Many newspaper and internet ads do not tell us where a property is located. This is understandable, because more words in an ad simply means more time and money spent by the advertiser. Don't be confused about locations! Where a property is located can have a definite effect on the cost of the property. For example, properties close to large cities such as Chicago, Milwaukee, or the Twin Cities carry a premium price. Just because a property is advertised in Chicago doesn't mean it is anywhere near Chicago - it might be six hours away. Many people make the mistake of assuming that a property is located where they want it to be located. Always be certain to find out where it actually is before forming ideas about the market. As you will learn in other places on this website, location is directly related to cost.

It is very easy for someone who has a poor memory (or is not especially gifted geographically) to make an assumption and then tell you that "my cousin bought lakefront near the Dells for only $40,000 on a nice little lake with a sand bottom". When in reality, the lake was North of Wausau and did have a sand bottom, but they own on the weedy end of the lake.

Especially if property is described in terms of area like "central" or "northern" Wisconsin or if the lake is near a small, relatively unknown town, this may happen.
 

For some reason, the well-wisher seems to always have a tale of someone they know or someone about whom they heard that got this fantastic deal on land. Just like in the children's game "telephone" the facts are often very jumbled by the time that you hear them.

For instance, 1 acre may become 2 acres. Or maybe a small lake becomes a water-ski lake. Or, the date in time when the transaction was made becomes more recent than it actually was.

In this case, the facts about the property may be entirely accurate, but the reason for the seemingly low price is that it actually happened 5 years ago, not "last summer". This is a very important point, because property prices are rising so quickly that what someone paid for a certain property a year ago often has little or no bearing on today's prices.

For more information about the cost of land see the Waterfront Market or Market for Lots and Acreage section of the Website.

Another thing that often happens with friends, family, or accquaintances is EMBELLISHMENT:

I hate to suggest that someone you or I know would speak anything other than the truth, but this happens more often than I ever imagined.

A friend of mine worked at a furniture and appliance store for 17 years. He related to me one day that someone would often come into the store, show interest in a particular appliance, and begin negotiating.

At some point in the conversation, Fred (the buyer) might say, "Well, I know somebody who paid only x amount of dollars for that same appliance at this store." To which Ed (my friend) would reply, "That really doesn't sound right to me. What is this person's name?"

After learning their name, Ed would look them up in the company computer, discover the truth, and come back to Fred to tell him, "Fred, I just looked at the records and that's not what they paid for that appliance." Obviously, the truth was lost somewhere. It may not be that someone intentionally lied. Maybe they forgot how much they paid or quoted the price before taxes. But in any case, the end result was the same - misinformation.

Incidentally, when I first started in the land business, I used to fall victim to this same type of misinformation from people who called looking for land. Once I learned to ask questions and dig a little deeper, however I found that the property in question was not quite so glamorous as it initially appeared.
 

Newspaper ads are a large source of confusion. This is not to say that anyone is at fault, but mistakes are often made because of assumptions or because properties are normally advertised in their best possible light.

Combine these two factors with a human tendency to "hear what we want to hear" and Voila! you have misinformation.

For example, I have received many phone calls about this advertisement: "5 acre lakefront - $29,900!" This is an actual property that we had listed. Many people assumed that it was on a water-ski lake, which it was not; that it had sandy beach frontage, which it does not - half of the property is marshy; and that it was within 3 hours of Chicago, which it most definitely is not!

Why does this happen?

Because people want all of those things and scan the newspaper looking for them. Naturally, it is much more pleasant to assume or to hope that the property is what we want rather than that it is not. OR, sometimes people simply scan the paper looking at prices and assume that they now have a good "handle" on the waterfront market in Wisconsin without ever learning such important details as location, property dimensions, and size of the body of water.

I have personally made these this type of mistake when shopping for cars. Unfortunately, I wasted a lot of time and gas before I learned that things aren't always as good as we sometimes assume initially; and you usually do "get what you pay for".