In this episode, Haley sits down with Mirr Ranch Group Broker Willy Strazza for an in-depth conversation about the current state of the ranch real estate market and the intricacies of buyer representation. Willy offers valuable insights into market conditions and inventory levels, shedding light on the advantages of working with a buyer’s agent. He walks us through his process of understanding clients’ needs, thoroughly researching properties, conducting due diligence, and navigating complex transactions.
The discussion also explores the challenges that can arise during transactions, the importance of leveraging industry connections, and Willy’s top advice for buyers considering entering the ranch real estate market. Whether you’re a seasoned buyer or new to the market, this episode is packed with expert tips and strategies to help you succeed in your ranch purchase journey.
Topics
[0:41] Intro and market overview
[2:52] Understanding buyer representation
[8:58] Handling challenges and leveraging connections
[15:24] Off-market opportunities
[18:47] Current market outlook
[23:53] Broker Speed Round
[27:57] Final advice for buyers
Haley Mirr (00:06):
Welcome back to the Land Bulletin podcast, where every other week we bring you experts in the field to impart their knowledge when it comes to the ranch and sporting property market, buying and selling advice, the latest, best stewardship practices, as well as topics that impact landowners every day. I’m your host, Haley Mirr. Let’s jump in.
Welcome back to the Land Bulletin podcast. I’m Haley Mirr, and today we have Willie Strazza with us to talk about buyer representation and what that looks like. After looking at some of the data points from this past summer and the year that we’ve had so far, more than half of our sales have been buyer representation deals, so we thought this was a very appropriate conversation to have, and Willie has actually represented one of those buyers a lot on some of these deals. So what better person to talk with then Willie today? Thanks for joining Will.
Willy Strazza (00:57):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Haley Mirr (00:59):
So before we get into the specifics, what people should know if they’re considering buying a property and choosing a broker, what have you seen this summer? What have you seen in the buyer market as it relates to maybe last year?
Willy Strazza (01:14):
There’s still a lot of buyers out there who are looking to find their dream property. Inventory has been pretty low over the last few years. We have seen a general uptick in inventory that’s happened, say over the last three months, and some of that might have to do with seasonality and just being able to access these properties and for brokers to be able to get their marketing materials together. But I think it also ties to kind of this post covid period where there was a big land grab during Covid and then there’s a handful of people who purchased properties that said, well, maybe I’m not utilizing this as much as we should be, or maybe this ranch lifestyle isn’t really for me. And so we’re seeing some of those ranches come back onto the market as well, or pieces of those ranches.
Haley Mirr (02:04):
Yeah, it’s been cool just to see the amount of inventory. I know a lot of buyers in the last couple years, they’ve felt almost threatened if they didn’t purchase this now, there wouldn’t be anything like it. But now we’re seeing a lot more properties hit the market. So buyers are definitely starting to have more power than they have in years past, which is good to
Willy Strazza (02:22):
See. Absolutely. Yep.
Haley Mirr (02:24):
Awesome. Well, since you are now the expert in buyer representation, I’d like to go into some of kind of understanding what buyer representation is so those who are listening might not understand. Okay, I’m on Zillow a lot of the time. If I’m a buyer, I’m looking at different things. How hard can it be? But can you tell the audience a little bit about what buyer representation is from a broker’s perspective and why that’s important to buyers in the ranch industry?
Willy Strazza (02:52):
Sure. So it’s similar to representing a seller, but you’re just on the other side of the transaction. So it typically starts off with some kind of buyer brokerage agreement where we’re stating all of our roles and responsibilities and our fiduciary duty to act in your best interest. And then you’re essentially for free of cost, getting to partner with a broker who’s got a certain level of market knowledge and expertise who can help with your property searches and your due diligence process when you do determine what you ultimately want to, what ranch you want to pursue, and then evaluating different properties as well. And so it’s kind of a soups to nuts process where we start off with figuring out why do you want to get into ranching? What are you ultimately looking for? Is this a recreational property? Are you a producer? Is this going to be cattle, sheep, anything kind of in between.
(03:50):
And then geographically, what are you looking for and where are you looking? And then we start narrowing down our search. And then when we determine what property a buyer that we’re working with wants to pursue, we’ll set up a tour, get out there, make sure everything is in line with the marketing materials, and they’re going to buy actually what with the listing broker saying they’re going to buy. And then we’ll put together an offer and put it under contract, help with all the due diligence related items, and then hopefully get the property purchased and they’re on their way to get to enjoy it.
Haley Mirr (04:27):
Awesome. And what’s kind of your personal process when researching properties for a buyer? I understand people can [email protected], they can see what’s out there, but a lot of times some of these properties aren’t always on certain MLSs or land directories or things like that. So what’s your process when helping a buyer with that discovery phase of seeing what types of properties are out there?
Willy Strazza (04:50):
Yeah, it typically starts off with just a general discovery call, getting comfortable with each other and understanding what they’re ultimately looking for and why they want to pursue a ranch. A lot of buyers during that initial discovery phase, there’s a lot of questions that they’ve never really thought of before. It could be something water rights related or irrigation related, or maybe I want to lease it out to a neighboring ranch for a couple months out of the year just so they can hay it, run cattle. And then I’m maybe only interested in hunting it for three months out of the year. And so after that initial call, I often find it helpful to send our link for our buyer survey, and it’s just a comprehensive list of questions. Typically, the buyers don’t have answers to all of the questions, but it is a helpful tool to get them thinking about all the different components that are involved with owning or operating a ranch.
(05:45):
And that really helps us narrow down our search. So once those two items are done, it’s kind of off to the races and I put together a buyer broke profile sheet depending on the buyer’s criteria, sometimes it’s an institutional buyer that’s wanting to buy a lot of smaller ranches, and sometimes it’s a single individual who wants to just purchase one ranch. And so well, I’ll create a buyer profile tracking sheet and a property tracking sheet, and that’s a live sheet that I like to use. I like it to be a collaborative process with the buyers that I’m working with so they can check on it daily and see what new properties have come to market can always reach out to me and we just have an open conversation about them. And sometimes those sheets are five different ranches when we start off. Sometimes it’s 135 ranches when we start off, depending on the requirements for each buyer.
(06:42):
But then we just based off of the buyer’s criteria, if it’s a hunting ranch, we’ll focus on what units it’s in. Maybe there’s landowner tags, maybe it’s a part of the bighorn sheep program where those tags can be transferable. Maybe it’s a fishing ranch we talked about. I have a background as a fly fishing guide when I was younger, so I love getting into the health of the different drainages in the rivers and streams, what kind of benthic macro in vertebrates are swimming around in there, size of fish, quality of fish, all that kind of thing. And then we’ll just narrow down the search to typically three or four different properties and then we’ll set up a tour date. And sometimes getting on a plane, oftentimes it’s just driving around and spending some windshield time with your clients. And that’s really great because not only do you get a sense for the ranch, but what does it take to get to the ranch?
(07:40):
And then also what’s the surrounding community, because obviously more components to purchasing a property than just the property itself. You want to be familiar with the area and everything. So yeah, that’s kind of the general process of how we started off. And then the transaction side is all whole different mess and deal, but that’s why you bring us on. We’ve got a good network of individuals who can help us out for the questions that we don’t have answers to, but for the most part, it’s pretty streamlined with how we approach the transaction side of everything.
Haley Mirr (08:15):
Alright, Willie, so you were just mentioning how we have a lot of different people that we work with from water lawyers to title insurance agents, and I know you’ve gone through a lot of kind of things that have come up during transactions or due diligence. Can you give us an example of a couple times maybe this year where you’ve had to lean on some of those representatives in our Rolodex? I’d love to know what you’ve kind of had to handle this summer
Willy Strazza (08:43):
When you’re dealing with properties that are a thousand acres or sometimes 40, 50, a hundred thousand acre properties, inevitably things are going to come up. Some of that can be title related, some of that’s water rights related. I mean, we’ve had fence line issues where the fence line doesn’t necessarily conform to the surveys or the legal descriptions that we have, and it can seem like an insurmountable issue to the buyers that we’re representing. But we work with some great title groups. We get in touch with the neighbors and we ultimately resolve it. I mean, there was a title search for a property we transact on this year where since the title company reviews everything back to patent, they found that the boundary of the storage reservoir on the property, there was a hand-drawn depiction of it that dated back to the late 18 hundreds, and it did not conform with the fence line or the boundary line of the property didn’t impact the water rights or the usage of the ranch in any way.
(09:46):
But if you’ve got someone who wants a clean title, which is everyone’s end goal, it was something that needed to be resolved. So it was a little bit of an arduous process and very grateful for the folks over at Land Title who helped us resolve it. It was a lot of research on their end, but that’s just an example of one instance that we had to lean on, just relationships that we have and have built throughout the industry. We’ve also had instances where there maybe unregistered wells or illegal ponds where the water rights associated with the wells or the ponds, they haven’t gone through the formal adjudication process with the state. And so it can involve basically, we have some great water rights attorneys that we work with and they help resolve those issues. And sometimes it’s purchasing water rights from the state to formally adjudicate those water rights so that the ranch can continue to use them. They basically just give you all the avenues to how do we resolve this? Because in some instances, maybe it’s a stock tank that just hasn’t ever been utilized and it doesn’t really provide much value to the next owner and they just want to abandon those rights too. But it’s helpful to be able to lean on those resources so you have all the different options in front of you and then can make a logical decision relatively quickly.
Haley Mirr (11:07):
And I can attest to you both of those stories that Willie had to handle this summer specifically that survey one that was tough, but hey, you closed on it. It was handled. There was a lot of back and forth, but it was figured out. And to your point too, we’re brokers. We’re here to broker the deal. We’re here to make things go smoothly for our clients and lean on the experts when we need to. So always understanding when lawyers are necessary, when land title people are necessary is part of the job too. So thanks for giving some of those examples. I wanted to also give you a pat on the back because some of those things were things Ken had never seen before, so build on those.
Willy Strazza (11:49):
Yeah, no, well, that’s one of the fun parts of the job. It’s something new every day, and we’ll never say that we’re an expert on everything, but to have the network that we do, if we don’t know the answer to the question, we know the right people to reach out to resolve it.
Haley Mirr (12:04):
And as a broker, I know one of the big things is really validating what the listing agent has put out there in the marketing, validating the valuation. What are some of the data points and things at our disposal as brokers, especially at my ranch group that we can use to help our clients really realize, okay, this is actually what this is valued at. This is where we should come out with our offer price. What are some of the things that you do when working with a buyer in that regard?
Willy Strazza (12:32):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s a reason why a lot of these listings come on in the summer, and it’s typically because marketing materials are being done in the spring, and these properties can look significantly different in the spring versus late fall or into the winter, especially down, I’d say southern Colorado. You take a picture of that during the spring, some of those areas down near Walsenburg and Vita, and man, it looks like the rainforest down there. And then you come back here later in the summer and it just has a tendency to get a little bit drier. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with that land, but if you’re only determining if you want to buy a ranch based off of the marketing materials, it’s not necessarily always showing the same, the full picture. So for us, yeah, we’ve got a lot of general market knowledge in Colorado, which is a full disclosure state.
(13:26):
We’re able to see when the property last transacted and what it last transacted for. We have various jewels that we use, websites and databases that we subscribe to, like B three where we can verify water rights, understand zoning laws, just basically evaluate the suitability of the property for the buyer’s intended use. And with that is just understanding what’s the condition of the land, what’s the condition of the buildings? Again, that’s not always shown in the marketing materials. I don’t necessarily want to highlight that the foundation of some of the buildings is failing and whatnot. So yeah, we’ve got a good group of individuals from title representatives to water rights lawyers and everyone in between surveyors who can help us navigate the process in each step of the process and each component of the land to make sure that it’s aligned with pricing and that we’re really operating in our client’s best interests and have their fiduciary duties in mind to make sure they’re getting a good deal or a market deal on the property that they’re pursuing.
Haley Mirr (14:39):
And I know this summer in particular has been kind of crazy. How have you as a broker been able to organize all of the different properties that you’ve had under making sure that your buyers are well taken care of? What’s the biggest benefit of using someone like you versus just a buyer going out there and being like, Hey, I like this, this and this. I’m going to figure it out. I have enough knowledge to What has been the benefit from your perspective of the team behind you, that kind of thing?
Willy Strazza (15:10):
Sure. Yeah, there’s a lot of coffee involved. It’s an all day, all night kind of process. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some great buyers this year, and we’ve been staying very busy. One thing that’s great is there’s typically some overlap in between the buyers that you’re working with. So if you do have an individual where you’ve got a property tracking sheet and you have 130 different ranches on there and you’ve made calls to all of those listing brokers and you familiarized yourself with the area already, you don’t necessarily need to redo all of that research again. So that helps with just speed of getting things to your clients quickly, because if it is a good deal, we’ve had probably four or five deals this year where we’re working with new buyers and maybe they’re kind of on the fence and in the discovery process.
(16:02):
And also just getting comfortable with us and understanding what we do and wanting to make sure, hey, do these guys over at Mirr really know what they’re doing? And then six months down the road, maybe it was a property that we sent to them three weeks into the process and said, Hey, this just came to market. It’s priced really well. It’s really cool. We should go out there and see it quick. I don’t think it’s going to be on the market very wrong. And sure enough, two, three weeks later, it’s under contract and we get calls back and they say, oh, we should have made a move on that one quicker. So I think having that overlap with the clients is tremendously helpful. I’m fortunate enough to work with Pat and Jeff who have a combined 40 years of experience in the ranch brokerage industry, really know their stuff.
(16:49):
And that also opens up some opportunities for off-market deals. I would say of the 10 deals we’ve done this year, maybe 50% of those have been off market. And that part of the reason for that I believe, is just because inventory is so low. But I wouldn’t be able to dig those opportunities up without Pat and Jeff just for the fact that I’ve been with me for two years, and that’s just experience. The only way you gain that is by being in the industry for a long time. So from a transactional standpoint, blessed that I’ve got nine plus years of real estate expertise, so to speak, but it wasn’t always focused in ranch work. So to be partnered with those guys has been incredible.
Haley Mirr (17:33):
That’s huge. I think that you just nailed it on the head too, about just buyer representation versus doing it yourself is there are a lot of opportunities that you wouldn’t be able to participate in. And if you didn’t have a broker like you, Jeff and Pat who know about these opportunities where a seller might not necessarily be listed but has been considering it for the last couple years, and it’s a relationship where you can reach out and see if they’d be interested in selling to whoever you’re representing. So I think that’s a great representation of what you guys do as a team, which is really cool to see. And then I’d love to just know about your, after working here for two years after learning from Jeff and Pat about the market, about where we’re kind of headed this year with an election year, things like that. Where do you see the buyer market going for the rest, the remainder of the year? I know it’s been like we were talking about very hot for buyers recently. Do you see this changing at all for buyers as we kind of wind down on 2024 and enter into 2025?
Willy Strazza (18:37):
I think it’s kind of twofold. I would say we’ve got clients who are saying, well, let’s see what happens with the election, and then I’ll determine what I want to do with this cash at that point. And just as many folks are saying, I know this is what I want. I want a ranch, it’s going to be a legacy ranch. I want to pass it on to my kids and grandkids and those guys. It’s all gas, no breaks. So I think in terms of general market conditions, I feel that things are slowly transitioning into a buyer’s market. I don’t think that we’ve hit that tipping point quite yet, but with a lot of the transactions we’ve engaged with this year, we’ve seen, especially with Unimproved land, a little bit more flexibility when it comes to negotiating a purchase price on the property. These sellers seem to be a little bit more motivated to offload their property or to move on to their next endeavor. And so we have seen the ability to negotiate a little bit more on behalf of our clients and see things not necessarily go for full asking price, which is promising for the buyers who are looking out there.
Haley Mirr (19:47):
And I would love to look Locationally, you do a lot of business in that Roaring Fork Valley area. You talked about vacant land, you talked about some of these deals you’ve been working on in the San Luis Valley, things like that. Have you seen a market shift a little bit in more of those resort communities like plus Lazy Kay is in some of those full throttle Ranch Ranch that you guys participated in. Do you see kind of a difference in market there for buyers?
Willy Strazza (20:13):
I would say that those resort communities are in a little bit more of a silo, and it’s a little bit more of an anomaly if you’re looking at Jackson Hole or Aspen plus Lazy K is a great example. But plus Lazy K is, I would say a good example in the sense that it’s just a little bit on the tertiary of that market. It’s not in Pickin County, it’s in Garfield County, but you’ve really seen all of those values down Valley continue to increase ever since Covid. But for instance, an opportunity like K, you can have some certainty and assuredness that as more people are moving to those communities like Aspen or Beaver Creek or Vail or Jackson Hole, those tertiary markets are going to continue to get stronger just because of the land constraints with all the public land that’s surrounding there. And so I see that there are good opportunities just outside of those kind of resort towns where it’s still a good value add either for purchasing something and then maybe you’re parceling it off in the future, or if it’s a legacy ranch and you just want to buy it and hope that that value continues to appreciate down the road for your kids and grandkids.
Haley Mirr (21:25):
And with that, I’d love to know your advice. I know you’ve worked with a lot of buyers about just, okay, I am buying this property. Maybe I’m in one of closer these tertiary markets near resort towns. What’s your biggest advice for buyers kind of purchasing that, who want to know how to manage it? And if they’ve never purchased a ranch before and this is kind of their way in, what’s some of your advice that you would give buyers? Looking at places like Plus Lazy Kay
Willy Strazza (21:52):
Lean on us heavily, oftentimes the owners of these ranches are very willing to, they want to help the next owner. They’ve been such good stewards of the land and they want to continue to make sure that the next owner has the same success and is able to care for the land as well as they did. And so sometimes that’s as easy as just setting up a quick conversation between the buyer and the seller directly to make sure that you’re checking all your boxes and crossing your T’s and dotting your i’s. And then also, yeah, if you’ve never owned a ranch before, we’ve got an individual who has purchased a number of ranches with us, doesn’t come from a ranching family and is looking for some assistance on the management side. And that’s where it’s great to have Pat and Jeff’s expertise and the relationships that they formed over the years because we have been able to insert local farmers where we can do market standard deals for Grazing Outfitters who can generate additional income from running a couple hunts on the ranches through of the year. And then a lot of these properties have live water through them and some great fishing, and there’s some awesome groups that we partner with or work with, just make the connection with the new owner so they can have multiple revenue streams, just helps with the carry cost of the ranch. And also to have a warm body on the ranch if those individuals, if it’s not their primary residence.
Haley Mirr (23:17):
No, it’s huge. And I think that’s one of the biggest things with representing buyers is your relationship with your clients go well beyond the transaction. So helping these next stewards and next ranchers of their landscapes understand how to take care of it. It’s not this scary investment. It’s an investment you can actually enjoy. I mean, it’s really neat to see the relationships that you build because some of these buyers you work with for months, sometimes years, to find the best place for them. So it’s definitely a relationship building exercise.
Willy Strazza (23:47):
Absolutely.
Haley Mirr (23:54):
So now we’re going to have our infamous broker speed round. Harry, try it as hard as to be good at this, but I’m sure you’ll be a little bit better. So we’re going to start with number one most underrated state for ranch real estate.
Willy Strazza (24:12):
I love Wyoming and it’s probably, I got a soft spot in my Hartford. I was a fly fishing guide for a number of years at the a r guest ranch in that Saratoga encampment area. I just think Wyoming’s a great place and it’s beautiful. The winters are tough, but I don’t mind that. But I am going to actually give you three answers to this. I’m going to say Wyoming, Colorado, and then I think Utah is sneaky cool and just has some beautiful country and it sure is fun to drive around there.
Haley Mirr (24:44):
I would agree on Wyoming. I was there for the past week and we stayed in different parts of it and everyone thinks of Jackson, but there’s so many cool towns in Wyoming, so I agree with that. Number two, favorite way to unwind after a long day of visiting ranches,
Willy Strazza (25:03):
I’m usually back at home cooking dinner with my wife. I live pretty simply. Maybe it’s partnered with a cold beer, but that kind of fills my cup.
Haley Mirr (25:16):
Well, you got a very cool partner to go home to, so I get that being your go-to number three, sunrise or sunset views on a ranch, which has been your favorite.
Willy Strazza (25:27):
I would say historically, sunset Intel. I was at North Face Ranch with a client, that’s the one that’s just, it’s about 4,500 acres just outside of Steamboat. And we decided to wake up at about five in the morning and let’s really see what the elk activity was on this ranch. And that was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had. And I would think I would trade every sunset I had for that morning out on that ranch. It was really just spectacular seeing the amount of elk and little babies. It was a few months ago and all of them were calling to each other. The place was just singing. It was just loud and beautiful and dew on the grass. It was really, really special.
Haley Mirr (26:11):
I love that. That’s so poetic. I love it. Let’s see. Number four most unique feature you’ve seen on a property. And unique can also mean weird. So most unique thing you’ve seen on a property.
Willy Strazza (26:27):
For the first time ever on an property we were touring, I saw a hydroelectric system that serviced four different buildings and we’re used to seeing solar power, wind power on these ranches in these remote places. This is the first time that I had seen a water turbine that was set up in a stream that was now wider than maybe four foot across. And it generated enough power for all. I guess it was four log cabins that were on the home all around 2000 square feet. And that was pretty cool feat of engineering.
Haley Mirr (27:07):
That’s sweet. I don’t think I’ve seen that. So that is a cool feature. Let’s see. And number five, best season to show a ranch
Willy Strazza (27:16):
Ball. I think without a doubt, it depends on what ranch and where you are. If you’re showing some cattle, country fall might not be the best time of year, but I think if you’re anywhere out on the Western slope or where you’ve got some large aspen trees, it’s hard to beat the fall. And especially just seeing all the animal life getting geared up for winter.
Haley Mirr (27:42):
Yeah, I would agree. And you’re avoiding bug season, which is
(27:47):
Probably the hardest time to show ranch. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Willie. I appreciate you undergoing the speed round of brokers and you crushed it, said good job then. I’d love to know your biggest advice. Okay, I’m a buyer. I’m interested in purchasing a property, but I’ve kind of been watching the market. It’s a weird year. What’s your biggest advice for buyers who are considering entering the ranch real estate market?
Willy Strazza (28:15):
Sure. Give us a call. I mean, it’s one thing to be kind of window shopping on the internet. It’s another thing to call someone who’s living in that world day to day. It can seem daunting and unnerving, especially when you’re looking at all of these inflated prices of land values. It can seem somewhat unattainable, but oftentimes if you don’t have the whole story, it can be overwhelming. But oftentimes we get calls from people and they say, here’s what I’m looking for. And we say, well, we’ve got an opportunity for you and maybe you don’t have the money to pay for this all cash, but we know that this seller would be interested or open to maybe some seller financing, or here’s some ag programs that you can get involved with to soften that financial burden on you. And so then all of a sudden it becomes fun and it’s much more attainable and they don’t feel like they need to wait and pinch pennies until the perfect time.
(29:16):
Because when you do find that property that checks those boxes, kind of as I alluded to earlier, I would encourage you to have your ducks in a row as much as you can and to move quickly on that. And putting something under contract doesn’t mean that you’re locked in to buy that thing. There are certain outs that you have throughout the transaction process, and we can help explain those to you. And obviously we want to do a good job representing our buyers, but also being transparent with the sellers and doing right by the sellers, brokers and the sellers of these properties. So nothing is meant to be misleading throughout the entire process. We like to be very transparent, but obviously things come up during the due diligence period where you just weren’t aware of it on the front end. And so maybe that’s the time when you’re ready to move on to the next opportunity. And that happens, and that’s okay.
Haley Mirr (30:11):
And it just shows it’s good to have representation to handle those due diligence items because some of those things you wouldn’t even think to look for. So if you are interested in purchasing a property and looking for buyer representation, give us a call and we’ll connect you with one of our brokers. But thank you so much, Willie, for taking the time today to kind of go through this, and I hope you and your buyers find everything they’re looking for the rest of the year.
Willy Strazza (30:37):
Thanks, Haley.
Haley Mirr (30:39):
Thanks for joining us today. To learn more about the ranch real estate market or our ranch marketing process, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter on our [email protected] or give us a call at (303) 623-4545. See you next time.
