anyway. Congratulations to the McWhorters, who’ll be building on the lot, their agent Ron King, and Chicago Title in Dallas for handling the details.

    And thanks to my clients, for their patience.

    Selling lots was more fun 4-5 years ago, when everything just came easy. Anyone could do it. Getting one done today means more.

    If you own lots or land, you’re probably not looking to sell right now. That’s probably the right call. But things change fast, and it’s better to know where you stand before you need to than after.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. A clear eyed view of what your property might sell for today, what the market in your area is doing, and what you need to be paying attention to.

    It’s free for the asking, with no obligation or pressure to list. Just accurate information from someone who focuses on non-residential property, not a home seller masquerading as a landman.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand? Give yourself permission to look!

    Get yours here.

    P.S. If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but like reading about land, lots, and the North Texas market, you can get these posts by email instead.

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  • Everyone But Me

    Everyone But Me

    As it turns out, not everyone.

    I never got into gaming.

    But it felt like everybody else had a console, a headset, and a whole second life happening on a screen I wasn’t looking at. My kids, their friends, plenty of adults…even some older than me. So I made an assumption and never questioned it.

    If everybody’s playing, somebody must be making a fortune.

    Then I read something about Microsoft and the Xbox recently.

    They have spent billions building games, buying studios, and chasing market share, only to discover that popularity and profitability aren’t the same thing. From the outside it looked like an easy business. From the inside it was far more complicated.

    It’s a good reminder that what “everybody knows” is often just the part everyone can see.

    Land works the same way.

    If you own property anywhere near the DFW growth path, you’ve probably heard the stories.

    A neighbor sold for three times what he paid. Somebody got bought out for a data center. A family down the road suddenly became millionaires.

    Those stories spread fast. Before long, they become what “everyone knows.”

    Sometimes they’re even true.

    The problem is that they usually don’t tell you much about your property.

    Land values can change from one road to the next. Sometimes from one side of the fence to the other. Access, utilities, topography, floodplain, buyer demand, surrounding uses, and dozens of other factors can push one tract well above or well below the one everyone keeps talking about.

    That’s why I think there’s a difference between hearing what land is worth and knowing what your land is worth.

    Most people don’t need that answer today. You’re probably not considering selling. You may even plan to never sell.

    But when life changes, a health issue, an estate, a buyer calling unexpectedly, or a family decision, that’s a terrible time to discover you’ve been relying on local folklore instead of current market information.

    P.S.– Most landowners who request an MBR Land Reality Check aren’t planning to sell.

    They simply want to know where they stand before they ever need the answer.

    The report includes recent comparable sales, current market activity, and my opinion of what a reasonable buyer might pay today, without any obligation to sell.

    Is it a bad idea to know?

    Get It Here

    P.P.S.– If you’re not interested in a Land Reality Check but enjoy reading about land, markets, and North Texas growth, you can subscribe to my occasional emails below.

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  • We Don’t Decide With Our Brains.

    We Don’t Decide With Our Brains.

    We Decide With Our Guts and Hire Our Brains as Lawyers.

    There’s a genre of video that shows up online every election cycle.

    Someone reads a quote to a stranger on the street. Says a politician on the other side said it. The stranger nods along, agrees with every word, maybe adds their own commentary about how reasonable it sounds.

    Then the interviewer reveals who actually said it.

    The person on camera backpedals. Gets flustered. Sometimes gets mad.

    We watch that and think: what a rube. Didn’t even evaluate the idea on its own merits. Just heard a name and reacted.

    Here’s the part nobody likes hearing. That’s not a them problem. Everyone is prone to this sort of thing.

    We decide with emotion first. Then we go looking for the reasons. Most of the time we don’t even notice we did it in that order, because the reasons show up so fast it feels like they came first.

    Car salesmen have known this forever. Their whole job is getting you to want the car before you’ve priced it out and started the paperwork. Once you want it, you’ll find your own reasons the payment makes sense. Even though it’s more than you said you wanted to spend just a little earlier.

    It’s not just dealing with salesmen. It’s most of what moves us, all day, every day, if we’re not paying attention.

    I can tell you it’s smart to have a real handle on your finances. I can tell you that if you own land or commercial property, it makes sense to know roughly what it’s worth, what’s selling around it, what the county or the highway department is planning nearby. Not because you’re doing anything about it. Just because things change, sometimes fast, and it’s better to know than not know.

    You’ll agree with all of that. Nobody argues with it.

    And most people still won’t do anything about it.

    Not because it’s hard. Because of what happens in your chest the moment you think about picking up the phone.

    If an agent calls about your property, most people’s first thought isn’t “great, information.” It’s a mental preview of getting talked into something. Buzzwords. Pressure. A conversation that ends somewhere you didn’t want to go.

    Or it’s the family part. Land that’s been sitting in the name a long time carries more than a market value. Selling it, or even looking like you might, comes with a conversation you’re not ready to have with your brother or your kids.

    I know because that’s the same thing that runs through my head when it’s my property.

    None of that has to be true here.

    Looking isn’t selling. Nobody has to know you looked. You’re not committing to a conversation with your family, a listing agreement, or anything else. You’re just getting the numbers so you’re not guessing later, when guessing costs more.

    Give yourself permission to look. That’s smart to do, and you don’t have to go further.

    PS- Most landowners aren’t planning to sell today.

    But things change quickly. When they do, the people who already know where they stand tend to come out ahead of the ones who are finding out for the first time under pressure.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. Recent sales, what’s listed nearby, development pressure, the stuff that doesn’t show up from the road.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Get Yours Here

    PPS- If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but you liked this one, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

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  • What’s Good For The Goose…

    What’s Good For The Goose…

    It’s easy to say the right things. We all have trouble getting off the couch sometimes.

    Sometimes I need to remember to follow my own advice.

    If you’ve been reading here any length of time, you know I like to talk about how putting things off isn’t smart. It’s understandable why we do it. We’re avoiding something we think will be unpleasant. But usually we’re better off facing it now, because the unpleasantness doesn’t shrink while we wait. It grows. And half the time you find out the thing you were dreading wasn’t worth the dread.

    We all know it’s a bad idea. We all do it anyway. That includes me.

    I run another site called hiswordtogether.com. It helps people stay on a Bible reading plan that gets you through the whole thing once a year. If you’re interested, you can check it out at the link.

    When I started the site late last year, I also reserved the .net and .org versions of the name. Ever since then, up until last week, there was an item on my to-do list to point those addresses to the main site.

    It had been there so long I stopped noticing it most of the time. When I did see it, I’d think about how I needed to get it done, then immediately start getting nervous about doing it. I’m not the most tech-savvy guy around, and I’d start picturing what happens if I click the wrong spot and take all my sites and my email offline.

    Again.

    That’s happened before. Inconvenient doesn’t cover it. Support got me through it, but when you don’t know how to explain what you did, it’s not exactly fun.

    So I kept trading the low-key annoyance of seeing it on my to-do list for the sharper worry of “what if.”

    Last week I finally did it. Logged into my registrar, four clicks, done. I spent something like a hundred times more effort avoiding it than it took to just do it.

    Nothing in my life is visibly different now, except I feel a little silly.

    I bring this up because I see the same thing happen with landowners, just about a different kind of click.

    You know it’s smart to have a read on what your land is worth and what’s happening around it. You’re probably not selling anytime soon, maybe not ever. But you also know that not knowing is its own kind of risk, the kind where you find out too late that something changed.

    What stops people isn’t the info. It’s what they think asking for it will cost them. Call an agent for “just some information” and a lot of them hear that as an invitation to start walking you toward a listing appointment, whether you asked for one or not. So people skip it. Same as I skipped four clicks for months.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. It gives you real market data, a heads up on what’s happening nearby, and whatever else might be relevant for your property.

    All without pressure to list, or having to sit through a buzzword-filled presentation. And it can be requested in a couple of minutes, or less time than it took me to fix my domain issue.

    Here’s the link.

    PS – if you’re not ready for the MBR Land Reality Check but like reading these articles, you can sign up below to receive them via email:

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  • The First Step Is Usually the Hardest

    The First Step Is Usually the Hardest

    Once you get started, it’s not hard to keep going.

    I remember being told growing up that it takes less gas for a car to idle for a few minutes than to shut it off and restart it. Something about wear on the starter too. I heard the same thing about lights. About computers. If the goal was saving energy, you were often better off leaving things running than flipping them on and off.

    Might not have been true. I’m not an electrician or a mechanic, and it was a long time ago. So even if it was true then maybe it isn’t now.

    Beside the point anyway.

    I read something recently noting that the hardest part of most tasks isn’t the task itself. It’s going from not moving to moving. Once you’re in motion, momentum does most of the work. The whole fight is getting off the couch.

    Once you see that, you can use it against yourself, in a good way. Can’t get motivated for the gym? Make a deal. You’ll get dressed, drive there, walk in. If you still don’t feel like it once you’re inside, you can turn around and go home.

    Do this enough times and you’ll find you almost never leave.

    Just getting started was the whole battle.

    I use this at the office too. There are some projects I have that I don’t look at every day, but are large and have lots of moving parts. When it’s time to pick them back up, they’re overwhelming enough that putting them off a little longer feels reasonable. Which would just make it worse.

    If I commit to ten minutes, just one small task like sending an email or reviewing what’s left to do, I almost never stop at ten minutes.

    If anything I end up with the opposite problem. I get moving and don’t stop. An hour turns into four, and something else I meant to get to that day doesn’t happen. I’ve started setting alarms just to make myself quit.

    The same thing happens with bigger decisions too.

    If you own non-residential real estate, it’s probably a real chunk of your financial picture. Worth knowing what it’s worth, and what’s happening around it that affects that. Not because you’re looking to sell. Usually the smart move is waiting, unless you’ve got somewhere better to put the money or a reason that forces your hand.

    But it’s better to have the information and not need it than to need it and not have it.

    Most people never get the information. Getting started feels like a bigger thing than it is.

    And there’s the barber problem. Ask a barber if you need a haircut and you already know the answer.

    Call about your land looking for information and you end up on the phone with a salesperson telling you all the things you need to do that happen to be very good for them. So people put it off.

    It doesn’t have to go that way.

    That’s the whole idea behind the MBR Land Reality Check. You request it, and that’s it. No one shows up trying to list your property. You get recent sales with real numbers, what’s moving in the market, and any development nearby worth knowing about.

    It takes about two minutes to request, and it shows up in your inbox a few days later.

    No pressure, because there isn’t a pitch waiting on the other end.

    You don’t have to be ready to sell.

    You just have to be willing to know where things stand.

    Get Yours Here

    PS – If you’re not ready for a Land Reality Check but enjoyed this post, you can sign up below and get future articles delivered to your inbox.

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  • The Sun Is Probably Coming Up Tomorrow

    The Sun Is Probably Coming Up Tomorrow

    You’d be a lot better off operating accordingly.

    Most people wake up these days and, they already know the world is ending before they’ve had their first cup of coffee.

    Used to be you’d flip on the morning news. Maybe Good Morning America. You’d hear some bad news, sure, but then there’d be a segment on a dog that learned to skateboard, or some heartwarming story about a kid raising money for his neighbor. You’d get the weather. Somebody would laugh too loud at something that wasn’t that funny.

    Now people roll over, grab the phone, and start scrolling. And the algorithm figured out a long time ago that outrage keeps you looking longer than a skateboarding dog does. So that’s what it feeds you, nonstop, before you’ve put your feet on the floor.

    Right now it’s the war that was going to end but now it isn’t (oh wait, yes it is, never mind it’s not). Gas is either already too high or about to get worse, depending on which story you read first. Or we’re living in a dystopian nightmare. It’s exhausting, it’ll ruin your morning or your whole day before it starts if you let it.

    But it’s always been this way, just maybe not quite as much in our faces.

    Just a few years ago we were all going to die. A sizable number of serious people were saying civilization was a few days away from coming apart. We’re still here.

    Before that, a particular election was going to send everything straight into the toilet. Whichever one you’re thinking of, someone said that about it. They all came and went and things are moving along. Most people would never even notice a difference if they weren’t told about it.

    Before that, the housing market had crashed and the same people who swore the crash wasn’t coming turned around and swore it would never recover. It recovered so much that now those same people say nobody can afford a house.

    Before that, terrorists were going to get us all. Hasn’t happened yet.

    Before that, the oceans were going to swallow everything if we didn’t figure out how to control the temperature of the sun. Still waiting on that one too, Al.

    Before that, nuclear holocaust by 1985. Wrong again.

    Before that, economic malaise was all we had to look forward to. Until things started growing so fast the 80s were known as the decade of greed.

    Eventually something is going to get us. That’s just the nature of things.

    But until then, you’ve got a life to live. And a morning to get through. If you spend it marinating in whatever disaster the algorithm decided you should be upset about today, you’ll make worse decisions, be harder to be around, and see problems everywhere, including in places that are actually fine.

    Here’s a pretty decent rule of thumb: if someone says it’s different this time or we will never recover from (insert problem here), they probably aren’t worth listening to.

    There will always be a reason to run and hide, if you just look for one.

    But the sun’s probably coming up tomorrow. Plan accordingly.

    PS- Most landowners aren’t looking to make a move right now.

    But the ones who do best tend to be the ones who already know where things stand before the moment comes. Not waiting to see how the news cycle shakes out.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. It looks at nearby sales, current listings, development pressure, and the details that affect value but aren’t obvious from the road.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Get Yours Here

    PPS- If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but enjoy reading about land, markets, and how to think about both, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • The Big Deal Isn’t Harder

    The Big Deal Isn’t Harder

    Don’t spend your whole life playing penny ante games.

    Early in my career I spent months working a deal. Drove the area, ran the comps, found the right buyer, got it closed. Made about a thousand dollars on it.

    I was working with my dad at the time, so he saw all of it. The driving around, the dead ends, the slow grind toward a buyer. He told me I’d done everything right, worked it the way it should be worked. Then he told me something I didn’t fully get at the time.

    He said it isn’t any harder to work a big deal than a small one.

    I argued with that a little in my head. Surely the bigger deal has more moving parts, more zeros, more ways to mess it up. More people who’d notice if you got it wrong.

    He was right and I was wrong. (Don’t tell him I said that.) The work is close to identical. Find someone who wants to buy, someone who wants to sell, put them together and get something done that leaves everyone better off. What changes is the number at the end, and that number doesn’t ask you to do anything different to get there.

    Most of what makes the big version feel harder isn’t the deal. It’s you. You start adding weight to it that isn’t actually there. Bigger feels like it should require more, so you tense up, slow down, second-guess yourself in ways you never would on something smaller. The deal didn’t get harder. You did.

    It applies to most things, and most people never test it. Making two hundred thousand a year isn’t meaningfully harder than making forty. It’s a different set of habits, different deals, different conversations, but it isn’t five times the effort or five times the stress. People assume the bigger number requires being a different kind of person. Mostly it just requires not getting in your own way at the size you’re currently working.

    People spend years circling the smaller version of something because it felt safer, only to find out later the bigger version asked the same of them. If not less. They just hadn’t been willing to find out.

    PS- Most landowners aren’t thinking about a deal of any size today.

    But the ones who do well, big or small, tend to be the ones who stopped sizing up the work before they’d even started it.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. It looks at nearby sales, current listings, development pressure, and the details affecting value that aren’t obvious from the road.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Get Yours Here

    PPS- If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but enjoy reading about land, markets, and negotiation, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • Ambushed By A Salesman In Real Time

    Ambushed By A Salesman In Real Time

    We both know why you should do certain things. And why you don’t.

    I keep coming back to this one: people put off stuff they already know they should deal with. Not because they’re lazy. Because they’re avoiding a hassle they’re pretty sure is coming.

    Take your land. You’re not looking to sell it today. But knowing what it’s worth, and what’s happening around it, can’t hurt you. You’d have the information sitting there if anything changes. If a neighboring tract comes up for sale, you’re not finding out last. And if it’s a good deal, you might be ready to move on it first.

    So why do most people pass when someone offers them free information?

    Mostly because they’ve been burned before.

    Mention you’re the slightest bit curious what your property’s worth and your mind jumps straight to a timeshare pitch. Numbers too good to be true. A guy who won’t take no for an answer.

    You ask one question. The phone starts ringing. And doesn’t stop.

    So you let it go. Not worth the hassle.

    That happened to me last week. My truck’s had a couple of recalls sitting open for a while (nothing major), and I’d been putting it off because I didn’t want to spend an afternoon at a dealership. A card came in the mail with a QR code, said I could schedule online. Figured I’d try it. The site barely worked, so I gave up after a few minutes.

    Except it worked fine, for what it was actually built to do.

    Within minutes my phone rang. Sales manager at the dealership. I let it go to voicemail. He wanted to know what car I was interested in and when I could come in for a test drive.

    A few minutes later, an email. Somehow he’d copied my wife on it too, asking what we were “working a deal” on.

    I asked for service. They tried to close me on a car I never mentioned.

    That’s the move. That’s why people stop raising their hand.

    When you raise yours with me, that’s not what happens. I’ll reach out, sure. Lightly. No pressure, no script.

    You can decide for yourself what that’s worth.

    PS -Most landowners aren’t planning to sell today.

    But things change. The ones who already understand the market tend to handle that better when it does.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. It looks at nearby sales, current listings, development pressure, and the details affecting value that aren’t obvious from the road.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Get Yours Here

    PPS- If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but enjoy reading about land, markets, and negotiation, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.