Auction - Bankruptcy deal of a lifetime

[Dave2]

Over a million dollars in original investment.

http://www.gardnerauctions.com/view_auction.php?auction_ID=357

No environmental problems I believe.  Have not checked title but I am sure you can talk to autioneer and bank

Close to nature

Locals think will go for a fraction of original investment.

By major river for recreation

close to this guys favorite place

over 300 acres of land.  

outbuildings available for pigeons or turkeys

[Dave2]

I need some advice from the smarter members of the board: Got an interesting suggestion from a friend.

We are talking way up in northern Ontario where the polar bear express starts.

I have two properties fairly close to the bankruptcy sale (one over the river and 3 concessions over - 75 acres in same township) and one (160 acres) within about a 20 minute drive and more importantly in a different wildlife management unit which has important advantages for hunters.  

Both adjacent to crown land. Both properly bought at a tax sale and for a reasonable tax sale price.  (both about 15% above next bid).   Inspection for both since then is positive with road access, power and phone at lot line.  Big piece has improvements I was not expecting. Both close to town (about 15 minutes from the beer store).  

This is a big event up here probably once a 30 year occurrence.  Question should I flag in and hope for a big sale price gain.  Auctioneer is interested because he thinks will help his main sale.  (total acreage almost doubles and helps attract hunters with additional parcels).  He will not charge me anything if does not sell and I can set a reserve bid.  

Cost is 5% plus (5% buyers premium).  One of the properties I was going to sell anyways.  Other not but I would ensure I cash out for a resonable profit.

Do I go for it on hope there will be more tax sales and what do I watch for in listing with an auction house?  

[cityhunter]

Unless you want to Hold out for your Ideal price,then i say go for it.
I for one set a baseline of what i expect to make, if you can set a reserve then i don't see harm in trying.

[worldjohn]

dave, set your reserve and go for it. You have nothing to lose.  Let us know how it goes

[Dave2]

dave, set your reserve and go for it. You have nothing to lose.  Let us know how it goes

Okay.  I will as they say in sailing "Cast your fate to wind"  Reserve bid will show a modest profit but not as much as if I listed it.  

I think this will be an interesting topic of conversation locally up north for the winter. Probably have an interesting reputation as they first thought I was in marijauna business (not true, I don't smoke anything) now in the pigeon business.  

I will advise after the event:  if I am   or or  

Memo to self:  ask Rob for more Smiley's

[Dave2]

dave, set your reserve and go for it. You have nothing to lose.  Let us know how it goes

Okay.  I will as they say in sailing "Cast your fate to wind"  Reserve bid will show a modest profit but not as much as if I listed it.  

I will advise after the event:  if I am   or or  

One of these days I should write a book about this crazy business but I would have to put it as a work of fiction as no one would believe me that it actually happened.  Now I know that internet service on the Turks and Caicos island beaches is not what it is reputed to be so execution for the sale is not as good as I would like it.

On the other hand the first showing had over 40 people when less then 10 were expected.    Thursday around supper time  is the big day which is just about the time I should be emerging from a northern Ontario mine to investigate a possible consulting job in my regular life.   At this point I honestly have no clue what to expect. 

[DF1]

Is this the property that belonged to the "Pigeon King" and PKI of the great pigeon pyramid scheme that collapsed a while back?

[Pfm1011]

Is this the property that belonged to the "Pigeon King" and PKI of the great pigeon pyramid scheme that collapsed a while back?

Yes that is Galbraiths house   ..but boy was that a funny scam.. we are going to breed flying rats and then convince the world to eat them when the avian flu wipes out all chickens..sorry but strange how the "starving farmers" managed to come up with 100s of thousands each to invest.    It was just stupid greed and they all deserved what they got. 200% a year profit , get your head out of your ass you greedy idiots. Not one person noticed that over 8 years not one pigeon was sold and they were being paid 25 each bird for sale for food??  This was just a pyramid and noone complained when they were getting their payouts  , No different then emeralds  from Treasure Traders International or art trading scams , or even better, WIGS, womens investment groups (pyramid for women only , dont tell your husband, its our little secret wink wink)

Death,  taxes  and greedy people falling for pyramid scams

[netpred]

Dave:

Did anything sell?

W-5 did an entire episode on this "business". It is pretty imformative and includes interviews with Galbraith and investors. One of the interviews is shot inside the Cochrane house. You can watch the entire episode here:

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/WFive/20081113/wfive_pigeons_081113/

[Pfm1011]

SOLD $225,000 -- BANKRUPTCY AUCTION OF REAL ESTATE - newer house on 300-acres with lot of river front land, second house on property, pigeon coops --- SOLD $225,000

[stillsleepy]

Wow

$225K looks like a great price for a place like that, assuming someone would actually have a use for it - or perhaps a little bit of spending money sitting around.

Anyone here in the farming industry? I wonder what kind of work it would take to convert the pigeon coops into chicken coops, and get into egg's or something similar. I just watched the W5 episode, really quite interesting and a little sad at the same time.

[netpred]

The problem with trying to convert a pigeon farm into a chicken farm is that the chicken industry is highly regulated on the supply side. Basically, chicken farmers have a quota in terms of what they can produce. I know of chicken farmers who have been able to retire by selling their quota to other chicken farmers. In other words, no quota, no chicken farm.

[Dave2]

Dave:
Did anything sell?

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/WFive/20081113/wfive_pigeons_081113/

   I am finally back from a rain soaked northern ontario trip.  Rain was so bad we had to pull off the road Thursday night prior to our destination.  I was up north further south then the auction on a combined business and pleasure trip. (monitoring reconstruction of a nice tax sale buy last year.)

Bottom line is that unfortunately my properties did not sell because bidders did not meet the reserve bids.  I have a plan B which I will now implement.  It is important to understand background that while I had both properties up for auction I did not really want to sell one so reserve bid for it was structured accordingly.   Unfortunately that is the one that most bidders had the most interest in.  

Personally I think it was a combination of bad weather and execution that could have been improved but when you get something for free and are working opportunistically don't complain if things don't go exactly your way.  I was not paying the bills so obviously I had limited control over the auction process.  For one I would have held it on a weekend on a Saturday afternoon not a weekday evening just before sunset.

Because of factors mentioned bidders were mostly local and getting the price I wanted was dependent on out of town bidders who mostly did not show.  Locals were not going to pay my reserve price and most knew what I bought it for. (In a northern Ontario town of 4,000 there are no secrets.)

I learned a lot though and will share my observations about real estate auctions in a separate post in future when I had the time.  

[Dave2]

I sometimes feel this selling game is like a soap opera.  Never ends but twists and turns.  I wish I could get an easy job like buying tax sale properties.    

To give a little background I had two properties in the auction both bought at  tax sale; 1 smaller one of 75 acres and 1 larger one of 160 acres.  The smaller one I wanted to dispose of long term and the larger one is more of a keeper.  Both for the right sale price have value as I could probably exchange them for other property.  (Who knows in future I might even try to buy taxsale property in this guy's favorite town of Moonbeam)  

Reserve bids that were set reflected that fundamental desire and as a result with only locals in the auction they did not meet the reserve so we move on.

Plan B applies only to the smaller property.  In an earlier post I intentionally used a funny term for getting rid of property in that I said "dispose of" and did not mean sell because at the end of the process I will still own the property.  What I mean is that I would take the economic value from the property in this case by selling the timber. Thereafter I probably have a 10 year wait before I can move onto resale of the property.  

Selling timber is an art not a science particularly for a greenhorn like me.  The factors favouring me include many of those that are important to a proper buy in the first place :
a) Good access to property by a year round road (along entire north face)
b) Close to town (saves trucking costs) and major highway (10 KM)
c) Flat level land (easy to work)
d) Located in far north which with winter means it can be harvested because of freeze up
 
Factors working against me include

a) Its a bum year for demand as a result I get half I might get in a good market. (In a normal year I might get more from the sale of the timber then I paid for the property)

Proof of this is shown by recent auction which no one reached my reserve price.  In a normal market the property would probably have sold to a logger.

b) My trees are young thus I only get low value (pulpwood compared to saw logs)
c) I have a fair proportion of lower value species (tamarack and poplar compared to spruce)
    This is related to the fact that part of the land (20%) is marshy.
d) Unlike in southern Ontario I have few restrictions on harvesting the wood.  

The local logger wants a quick decision because he is going to be working in the area shortly.

At a low market value I still get 60% of my original purchase price in cash by end of year.

Decisions, Decisions.  Okay Guys and Girls what would you do?

Plan C applies to the larger property.  and is a future oriented decision.

[Pfm1011]

Make sure you do some reading as you can get screwed bad on a timber deal. I think OMAFRA has example contracts. One really has to deal with the clean up among other things


A Landowner's Guide to Selling Standing Timber", available from Stewardship Co-ordinators or Ontario Woodlot Association

http://www.ont-woodlot-assoc.org/info_pub_guide.html

http://www.communitiescommittee.org/pdfs/Selling_timber_guide2.pdf

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/environment/efp/infosheet_23.htm#woodlots