Why Old School Tender to a Law Firm Doesn’t Work

Welcome And The Tender Problem

Devon Davidson 0:00

The Farmland Exchange, the official podcast of chbid.com. Expert insights on buying and selling farmland in Western Canada. Welcome back to the Farmland Exchange, the official podcast of CLHBid.com, where we provide you with expert insights into the process of buying and selling farmland here in Western Canada. I'm Devin Davidson, your host and digital media strategist for CLHBid.com. If you haven't already, please take a moment to like, rate, and review the podcast on your preferred platform. It really helps us out and we would greatly appreciate it. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about old school tender to a law firm and why it doesn't work. It's a process that's been used in Western Canada for decades, but it's not without issue. And helping that conversation today, CEO of CLHBid.com, Roy Carter. Roy, thanks for being here.

Roy Carter 0:52

You're welcome, Devin. Thank you.

Devon Davidson 0:54

Also, Allie Carter, legal, a member of the executive team at CLHBid.com. Ali, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:59

I'm doing well, Devin. Thank you.

Devon Davidson 1:00

Good to see

What Single Tender Means

Devon Davidson 1:01

you. Okay, so to start this conversation, let's maybe, for anyone that's not aware and who I'm not sure who wants it, Roy or Allie, but um, can you maybe talk a bit about what single tender to a lawyer is and what that entails in that process? You go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Uh so typically single tender to a law firm would be um, you know, client comes to uh a lawyer and says, I have you have farmland to sell, they put a small ad in a a newspaper and say, We're accepting tenders uh, you know, until this date. Uh they're delivered to the law firm and they're typically open behind closed doors. You know, the the bidders don't know how many other people tendered, they have no idea where they're at. And then um, you know, sometimes it says that they'll accept, you know, one or none of them. Um and so there's just, you know, we'll talk about all the shortcomings of it, but that's kind of a tender in a nutshell.

Devon Davidson 1:54

Okay, and historically it's done with the law firm, not to the seller themselves or to an accountant or to another party. Why is that Roy?

Roy Carter 2:02

Yeah, I think the philosophy there is they would sort of take it to a different level, uh, that there would be a bit of independence and uh the law firm would be more of a stakeholder. Okay. So I don't know, there would be some trust there that uh, you know, numbers wouldn't be released. Um, you know, it's similar to the um you watch the Academy Awards or something there, they use KPMG or an accounting firm. Sure. Come out with the envelopes, and as they assume somebody hasn't looked at the winner before. Uh quite similar, where they got to give it to some third party uh to make it look a little cleaner. Um, whereas, you know, if the deal was sub which people do it, submit tenders to my farm or my address, you know, they assume right away that there's gonna be some bid shopping and that. So I think the whole practice over the last few hundred years is give it to a law firm. They'll be sort of a stakeholder and people will trust the process a bit more.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Yeah, there's this, I guess, conception that it's going to be confidential being a law firm, and that everyone has a chance to tender, so it's equal and it's fair. That's the idea.

Devon Davidson 3:18

But it's but it's not, obviously, right? So the the lawyer acts for the seller in this scenario, and they don't really have any responsibility towards the buyer. Is that correct?

Roy Carter 3:28

Uh you're right, they they shouldn't. Um, they would have a conflict if they acted for both uh you know the party putting the land up and then also peep people submitting. Uh clearly it happens. Right. Uh, especially, you know, the tendering of rural farmland happens in rural small offices, right? Yeah. So I mean the people drive by, they see who's pickups at the law firm that day, they assume that person's dropping a tender off. It's not that uh airtight and nearly as confidential as people would hope.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

Yeah.

Roy Carter 4:01

Uh and the vendor, he instructs the lawyer, you know. So it's like, um, you know, nobody's gonna be there, and I want to see him before anybody knows about him, and I want to maybe call somebody. Uh, you know, the lawyer has to listen to him, right? So it's not nearly as um it as clean as it's sort of uh, you know, held out to be type deal.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

And sometimes even the the law firms are now, I think, seeing that they really don't come out in a good position either. We've had lawyers tell us I don't like doing tenders because at the end of the day, I have a seller that's unhappy with the tenders that came in. And then like Roy said, they're small rural communities. Oftentimes you are sometimes that uh, you know, the the lawyer for that bidder or that potential buyer. And so they're all mad because they didn't get chosen. Right. You know, they weren't high tender, whether or not they were or not. We'll discuss that later. But at the end of the day, everyone's mad at at that law firm.

Devon Davidson 5:03

And and do you think that maybe the buyer's lack of recourse creates some hesitation in terms of bidding? Like, do they feel like uh they don't they don't want to show their cars, they don't want to be bid shopped?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Like yeah, they can you you can feel as though the process was unfair, you can have some pretty good ideas about what went on, but you have no idea because yeah, it was all behind closed doors.

Devon Davidson 5:21

I think that was another thing we want to talk about too, is there's supposed to be some some um resemblance of fairness, right? I think uh and we'll maybe talk about that a little bit later too, Roy. But how do you you know how do you prove that? You know, that it was it was a fair process.

Roy Carter 5:34

Oh, totally. Yeah, I mean, definitely some don't engage in the process. Um as a law firm, you know, we always refuse to do single tender, we didn't believe in the process. People, anytime buyers don't trust it, uh they won't uh pay full fair market value. Yeah, there's no real marketing, it's just there's so many problems with it that uh I've said it a million times and and people have heard it. But I had a guy one time tell me from southern Alberta that tendering to a lawyer is like playing darts blindfolded with one dart. Yeah, people get it. Um, so you know, I might have I was driving around one time with a guy in a truck and he said I should have got that dairy farm, but uh I didn't because I stole the guy's girlfriend in high school that had it up for sale, and uh it's stuff like that where they don't tender. When we were building CLH bid, we spent a couple years, you know, looking around the world, and it's like, why don't we build a platform? Uh you know, we saw real estate tendered or uh tender didn't work, but we also risk listing didn't work, you know. They got the tool for listing a house in town is is pretty basic. It's uh you know, whereas again, you need the service truck with lots of tools when you're dealing with a farm. So uh anyway, we just saw that that is super problematic and never actually did it ourselves. Right. But when we were building, you know, we went to um one minute farm, pretty progressive farm, and they said we don't do it anymore because we just wasted our time. Right. And we know that it's just bid shopped, and uh all we are is price setters, and that's pretty common. Unless the bidder thinks that he's got a good relationship with the vendor, he probably knows he's gonna get had. And uh so they don't even participate. You know, in that case, uh I still remember the one guy's name was Jay, and he said, build a system where if we're high, we get it, and then we'll play and we'll play all day long. Yeah. But you need a system that is that's trusted, right?

Devon Davidson 7:46

So I guess for me, just being an outsider, um, like why does tender continue to be something that's that happens when it feels like there's not a lot of trust in the process,

Why Tenders Miss Market Value

Devon Davidson 7:56

and it's sort of it seems short-sighted, right? If I if I was a law firm doing tender and and there's no trust in what I'm doing, why would that continue to occur?

Roy Carter 8:04

Yeah, that's interesting. You know, I I think it has dropped off for law firms, uh uh because definitely, as Allie mentioned, we'll have firms call and say, you know, we quit tendering in our area because they all think we're just gonna shop it to our best client. Right. Anyway, and it we it, you know, it's perception is everything. So even though we won't, we have a problem. So why don't you guys take it and we'll work with you?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Yeah.

Roy Carter 8:30

But the interesting part about that is tendered uh law firms dropped off, realtors think that um, you know, they've all of a sudden got in the game. Ten years ago, you never saw a real estate firm tendered.

SPEAKER_04 8:45

Yeah.

Roy Carter 8:46

Uh, but they all of a sudden realize there's a lot more land selling by price discovery, but they don't see the difference between price discovery and tender. Right. So they've got into this space. So is it as bad as before? Probably. Less to law firms, more to real estate, which of course is just as bad or worse than tendering to a law firm, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

And I think we're going to have uh an episode later on progressive tendering. And so that we'll be talking about that in in that episode. But it honestly shocks me, Devin, how still, you know, guys are putting their land up for tender and thinking they're getting maximum value. Like it's really quite boggling because I just how do you ever think that you're going to get maximum value? So before this, I was reading some research articles and uh there's been studies. This was back in the 90s, so it's probably even a bigger spread now, but it they compared uh a regular English auction, so where it's in person, um, which has its issues as well because you you see that, oh, I don't want to bid against my neighbor or my cousin or my nephew.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

So that's already lower, but they compared it to tendering and it was a massive difference in in price because you know, there's this bid shading, they call it, where you're you're never going to put in your maximum number in that envelope for fear of leaving, you know, money on the table. Yeah. You just don't know where you're at. You there's no transparency.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

And, you know, it's psychology or uh yeah, psychology talks about it and you know, economics, where it just doesn't maximize value for that for that seller. Yeah, and it's always the individuals with the most knowledge who who show up to bid. You won't be getting outside guys because they have no idea what that land's worth.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

So your your bidding pool is really maybe just the tenant farming it, you know, someone nearby that knows. Yeah, yeah. So you're really limiting even that bidding pool. Um I don't know if it's just because lawyers will say they do it for an extremely low percentage. Right. So, you know, you always have a saying, uh, value is only or price is only uh a you know factor in the absence of value.

SPEAKER_04 10:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

And it's like, how much money did you leave on the table by just doing this tendering? A lot of young guys, they won't even bother to go get financing because they know they're just a price setter, you know. If someone's putting land up for tender around me, I know that they probably already have someone in their back pocket that they want to sell it to and that they're just using all of us to try to gauge a price. Yeah. Um, and we'll talk a little bit later about stories I know that we've heard in the areas and and some of them, you know, the whether the tenant has a right of first refusal and then you are in fact just price setters.

Devon Davidson 11:31

It's funny you brought that up. Um, you know, the price being a factor in the absence of value, because I I've seen that lots now where there are realtors that are talking about progressive tender or tender at a law firm potentially, and they're really hitting on price, right? It's like, well, we'll do it for X percentage, and then they're trying to like go down to the bottom because they think that's what's going to get them more business.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Yeah.

Devon Davidson 11:51

But they're not maximizing value, they're not providing a better service to the to the farmers that people are selling.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Do you want the cheapest doctor? Like, no.

Devon Davidson 11:59

Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

How advertising how cheap you can do something, it's not the way to go to something to boast about because you're probably not putting a lot of money into it.

Devon Davidson 12:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

You know, it's just, yeah.

Devon Davidson 12:10

Yeah. And I think too conversely, CLH has done such a good job of um building a platform that is transparent and that the buyers trust. And I think that's really the difference, is that they know that they're only one bid behind or one bit ahead, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yeah, yeah.

Roy Carter 12:24

Yeah, I think the you know, law firms doing it, it's like the rest of us, you know, we maybe swath canola because our dad swathed canola because her grandfather swath canola, or we drive GM because dad drove GM.

SPEAKER_04 12:37

Yeah.

Roy Carter 12:37

A lot of it's just because it's been done, and it's a small part of their practice. And uh it's not until you really live this space that you see the downside, and you know, that we've taken stuff that's been tendered, single tender, and then put it on our site and you know, sold it for double that tender, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:57

Yeah.

Roy Carter 12:57

Um, Allie's story about the cheapest doctor reminds me years ago, I was in California, uh holidaying, and there was an ad, and they got some great ads, of course, the law firms in the U.S. It was in California, and the guy's in the electric chair and the warden, gray hair, you know, blue, blue uh shirt on, and he's strapping them in and uh getting them all ready to pull the switch. And the guy starts screaming, I wished I wouldn't have used the cheapest lawyer. And uh anyway, it it reminded me of when she said that. But I don't think they do it to undercut or I think they just don't realize the downside. And again, a lot of farmers, unless they've and it's uh, you know, usually it's a one-event deal selling the farm, they don't realize what price discovery can bring. Yeah. Uh and uh it can be just astronomical, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:49

And especially if you even have a larger farm, uh, we often see that it's just being tendered as one package. Well, for every, you know, people that want 50 quarters, how many want just one? And the way you're packaging it matters. And to try to then be the law firm that's trying to figure out, well, this guy tendered just for one quarter, this guy tendered for this many quarters, it's just like chaos. Put it on a system, let them all bid on the you know, all the packages, and then with our on block round, if someone wants all 50 quarters, they can take it.

Devon Davidson 14:22

Sure, they can, yeah. Yeah, uh, you kind of alluded to this already, Roy. We were talking about tenders at small law firms and rural locations, um, someone seeing the truck there, knowing someone is putting in a tender. Is is it the perception like that? Um and so, like you say you're someone local and you know that that farmer, that's his lawyer too, for general counsel and things like that. And so now there's that perception that maybe there's some some funky stuff going on behind the scenes because they know each other. Does that perception kill the ability to maximize value, or is it the fact that there is some collusion or bid shopping happening behind the scenes?

Roy Carter 14:56

I think both definitely the perception. There's a lot of people will tell us, you know, they got had on a tender, they know they got bid shopped, so they'll never submit a tender again. Right. They don't want to just be used. Uh so yeah, there's and there's bullying, it's like, you know, I've been renting it, don't submit. Um, you know, it's in a community. I think it's both reality and perception, maybe even perception is bigger. Definitely very, very, very few trust single tender to a law

When Bid Shopping Crosses Lines

Roy Carter 15:28

firm.

Devon Davidson 15:28

Yeah, yeah. Uh, have either of you seen a case where a law firm might prefer a certain client, they've shown some favoritism.

Roy Carter 15:36

Oh, yeah. I yeah. Um, my benefit there is age, I guess, over alley, but uh totally, you know, and uh even before we started selling 10 years ago, before we started building CLH bid, you know, 12, 13 years ago, uh I would see it. You know, one time I had a call from a lawyer from Pilot Mound, and we never tendered as a law firm, but we definitely submitted tenders for clients. They'd come in and say, Would you submit this tender? Sure. They would want to make sure it complied with the terms of the tendering process. So they wanted to make sure we did it, that type of deal. And yeah, and in the one case of Pilot Mound, um, you know, the lawyer called me and said, you know, your client's not high, but my guy doesn't like the guy that's high. Um, and it was like, so what do you want? And it was like, well, your guy doesn't have to move to that price, but will he move a bit, right?

SPEAKER_04 16:30

Yeah.

Roy Carter 16:31

And you just feel like saying, you know, this is disgusting, right?

SPEAKER_04 16:34

Yeah.

Roy Carter 16:35

But I'm acting for the buyer, of course, that's middle.

SPEAKER_04 16:39

Sure.

Roy Carter 16:39

And uh talked to him and he he said, sure, just move a bit. It sounds like the guy really doesn't like this high guy. And we moved just a hair and got it. And uh not proud of being a party to that because it's it's just not right. Somebody was high and got screwed over, right? Um and in another case uh that Allie alludes to, yeah. I mean, we caught a law firm um totally bid shopping to a guy that hadn't uh submitted to tender and kind of a client client they went to the gym with, yeah, and they told them he didn't have to tender. And it ended up later referred to the law society, but uh, you know, just disgusting, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:23

And the sellers, you know, had had no idea. They're they yeah started guessing something is weird when this lawyer started refer referring to the guy by his first name, and it's like what's going on here? And yeah, yeah, we figured out he didn't even submit a tender.

Roy Carter 17:38

So it's not just perception, it happens. Um, you know, it uh it shouldn't happen, but it happens, yeah.

Devon Davidson 17:46

Do the bidders have any practical way to challenge that? I mean, or is it just it's done, it is what it is, and you move on?

Roy Carter 17:53

Well, um, you know, there's law in Canada that there's a duty um, if you're putting out um, you know, an invitation to tender, that parties tendering are treated fairly.

SPEAKER_04 18:05

Yeah.

Roy Carter 18:06

I think a lot of people aren't aware of it. There's one well-known case in BC, it was the city Abbotsford, okay, uh, with an aggregate company where they had done um aggregate tender, and uh they got city got sued because the aggregate firm said they hadn't been treated fairly, okay, namely that it'd been shopped. And uh so there's definitely and uh in the decision in that case is there's a duty to treat people fairly and not um, you know, it doesn't out and out say bid shopping is illegal in Canada, but I don't think bid shopping's treating people fairly behind closed doors. You can how far does that go? Uh but how do you catch them? You know, it's just like this all happens between behind closed doors. Um, and then how do you know who called who and who was high? It's not like commercial tendering, you know, where it'll be opened at City Hall in an open room and that. This is all open behind closed doors, and so nobody really knows what went on quite often. Yeah, so it's pretty hard to tag somebody. Um, but it's interesting that maybe it's not pursued more often. But I think the whole deal is how do you get the evidence right? Yeah, it's a hang up for sure.

Devon Davidson 19:22

Yeah, it's seems like a very common question, too. Like, will you block a high bidder if I don't like them? Do I have the option to say and and on CLH we don't do that, right? There's no we don't block anybody, but I you know, from a seller's perspective, I just don't understand why you wouldn't want to take the high bid. I obviously there's there's emotions that come into play, but seems like a a strange way to sell your farmland, in my opinion.

Roy Carter 19:44

Uh maybe the guy stole your girlfriend in high school. You know, uh that would piss me off, you know. Yeah, I guess. But yeah, I mean it's complex, right? Um but do we not often, but do we get that request? Of course.

SPEAKER_04 19:59

Yeah.

Roy Carter 20:00

Um, does it make any sense? No. You can block so-and-so, not that we would. So, you know, sell to Bert instead, and then Bert sells to the guy you don't like. And he makes the lens, and Bert and then you gets the left and look like an idiot. So, again, we've talked about it before. Uh, you know, we're under common law in Canada. Allie went to law school in Australia, it's the same law. Uh, restraint on alienation uh means that you can't put a restrictive covenant on your land that says, you know, Bert never gets to buy it. Uh so that's yeah, that's illegal. So it's pretty uh, you know, futile. Yeah, but definitely people um people say that. You know, one and uh, you know, how to write Hyterian brethren colonies, we deal with them a lot. I think they got a lot of respect for us. Um they like it because we treat them like they should be treated and deserve to be treated. But you know, that's a definitely a pretty common one, is like, you know, I think the colony is too big. Would you block them? And I was like, Yeah, not a chance, right?

SPEAKER_04 21:05

Yeah.

Roy Carter 21:06

Um, and then so go sell to somebody else, and then next year the colony owns it anyway, right? Sure. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, there's no exception to that. We would never we have one guy, we would like a big farm, big handling system. He likes us, but he thinks he's gonna kind of bully us, and sooner or later we'll pick up what he lays down and block a colony. And it was like, no, keep your farm, right? Yeah, interesting.

Stories That Sour Communities

Devon Davidson 21:34

Well, Allie, as you had alluded to earlier, uh, it's story time. So, what are some of the most interesting stories the two of you have heard about tendering to a law firm?

SPEAKER_01 21:44

There's so many. Uh, the one I was thinking of was um just local, so it it came to mind and I was you know pretty close to it. Uh put an ad out for a tender, and of course, all the neighbors are talking about it. You know, what are you gonna tender? Well, I'll tender this and you tender that. And like they're just all a coll collusion is huge, you know. Um but then it then they gave you you'd call. This was a realtor that was trying to do it. Um, and you'd call and they'd say, Well, we'll if you if you're high or if you're second highest, we'll give you a call and you can try to be highest.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Um, that never happened. So you're what everybody tendered was lower already than where they would typically go on a price discovery platform, right? But then it was lower yet because they thought they'd get a second chance of tendering once they knew where they were at.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

And uh it turned out the the tenant had a right of first refusal, and they were merely trying to set the price. You know, what is this guy going to pay? You've wasted everyone's time. Yep. Uh everyone's jaded for the next tender that's coming around in the community. You can bet no one's gonna go get financing because they don't want to participate in that process. Um, yeah.

Roy Carter 22:55

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot. She could write a book on it. Most farmers know about it. It's coffee talk across Western Canada. You know, a common one is all tender ten dollars over the highest tender, yeah. Uh, which is total bullshit. Um, you know, another one that um it's not just a maybe, um, you know, but parties had done a bot deal, sold the farm to a Hutterite colony. So then they go to a law firm and uh basically get the law firm to do a tender, which is total fake, of course, eh?

SPEAKER_04 23:27

Yeah.

Roy Carter 23:28

And then so here all these people go get financing, go through the work of doing that tender, and then they say the colony was high to try and kind of cleanse their uh decision with in within the community that you had a chance. In fact, they didn't have a chance, right? Yeah, it had already been done. And uh you know, another one that basically, and again, this isn't the maybe, um, you know, it it shocked me, but again, paying uh paying money to uh be at that tender opening, uh I know that situation where they would pay cash uh to the vendor to go to the law firm with the vendor to look at the tenders, and as long as they had a chance to cherry pick and pick the highest one.

SPEAKER_04 24:19

Really?

Roy Carter 24:19

So they would pay $10,000 to go to the meeting and then basically cherry pick. And uh they would not have to submit, so they get a free pass by paying cash, right? So it's stuff like that that at some point this does not work, right? Yeah, and uh it's just extreme sleaze and it's not fair to the uh your neighbors. Um you know, and a lot of those cases, I think you're offside the Abbotsford uh aggregate case I refer to. Um, but again, it's uh somebody's gotta talk. And usually the person that that's screwing around and gets it, he ain't gonna talk, right?

Devon Davidson 25:00

Yeah, yeah.

How CLH Builds Trust

Devon Davidson 25:02

I so one thing we wanted to talk about too is just the difference between tender and cl bid. So I think we've already touched on some of them. Obviously, price discovery is an issue, you don't have a chance to to buy back or to bid back. Um, but what else kind of separates CLH alley from old school tender?

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Yeah, I just think knowing where you're at is a massive one. You know, we had a podcast where Roy gave a great analogy of cliff jumping and you know how how deep is the water, and you're gonna feel comfortable jumping if someone jumps ahead of you, but no one's gonna be that first one to jump.

Devon Davidson 25:33

Yeah, and you're not jumping because you have more knowledge than anyone else, but just that you saw someone else do it and now you've got that affirmation that hey, I can jump too because that guy maybe didn't break his neck. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

And if you know, if I'm gonna tender on some land, if I was told if you if you just paid an extra $15,000, you could have got that. How many of us are going to probably say, Oh, I would have figured it out and I would have done that? You know, land doesn't come up that often. So, you know, it's proven that if you have knowledge of where you're at and some transparency, you're going to be more aggressive with your bidding. And on our platform, guys with no knowledge, you know, maybe I'm looking to buy uh some land in a new area to set up some kids or something. I might not have good knowledge of what that land is worth. I might know what some has sold for, but whether that was, you know, a family relationship deal, you know, that probably wasn't on the open market. You don't know what price to put on there. And on our site, you could see others bidding, you know, right behind you, 10,000, 5,000. So you have that certainty that it's there. Um, you know, more guys go and get financing, and they'll often bid way beyond where they thought they would, just because there is that that certainty.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Uh, there's also, you know, the transparency and also the confidentiality. There's no bidders' names or numbers. And we take that very seriously. We understand farming communities, they're small. Um, you there's no reason you need to know that you're bidding against your your cousin. That's just gonna fray relationships, you know, or figuring out how many people are bidding based on their bidding number. So we try to, you know, take away all the collusion, all those, you know, the information that really doesn't need to be out there and have it fair. And at the end of the day, if you're high, you get the land. Yeah, there's that certainty, you know. We the seller doesn't get to pick and choose. Oh, I I like this friend better and and I want to sell to them.

SPEAKER_04 27:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:22

Okay. Roy.

Roy Carter 27:24

Yeah, no, good examples. Um kind of to expand on Ali there, we control the client more too, in that sometimes they don't realize what will hurt them. And uh they don't need to know the uh they don't need to be at that tender opening type deal. Right. They don't need to know all those names. Because if they do, they'll get out and it'll hurt the next part person.

SPEAKER_04 27:48

Right.

Roy Carter 27:49

Because if bidders' names get out, people pass. You know, they don't want their name if they're a second that they run somebody up.

SPEAKER_04 27:56

Yeah.

Roy Carter 27:56

So, you know, on CLH bid, the person that's high is high is notified. And uh, we have a deal ahead of time with the client that you're you don't get to see the list.

SPEAKER_04 28:05

Yeah.

Roy Carter 28:06

Now we have clients later that'll call back months later, and that's like, please, Roy, can I find out? And I won't tell anybody. And it's like, no. But that actually helps them and it helps everybody down the road. Yeah. Just kind of clean up the process. Uh, and what Allie alluded to, you know, the price discovery is the big one. Uh, you know, tender to a lawyer, single tender, it's no better than list. We got no idea what the land's worth. Right. There's no other body, nobody else that you can see jumping, no evidence, yeah, no barometer. Uh, so you know, from that point of view, you could overpay 100 grand for a quarter, right? Uh, it can't happen on our site. Yeah, you don't overpay, that's the market because somebody's a hair behind you. And uh take away that fear of overpaying, and they'll jump all day long, uh, even if the water's murky.

Devon Davidson 29:00

Um, I've heard lenders say they like our platform because there's that affirmation of price. Does that make getting financing easier in some cases? Like if they know that the market is setting or the the market is setting that price? Definitely we get good feedback there, Allie, right?

Roy Carter 29:15

Where um, you know, the the need for they know an appraisal is a guess. They know the number on our site is real.

SPEAKER_04 29:24

Yeah.

Roy Carter 29:24

Um, you know, and we'll have weird calls there from not lenders. I would say we get good feedback from lenders that they'll watched it and it was like, okay, we're gonna adjust our numbers in that area. Okay. We sold some north of um Edmonton, you know, a month ago, and this is after some of these realtors are clock, you know, claiming there's this huge pullback in land prices, which we don't see. Right. But um, you know, we sold some for started it at 450 and it sold for 1.41 million. Yeah, pretty much, you know, three times 80 acres, and uh way beyond what the owner expected. And uh, you know, we had an appraiser calling and it was like, Did you guys buy that? Was that real? Did that really happen? And it was like, yeah, it really happened, right? Um, you know, it just that is the number, right? Nobody, if you would have listed it at that ahead of time, you'd have never got an offer, right? You wouldn't have got an offer at 900 grand.

SPEAKER_04 30:24

Yeah.

Roy Carter 30:24

Um, but that's just the problem with appraising and trying to value land ahead of time.

Marketing That Expands The Buyer Pool

Devon Davidson 30:29

So fair to say the biggest difference between single tender to a law firm and CLH, um, trust and transparency is that I would say those are big ones.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Also, we're not regional, you know, we don't just put an ad in a small local newspaper for one who still reads those. Like we'll do that and a thousand more things. Uh, you know, for an example, and I just use this because I think it was so cool. We were selling a ranch about a year ago, and you know, it's a it was a beautiful ranch, and we we love to immerse ourselves in it. You know, we're all farmers here, and we really want to help the sellers maximize value. So for four days, uh, everyone in this room, including yourself and and Roy, CEO, is out there camping on this ranch. We are making dinner with the sellers. We are, I brought my horses to really stage what life would be like out there for potential buyers who a lot of times nowadays don't even go to the ranch. They just watch our video.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

So we had this massive production, we had a helicopter flying in uh to kind of show, you know, this could be your family. We pour our heart and soul into it. That's so different from just a small ad in the newspaper, half the time with typos. Oh, and they're like, oh, oops, that was a precedent from another tender we used. You know, our team is out there camping. We have script writers, voice actors, video crew really trying to understand the LAN and figure out how we can best maximize value for our client. Yeah, and it's um, yeah, it is a massive difference.

Devon Davidson 32:01

I there's no comparison when you look at realtors, um, lawyers, and like honestly, anybody in the industry, I don't think anybody does it better. We've got a pretty impressive team here.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Yeah, and we're having fun while we're doing it. Because, you know, we care about our sellers, and at the end of the day, we we want to see them smiling and with no stress. You know, they don't have people coming up saying, Who were the other tenders? Because they genuinely don't know. They can say, I don't know. Yep, I know they bought it and that's it.

Closing And How To Contact Us

Devon Davidson 32:26

All right, that's gonna do it for another episode of the Farmland Exchange. Thank you for tuning in. We really do appreciate the support. As I said at the top of the show, if you haven't already, please submit a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice. It does help us out, and we do appreciate it. If you have any questions or if there's topics you'd like us to cover, please uh send us an email, info at clightsbid.com or give us a call at 866 263 7480. That also applies if you're interested in selling farmland. We'd love to talk to you. Give us a call or send us an email. That's gonna do it for now. Thanks for tuning in. I hope this has been a positive exchange for you. Take care.