Auction day on Plum Prairie Ranch was too cold for outdoor bidding.
This is Part 2 of the Plum Prairie Ranch Story. If you missed Part 1, go here.
Shawn and I left DFW for Kansas in the wee hours of the morning Jan. 9 to make the 400 mile drive in time for an afternoon appointment to view the Plum property and get a home inspection. We’d gathered as much information as possible from afar, talking to his brother who’d reached out to his network, looking online at tax rolls, maps and court filings, identifying a lender and getting pre-qualified.
We’d had long discussions looking at numbers and values, and we set our absolute top number beyond which we knew it would be out of our reach. How was it even possible that we could contemplate a huge investment at a time when our biggest budget item was putting kids through college (it’s still in the top two three years later)? Not to mention the fact that I’m rather frugal (Shawn’s lovely grandmother called it “being Scottish,” which is part of my heritage, so I come by it naturally).
The only way it was possible was because I lost my dad Dec. 26, 2011, two years and three days before I first set foot on Plum Prairie. He’d left me an inheritance. I didn’t know what to do with it, but it needed to be something special. It wasn’t enough to quit my job, but it gave us a ready down payment and a bit of a cushion.
Dad would love the fact that this quirky country place is part of his legacy to me. A country boy born on a dairy farm near Krum, Texas, he appreciated the peacefulness of nature and would have thoroughly enjoyed reeling in fat catfish from the pond.
Dad with Papa on the family dairy farm near Krum, Texas, circa 1945.
We knew we had a down payment and a source of rental income in the house, so we knew we could do the deal if the price was right.
We arrived in Hutchinson at noon and went directly to the office of a realtor we’d selected to help us in the process. Lyle showed us information he’d gathered about the property and a list of comparable sales, although you can’t really compare such an odd duck place with all it’s structures and unique features to a standard house on acreage.
The day of the auction arrived, the sun playing peek-a-boo with clouds driven by a brisk breeze blowing from the north.
We decided I would do the bidding at auction. Shawn is hearing impaired and has worn hearing aids since his mid-30s. His dad accompanied us and greeted several auction attendees he knew. Unlike me who had never bid on anything bigger than a set of binoculars on eBay, John had participated in plenty of auctions for property and big-ticket items. He prepared us for what to expect and provided plenty of moral support.
Lyle met us there and told us about a few potential competitors. There were several developers looking for a bargain, someone interested in opening the auto shop business and a husband and wife wanting to build their dream home.
The auction was held in the house, due to the frigid weather. The auctioneer stood behind the Corian counter of the kitchen island with a couple dozen people crowded into either end of the L-shaped dining and living areas. Some held numbered cards and others were just lookie loos. Apparently, out in the Kansas countryside, going to an auction can be considered Saturday entertainment.
The 30-acre property, a skinny rectangle about a half a mile at its widest point, is divided east-west into two parcels on the tax rolls. The northern half had all the buildings while the south portion was just pasture, tree groves and the aforementioned slimy ponds.
All along, the auction materials stated the property would be sold as one unit. We called the realtor, and he confirmed the owners planned to sell it as one lot. But we should have looked more closely at the fine print on the auction announcement, which said the process could change on auction day at the owners’ discretion.
When we got there, we learned the property would be sold in two parts: the unoccupied acreage first, then the northern portion with the house, auto shop, machine shed, cabin and pond. Shawn and I had a moment of panic. What if we got the southern property and didn’t get the northern part? We quickly had to determine what our upper limit would be on the first half, then—if we got it—hope the second half didn’t go beyond our budget.
Turns out “Dream Home” couple was only interested in the unoccupied portion. They wanted to build their house on pristine prairie and didn’t want to pay for (or mess with maintaining) the mad amalgam of structures to the north. The sellers decided maybe they could get more if they split up the parcels.
At that time, land in the area was going for between $2,000 and $3,500 an acre. We didn’t want to pay any more than that. After bidding back and forth, mostly with DH man, I won the southern half at less than $3,000 per acre.
Now we had to win the northern parcel. Bidding raced into six figures. On the outside, I played it cool. Acted like I did this sort of thing all the time, raising my number with calm authority, calling out amounts at times, trying to maintain my poker face. My message to other bidders? I could do this all day and never break a sweat. Inside, my brain was in mini freak-out mode. I think I had to remind myself to breathe.
In a short time, it became clear it was down to me and another man. Shawn, John and I stood in the dining room while the other bidder was in the livingroom around the corner. I couldn’t see him, but Lyle edged forward to scope him out. I think he was the one interested in reopening the auto shop.
The auctioneer stood behind the kitchen island. Shawn and I were looking at him from this angle in the dining toom.
When we’d neared the top end of our pre-determined budget and worried we were going to be stuck with the southern half and unable to secure the rest, my competitor stopped bidding. Then the real fun began.
The auctioneer asked Shawn and me to accompany him into one of the small mobile home bedrooms, the one with the fat striped wallpaper. We were prepared for this after talking to John and Lyle. This is a common tactic in property auctions to try to get more out of the buyer.
The auctioneer told us we hadn’t hit the auction reserve.
For those of you uneducated in auction lingo, a reserve price is a hidden minimum price that the seller is willing to accept. In a reserve price auction, the seller is only obligated to sell once the bid meets or exceeds the reserve price.
If we didn’t come to some kind of agreement, the owner could pick up her marbles and kick everyone out of her home.
The auctioneer told us the reserve was $25,000 more than our last bid. No way were we going that high. That was beyond our absolute top limit. We told him we couldn’t do that. He went back to the owner for a few minutes and then returned.
“I think we’re real close if you can come up part of the way to that $25,000,” he said. “Can you do $10,000?”
I looked at Shawn. That was our absolute top limit. The price beyond which we were not prepared to go. After a few minutes of private discussion, we decided to go up $10,000. We called the auctioneer back to tell him. After a few minutes with the seller, he told us we had a deal, but he still had to close out the auction.
When he went back to his position at the island, he told everyone that there was a new bid that was $10,000 higher than the last bid and that he would open it up one more time to see if anyone wanted to keep on bidding.
Say WHAT? I definitely stopped breathing for several long seconds. The auction was continuing and I just bid against myself? He couldn’t do that, could he? Well, he did it. But no one else wanted to go any higher. The property was ours.
As I had been contemplating this life-changing purchase, I’d thought to myself that a sign of God’s favor would be to get a great deal on the property. Then I remembered that this was a widow we were negotiating with for the sale. Ashamed of my “Scottish” inclination, I decided God’s hand was more clearly shown by having us land on the EXACT amount we’d set for our limit.
You don’t want to get a steal of a deal from a widow. Instead, you want to pay a fair price, and I think that’s what we got. After speaking with her briefly at the open house and getting a personal tour of the place with her son when Shawn came to see it, we’d heard through the grapevine she hoped we got the land because we wanted it to be part of our family legacy, our “what comes next” plan.
Not very many people would appreciate all the unique features of this Plum Prairie Ranch. Developers and dream home builders wanted open spaces while an auto shop owner didn’t want to pay for all the surrounding pasture.
But it seemed just right for us and our purposes.
Ready or not, Plum Prairie Ranch was ours!
We could rent out the super-sized upscale no-longer mobile home, store vehicles and belongings in the auto shop, run a small herd of John’s cattle in the pasture come spring and enjoy staying at the cozy cabin by the pond whenever we came to visit family or work on the land.
We now owned this odd duck property, not to mention four live ducks at the pond.