Posted by JDseller on September 15, 2012 at 20:33:56 from (208.126.196.144):
Well guys some things have been settled in the last ten days. My back is not much better but it was just a small part of the stress.
I will start out with a little family history. I have five kids: four boys and a girl. Robert is 45, John is 33, Bill is 31, Amber is 28 and Tyler is 20. Those that are good at math can figure out Robert was born when I was just 17. He was not an accident. My wife and I married when we where 16. We had known each other from just about birth. Our mothers where best friends. So we even shared a play pen. My mother used to joke that we had even shared the same boob. We told the families that we where getting married as we where old enough for a license in several states. The choice was did we elope or have a family wedding. Both families supported us. We both finished high school and I went into the service. I never regretted it one single time. Especially as she pasted away from cancer at the age of 45.
Now a little more family history. Your family has always tried to help the next generation become farmers. This was not always a good thing to do. My Grand Father and Father tried to help my two uncles get started. They co-signed to help the uncles get started in the late 1950s. That single mistake took both men twenty years to get over financially. This was on land, equipment and operating money. The uncles went down in flames in the early 1960s. My Grand Father and Father both just about lost their own farms. My Dad actually did sell in the late 1970s. A decision that I think was driven by the hard times caused by the Uncle"s failure.
How does this effect me??? Well two neighboring farms came up for sale this summer. The one we have rented for a long time and was not a real surprise. The other was out of the blue. Neighbor has some severe family health issues cause him to need to sell. Both of these farms are around 300 acres each. Between my sons, my brother and I we own all around them. We really don"t want someone else to just drop in the middle of us. Could you imagine the problems if one of these farms was split into building tracts with a bunch of tree hugger owners??? Not going to happen. So we negotiated to buy them both. I should say my middle two sons did.
Now the stress part. over 600 acres of ground at almost $7000 per acre cost. You can do the math. The number still scares me. So now the fun begins. Rounding up the money to finalize the deal. The local bank we all had done business with was bought out two years ago thinks to the new bank regulations. Single institutions just about can"t make it with all the reporting and federal filing requirements. So we are dealing with an out of town mega bank here. They just about laughed at us. Now you need to know this is a bank where up until it sold I was on the loan board. Had been for over ten years. I raised cane and got up to some one with a brain cell. They looked at what we where doing and at least looked at it in a business manner.
John the older of the two is a little better off financially than his younger brother. They both have good off farm jobs and wives that make real good money too. I am talking about six figure household incomes here. The bank would think about John without a co-signer but not Bill. He just did not have as much down payment money. Even on John the loan officer told me he could not guarantee that his loan would go through the head office. He wanted me to co-sign for them both.
Think that caused a little stress in some households??? LOL We also where kind of under a gun time wise. Neither of the two sellers had advertised the fact they where selling but the word was kind of getting out by people putting two and two together. I did not want to risk losing either property. They may never come up for sale again in my life time, maybe the boy"s either.
So we tried several different places and where basically being told the same thing. I would need to co-sign for them to guarantee to make the loans. With what had happened to my Grand Father and father plus the dollar amounts we are talking about, I was stressed out. This was where I was at last week. So the statement "That I needed to get my mind straight on somethings" was not just soul searching talk. I needed to decide how deep I was willing to go in helping my sons out on this.
Late last Friday night I happened to remember a fellow that I had met at one of the bank"s meetings. He was retired and I had not spoken to him in a few years. This guy is very well off if you get my drift. I called him up Sat. morning. I needed someone on the outside to talk to that may have some answers. Plus someone that was used to working with these kind of dollar amounts. I am not that is for sure. He came out to the farm Sunday afternoon. We talked for a good while. He talked to the boys and their wives. He looked the farms over. He told me he would get back to me on Tuesday. That was all. The talk had helped me settle a few things in my mind as to how far I was willing to go in supporting the boys.
He called me Monday afternoon and asked to meet us all again Tuesday night. When he showed up I was shocked. It turns out he is the majority owner in a private investment group. They decided to finance the farms. I do not have to co-sign. I do have to help with the down payment. I am taking most of my retirement investment money and loaning it to the boys. It is not as bad as it sounds. First the investment group is letting me have first mortgage for the principle amount, That really shocked me. Second is that I am getting 6% interest for the ten year term. I am currently not getting half that. The boys are getting the balance for 4.5% on a twenty year fixed note. Not a bad deal for us all.
The papers are all signed and now it is just waiting for the final closing. There are title searches, land surveys, and credit searches to be completed but when those are done we can close. The investment group lawyer and my lawyer think they can do it in less than three weeks.
So the stress load is way down on me. I am taking some risk but not total risk. My land is not at risk at all. So my exposure is limited.
I now just have to make peace with the youngest son. He is mad because he thinks he should have had a shot at one of the farms. (John already owns his FIL's farm) I had to have a fact of life talk with Tyler. He is twenty years old. He has two boys, 4 & 5 years old. Yes, he was sneaking around and got his 13 year old girl friend pregnant when he was 14. Not the best character reference right there. They are now married and are doing a pretty good job with their sons. This is a plus. The real down side is that they both have mediocre jobs. Their household income is barely above 30K each year. Plus very little savings. This is just a fact of being young, married and having kids. He is going to have to work on a better job and save up some before he can even think of owning anything let alone a farm. I told him that he may be lucky. What??? That is right. I am not sure that the middle two are doing the right thing for the long haul. Land is at record highs. In ten years it very well could be much more affordable. I don"t think it will stay this high. So Tyler just needs to work on some things and be ready down the road.
So guys this is what was helping to make me meaner than normal. LOL The wife says I am always a grumpy old ba$tard.
Side note!!!! I found the buyer of the JD 3020 I was writing about. He and I have just about came to a deal. So I very well could be getting it back. If I get that done I will post about it.
Also. My no good "Uncle" has raided my computer. Plus my coffee pot too. LOL He is posting under Old Iowa. The funny thing is he is three years younger than me. He does not have a computer at home. He used one at his factory job but is too tight to buy one of his own. He has just about lived in my office since he found out how to cruse the net. LOL I had better put the porn filter back on the computer. LAMO.
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