Selling up and retiring

[OldMcDonald]

I have not posted for quite a long time because I have had nothing of interest to say. I do lurk from time to time though.

I have been slowing down for a couple of years due getting older (74 now) and some old rugby and horse related injuries - I can remember some of them and where it hurt at the time, but when you are young you just get on with life. Now I realise that damage was caused. I had a very bad fall last winter walking down a steep street in a town. Never did like towns. This has made things worse and so I now need help with some of the heavier tasks about the place. I do not like that, my wife and I have always managed apart from when our son was at school and some of his mates used to come and "help out" on Saturday afternoons. We knopw we are going to need help with the olive harvest in Oct/Nov.

So we decided we will offer the place for sale and retire. The details are on my website Old Mcdonald's Farm if anybody wants to see where I live, and a little bit of the countryside around about just click on the Google map. We intend to go to the Azores where I will do lots of sea fishing (I hope) and some fruit and veg gardening. Not decided which island yet, but they are all frost-free and not too hot so the opportunity will be there to grow some things I have never grown before. My wife likes plenty of ornamental gardens so she will be able to do the same.

I am not into big game fishing where it costs you a lot of money to go out on a boat and you have to put back what you catch. Not much point in that as far as I can see. Instead I will be looking for easy access fishing from harbour walls, jetties, beaches and rocks and just aiming to catch things we can eat. We already eat a fair bit of fish - often twice a week for dinner and maybe the same at lunch so we can use quite a lot.

We had three estate agents come to view and none of them had any idea about selling a working farm. A house and amenity land yes, but our place is run on commercial lines, so we are selling it ourselves. Obviously we want as much exposure as possible in places where there might be interested buyers. I am doubtful whether there would be interest from USA, but all you folks will know better than me. Do any of you think there might be and should we try to have it known over there that we are selling?

Obviously just by posting here it will reach TBNers so I already have that exposure, but I wondered about a wider audience.

 

[TheMan419]

That is a beautiful farm! If I were younger......

 

[oosik]

When you are serious about selling - it never hurts to have as wide an exposure as possible. Many times it will be a friend telling a friend that will generate a sale.

 

[OldMcDonald]

When you are serious about selling - it never hurts to have as wide an exposure as possible. Many times it will be a friend telling a friend that will generate a sale.

Yes indeed. That is what we are relying upon, but we are also doing some paid advertising in various countries. We expect it to go to somebody in anorthern European one so they can sell thier own produce in their home country - where people cannot grow what they have for sale so they are not directly competing against someone living there.

I do like your signature.

 

[OldMcDonald]

That is a beautiful farm! If I were younger......

I was 59 when I came here and took on a very neglected bit of ground. I have done it before though - four times. The Australian one was over 3000 acres. I was a lot younger then too though.

Just a note: I tried to combine my response to both posts into one response, but failed. Can this be done?

 

[Industrial Toys]

I don't see the cow. E I E I oh!

 

[TripleR]

Good to hear from you, and best of wishes going forward.

 

[Jstpssng]

You've built up a nice place for yourself, (again) I hope that it sells and you are able to enjoy your retirement years. I remember some of the things you've posted about in the past, you have certainly led a busy life.

 

[smstonypoint]

Very nice property.

For the benefit of those who can't do conversions without the benefit of a calculator (that includes me):

One euro = $1.16, 315,000 euros = $365,400
One hectare = 2.47105 acres, 6.6 hectares = 16.3acres
One kilometer = 0.621371 miles, 15 kilometers = 9.3 miles.
One square meter = 10.7639 square feet, 135 square meters = 1,453 square feet, 450 square meters = 4,844 square feet.

Steve

 

[OldMcDonald]

I don't see the cow. E I E I oh!

Not sure if you already know and that is why you posted what you did, but my email address is eieio@........

My previous place to moving here in 2003 was Hazza Farm, Culbokie, Scotland.

 

[3Ts]

You may want to advertise it in South Africa. Some of the farmers there may want to leave to avoid the turmoil.

 

[OldMcDonald]

I recognise the names of other posters too. I have always thought it would be nice to have a button that we could just click to say "Thank you for that post" or "I like what you posted" without clogging up a thread with unnecessary words.

 

[OldMcDonald]

You may want to advertise it in South Africa. Some of the farmers there may want to leave to avoid the turmoil.

It is being advertised there. My website designer is a South African who bought a place not far from me with his Irish wife who decided to divorce him, so he has gone back to SA to make enough to buy her out quickly.

I reckon he is very good at what he does.

 

[rekees4300]

Obviously just by posting here it will reach TBNers so I already have that exposure, but I wondered about a wider audience.

Wider audience could be obtained from Facebook, Youtube & Twitter. TBN is a drop in the bucket compared to those. Around here farms are often sold to adjacent farms. Talk to your neighbors and see if they are interested.

 

[OldMcDonald]

rekees, Thank you for taking the time to reply, and anybody else I have so far failed to acknowledge. I do appreciate it. I have always found this a good site for people willing to spare the time to give advice.

We are using Facebook. Again, my web designer set up an account and he is doing all the necessary. We are also considering putting it on YouTube using the photos as stills. Basically, I have no neighbours (no houses anyway) other than the lady who took the photos and no commercial farms nearby other than an enormous big tract of olive trees - hundreds of acres of them, and he will not want to be bothered with a piddling place like this.

It is extremely unlikely that it will be bought by a Portuguese. Any of them into farming already have land - usually living in a village and the small plots of land being outside the village. It needs somebody who is going to sell the olive oil in another country, and that probably means in one far enough north in Europe that they are unable to grow olives. I had just wondered whether you all thought somebody in the US (maybe a Portuguese ex-pat) might be interested in moving here and not needing to push for income from the place, in which case they can just sell the produce locally. That means local prices and probably not really profitable.

 

[EddieWalker]

Very nice website.

Sorry to hear that you are selling the farm, but happy for your new adventure in life!!!

In my experience with buying and selling homes, most realtors are worthless. In every area, there are a few that sell more houses then anybody else by a HUGE margin. They understand marketing, pricing, staging and doing what it takes to get it done. Here, they charge the same as the other realtors, but the results are night and day different. What you need to do is find out who sells over a hundred homes a year. Those are the good realtors. Keep trying to sell it yourself, but be sure to have a Plan B in place just in case it doesn't work out for you.

Since the only thing anybody will know about your place is what they see on the website, and the pictures that you posted, it's really important to be kind of **** about what is in those pictures, and what do they represent to those looking at them. Some of your pictures are amazing. Beautiful home and kitchen. Others are kind of scary, like the clutter in what looks like a working area. While everyone on here understands what a working area looks like, it's better to not show those pictures, or declutter it so it looks clean and open. One trick is to take out half of the clothes in your closet so it looks like it can hold a lot more. Same is true with work shops and garages. Gets as much out of there as you can so the buyers will see it as a positive area. A good realtor will only post the very best pictures of your place. The ones that get people excited to come see it. Look at the background, look at every detail in every picture, and ask yourself if it's the best you can make it before posting it.

Good luck!!!

 

[OldMcDonald]

Eddie, Thanks for the remarks, and especially the constructive criticism. You are right and I had not really noticed that things inside the shed could be tidier. All you see in the photos are general storage areas, not workshop areas, including quite a lot of stuff that has to be taken to specific disposal sites, such as fertiliser bags and spray chemical containers to different places. They are quite a distance and out of my normal way so I go infrequently, but it builds up quickly. I am overloaded with hay (not a bad thing) and that does not help either, but I will make some trips before anyone comes.

We did go to the real estate high sellers and they all do sell lots of homes, but a working holding with a house on it is very rare in these parts, so they just did not understand the concept of what we are selling. Our Plan B is that if we fail to sell in the forseeable future we take our Extra Virgin Olive Oil to markets in the UK. We are already advertising through various ag magazines in Europe in both print and digital, so it is not quite a "go it alone" project. I can afford to spend a lot more on advertising because I will not have about €15,000 in estate agents fees to pay out.

I think the last time I saw a photo of your pig it was rather small.

 

[radios1]

I was wondering why olive oil went up so much in price!. you stopped selling it.. sorry to hear that!..

 

[forgeblast]

Wow nice place! congratulations on the new adventure. You sure have done a lot of work there!! Wishing you all the best.

 

[Xfaxman]

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Just a note: I tried to combine my response to both posts into one response, but failed. Can this be done?

Yes, click the "Multi-Quote" icon for as many posts as needed, then click "Reply With Quote":