Mike Browning

Understand What to Expect With Your Land

Before you decide what to do.

You don’t have to be ready to sell.

But it helps to understand where things stand.

Get your MBR Land Reality Check.

A professional Broker Opinion of Value based on real market activity

Or, if you’d rather see how I think first, scroll below. The Reality Check is linked at the end of most articles.

  • Thank God We Aren’t Like Those People

    Thank God We Aren’t Like Those People

    Except, we kind of are.

    There’s a parable in Luke where two guys go to the temple to pray.

    One is a Pharisee. Religious. Respected. Knows the rules and keeps most of them. Especially the ones where it’s visible.

    The other is a tax collector, which in that culture meant something closer to a known crook than an annoying IRS agent today. Tax collectors squeezed their own people for money and kept a cut. Nobody invited them to dinner.

    The Pharisee stands up front where people can see him and prays out loud. Thanks God that he isn’t like thieves, adulterers, or especially that he isn’t like the tax collector standing in the back. Mentions his fasting and tithing for good measure.

    The tax collector won’t even lift his eyes. Stands in the back, beats his chest, and says one line. God, have mercy on me. I’m a sinner.

    Jesus says the second guy went home justified. The first guy didn’t.

    That’s the whole story, but people manage to misread it in two different directions.

    One direction is feeling superior to the Pharisee. Easy to do. He’s an obvious villain, bragging about himself in church like that. We’d never.

    Except we do it constantly, just quieter. Comparing our parenting to the family down the street. Our marriage to the one that fell apart. Our finances to whoever’s worse off. It feels like gratitude. It’s actually scorekeeping, and the score only counts if you’re ahead.

    Reminds me of something I tell my wife. It’s not a contest, but if it was I’d be winning.

    The other direction is worse. Decide you’re basically the tax collector, beyond help, too far gone, might as well stop trying. That’s not humility either. That’s despair wearing humility’s clothes.

    The tax collector didn’t stay in the back forever feeling bad about himself. He said one true thing and asked for mercy. That was the whole prayer. No résumé. No bargaining. No project to clean himself up first.

    He didn’t even promise to change. He just asked for mercy. And he didn’t run through a litany of his faults either, he just said he was a sinner. God already knew the rest.

    That’s the part that’s actually hard to imitate. People are usually fine admitting they’re a mess in the abstract. The hard part is stopping there. Not following it with an excuse, a comparison, or a plan to fix yourself before you come back and ask again.

    Mercy doesn’t wait for the cleanup. It is the cleanup.

    Two guys walked into the temple. One left more impressed with himself than when he arrived. The other left forgiven.

    Worth noticing which one did less.

    P.S.

    If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

  • On the Way to Your Appointment at Hidden Oaks…

    On the Way to Your Appointment at Hidden Oaks…

    Or on the way out, assuming you didn’t get talked into anything

    If you’ve got a tour booked for Saturday, you already know roughly what’s coming. Clipboard. A site map with the clubhouse penciled in somewhere. Someone explaining where all the wonderful amenities will be someday, in a voice that makes “one day only” sound like a favor.

    Here’s what won’t come up on that tour.

    Just west of there sits 1.88 acres that isn’t part of any of it. Same road, same lake, same general price range as what they’re rolling out Saturday. None of what comes attached to it.

    No HOA. Which means no HOA dues showing up every year for the rest of the time you own it, whether you use the clubhouse or not. No architectural committee either, so nobody’s signing off on your house plans, your shed, or what color you paint the fence.

    You build what you want, when you want. Camp on it this summer if that’s the mood. Put up a tiny house later. Fannin County has a few rules, nothing heavy, and that’s a much shorter list than a developer’s binder of restrictions.

    There’s also no reason to time anything around a Saturday. This land was sitting there last week and it’ll be sitting there next week. Only question is when it sells. Frontage runs a little over 500 feet along County Road 2980, enough that it doesn’t feel hemmed in the way a lot of the smaller platted lots nearby do. Water’s already run along the frontage through Bois d’Arc MUD. You’re buying a meter, not waiting on infrastructure that hasn’t been built yet.

    What sits west of this tract is worth knowing too. Ground gets thin fast once you’re close enough to the lake to start running into flood-influenced areas. There’s only so much of it left to develop. However busy Hidden Oaks gets, this stretch isn’t built to follow.

    Forty-three lots, a clubhouse, and a binder of restrictions is one way to live near this lake. 1.88 acres and nobody’s permission is another. Both are real options. They are not the same option.

    $199,000. MLS #21283218.

    Call or Text 214.354.3583, or email Mike@BrowningRE.com. If you’re working with an agent, have them reach out.

  • Things Change. That’s Not the Problem.

    Things Change. That’s Not the Problem.

    The schedule changed. Nobody called.

    My daughter started her first job recently. Retail. Big store.

    She’s a couple weeks in. Shows up on time, good attitude, does what she’s asked. In retail, that combination already puts you ahead of a significant portion of the workforce. The industry runs around 60% annual turnover. No-call-no-shows are a daily problem for store managers. Someone who just reliably shows up is one less thing to worry about.

    Which means they’ll notice. And eventually they’ll start asking more of her. She’s already getting way more hours than she initially expected. That’s fine. That’s how it works. You accommodate when you can, especially when you’re new. You never know who’s watching or where people end up. I have clients who’ve hired six-figure salespeople out of fast food drive-thrus because someone made an impression.

    But there’s a line.

    She has a friend leaving the country. Going away party scheduled around my daughter’s work schedule. She was off at 4, plenty of time. Except she looked back at the schedule and her shift had been moved. Hours later. Nobody asked. Nobody called. It was just different.

    That’s not a scheduling issue. That’s a respect issue.

    She was upset. I was able to talk her through how to approach it and she got things switched back. The boss said the only reason she changed it was that my daughter had written “open to any hours” on her application. Which is true. But a reasonable person knows that if you’re scheduled off, you’re not just sitting around waiting to work. You’re living your life. Sometimes a change is no big deal. Sometimes it’s a huge deal.

    Things change. The market moves. A buyer falls through. A timeline shifts. I’ve seen deals that looked simple get complicated fast and complicated ones come together out of nowhere. That’s just how it works and there’s no point pretending otherwise.

    But there’s a difference between things changing and someone changing things on you without a conversation.

    If something shifts that affects your timeline, your plans, what you thought was going to happen, you’re going to hear it from me first. Not after the fact. Not when it’s already done. You’re not going to look at the schedule one day and find out it’s been changed.

    You control this. That part doesn’t move.

    I can’t promise everything goes according to plan. Nobody can. What I can promise is that you’re never going to feel like you woke up and someone had already decided something for you.

    PS – Most landowners aren’t planning to sell today.

    But things can change quickly. When the time comes, the people who already understand the market tend to make better decisions.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. It looks at nearby sales, current listings, development pressure, and the details affecting value that aren’t obvious from the road.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Get Yours Here

    PPS- If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but enjoy reading about land, markets, and negotiation, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

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    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • Not Ready to Sell?

    Not Ready to Sell?

    Good. Look Anyway.

    Most landowners aren’t thinking about selling. If anything, they’re thinking they never will.

    They’re at a 1 or a 2 on a 10-point scale. If that.

    But life comes at you fast. Kids going to college. Estate planning conversations you weren’t expecting. Something happening nearby that changes how you feel about owning land there. We’re seeing that a lot right now, data centers, crypto mining operations moving into rural areas. Things that weren’t on anyone’s radar two years ago.

    You can go from “I’m never selling” to “I wish I’d sold last year” faster than you’d think.

    So it’s worth having a baseline. Most people agree with that in theory. Most people still won’t do it.

    Because the last time they asked a question like this, they ended up in a conversation moving faster than they wanted to move. Some agent walking the property, running numbers, and applying list-now pressure that would make a timeshare salesman blush.

    It’s uncomfortable.

    So they wait. Market shifts. They finally get serious two years later with worse information than they would have had if they’d just asked the question when they first had it.

    That’s an expensive way to stay comfortable.

    The landowners who make good decisions are almost never the ones who acted fast. They’re the ones who started paying attention early. Understood the market before they needed to. Weren’t scrambling when the time came.

    That takes time. And it starts before you’re ready.

    Looking doesn’t mean selling. Getting a clear picture of what your land is worth, what’s selling nearby, where development pressure is headed, none of that commits you to anything. It just means you’re not guessing when it matters.

    The only thing that makes early conversations uncomfortable is working with someone who treats them like a sales call.

    That’s not how I operate. If you’re at a 3, I’d rather you know where things stand than stay in the dark because you were worried I’d push you somewhere you weren’t ready to go.

    You control the timeline. That part is on you.

    My job is simply to make sure you have the information when you’re ready to use it.

    PS – Most landowners aren’t planning to sell today.

    But things can change quickly. When the time comes, the people who already understand the market tend to make better decisions.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. It looks at nearby sales, current listings, development pressure, and the details affecting value that aren’t obvious from the road.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Get Yours Here

    PPS– If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but enjoy reading about land, markets, and negotiation, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • He Came Anyway

    He Came Anyway

    Whatever you’ve straightened up before He arrives, He already knows about.

    There’s a story in the book of Luke about Mary and Martha.

    Martha was serving. Working. Putting on a dinner for Jesus. He was physically in her house and she was trying to take care of Him. Making sure everything was right.

    If we are being honest we’d probably all be doing the same thing. If Jesus were in your house, you’d probably make sure your liquor cabinet was shut and the wrong sort of music wasn’t playing. Then you’d worry about the food. Then whether anything was out of place.

    We forget He already knows about the liquor cabinet. Already knows about the music. Whatever Martha had quietly straightened up before He arrived, He knew about that too. He showed up anyway.

    Her sister Mary was just sitting there listening.

    So Martha went to Jesus and did what any reasonable person would do. She asked Him to tell Mary to get up and help.

    Jesus sided with Mary.

    Not because serving is bad. Not because work is bad. But because Martha had somehow gotten so wrapped up in doing things for Jesus that she’d stopped paying attention to Jesus Himself.

    If you see it once, you start seeing it everywhere.

    Churches where the calendar is full and nobody seems particularly close to God. Businesses where everyone is optimizing the process and nobody’s talking to customers. People who are endlessly productive and quietly miserable.

    The activity becomes a substitute for the thing the activity was supposed to serve.

    It’s an easy trap to fall into because it can feel like progress. And in some cases it is. But sometimes it’s just a socially acceptable way to avoid something harder.

    It’s easier to organize a church dinner than sit quietly with God.

    Easier to volunteer for another project than examine your own heart.

    Easier to do something than receive something.

    That last one is where most people stall out.

    Receiving doesn’t feel like enough. Grace especially. Grace removes your ability to take credit, and most people, if they’re honest, would rather contribute. Would rather earn. Would rather show up with something in hand.

    So they stay busy.

    Martha probably felt like she was doing everything right. She was. By almost any external measure, she was the responsible one.

    Jesus still told her she’d missed the point.

    Worth sitting with longer than most people do.

    P.S. – If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

    PPS- If you’d like to receive these via email when they are available, enter your info below:

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • What Matters a Lot More Than Why

    What Matters a Lot More Than Why

    The why is mostly a guess anyway.

    Most people who get stuck spend too much time on why instead of just noticing what and operating accordingly.

    The why is hard to know. When you’re dealing with people it’s especially hard, because sometimes they don’t want you to know what they were thinking, so they don’t tell you. Other times they aren’t hiding anything but you still don’t get accurate information. A lot of the time people do things for reasons buried in their subconscious that they may not even be aware of. When they tell you why they did something they aren’t lying, but it’s also not accurate.

    I was reading something this week about a company selling a business opportunity. They held seminars in various towns and tried to convert interested attendees into buyers.

    They were doing well, but things got much better when someone on the team asked a simple question: what do the buyers who say yes 99% of the time have in common?

    Turned out to be middle-aged married men with crew cuts.

    Why? Nobody knew. The company’s answer was: who cares?

    Instead of trying to figure it out, they sent people ahead of their seminars to visit local barbershops and pay them for contact info on customers who got crew cuts.

    This was decades ago, so it wasn’t as creepy-sounding as it might be today. Though I always find it interesting that the people most vocal about privacy are also the ones who hand all their information to social media for free, where it gets sold in basically the same way.

    Anyway.

    When I do a Land Reality Check for someone, what you’re going to get is what has been happening, with a lot less focus on why. Because that’s what we can actually know, and it’s what helps you decide what to do next.

    That doesn’t mean there’s no explanation at all. If you own a custom home lot, that market has been slow since interest rates rose a couple of years ago. Higher rates mean higher costs. Higher costs mean fewer buyers, other things being equal. That’s a partial why.

    But I’m not getting into what caused rates to go up, when they might come down, or whether the Fed is doing a good job. That’s someone else’s job and you can find that content anywhere.

    What’s been happening is what matters. The rest is mostly guessing dressed up as analysis.

    PS- Most landowners aren’t planning to sell today. But things change, and when they do, the people who already understand their market tend to make better decisions.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. It looks at nearby sales, current listings, development pressure, and the details that affect value but aren’t obvious from the road.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Get It Here

    PPS -If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but like reading about land, markets, and negotiation, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • Why Good Agents Ignore Most Portal Leads

    Why Good Agents Ignore Most Portal Leads

    Usually it’s in self defense…

    “Can you send me more information?”

    If you sell real estate long enough, you’ll get that message over and over.

    Usually it comes through one of the big portal sites.

    The first time I got one, Looked legitimate enough, and it was on a fairly large listing so of course I was excited.

    They wrote in a reasonably normal way and seemed interested in the property. I sent the information they requested.

    A few minutes later they responded that they were out of town and would like to schedule a Zoom call with their spouse.

    Still sounded reasonable to me, then came the link. Luckily my antivirus software had a stronger opinion about that link than I did.

    The whole thing was a scam.

    Since then I’ve seen it repeatedly.

    For whatever reason, most of mine seemed to come through a certain brokerage company’s website. I don’t blame them for it too much. It’s probably not something they can really stop, short of not showing properties on their website and having links for info.

    Once you’ve seen it a few times, you recognize the pattern pretty quickly.

    Today I got another one.

    This time it came through one of the big portals. I’d name them, but I really don’t want to hear from a lawyer.

    The message asked for additional information. I sent it. A few minutes later came the request for a Zoom call.

    At that point I already knew where the conversation was headed.

    Goodbye.

    The interesting part isn’t the scam itself.

    The interesting part is what happens when agents get flooded with junk inquiries.

    Consumers assume every inquiry is treated equally. It isn’t.

    After you’ve spent enough time sorting through spam, scammers, tire kickers, people gathering information, and people who accidentally clicked a button, you stop getting excited every time a portal notification arrives.

    You become skeptical.

    That’s not because you don’t want buyers.

    It’s because most of the signals turn out not to be real.

    The portal I mentioned above has managed to create a different problem too.

    I’ve had people call me angry because I supposedly wouldn’t stop calling them. The only problem was that I had never called them in the first place. Somewhere along the line their system apparently glitched and attached my information to something it shouldn’t have. The person was frustrated. I was confused. Neither of us knew what was going on.

    That’s what happens when technology gets between people.

    Everybody assumes the system is working. But sometimes it isn’t.

    If you’re wondering why an agent isn’t responding to your inquiry through a portal site, this may be part of the reason.

    Pick up the phone and call them. Or send an email directly. You’ll have a lot more luck.

    Do something that looks like a real person trying to have a real conversation.

    And if you’re a seller wondering why your agent isn’t sitting by the computer refreshing portal inquiries all day, this is part of the answer too.

    Most experienced agents have learned that quantity and quality are not the same thing.

    A hundred notifications can still be worth absolutely nothing.

    PS- Most landowners are not planning to sell today.

    But markets change. Development pressure changes. Buyer demand changes too.

    The people who make the best decisions usually aren’t the ones scrambling to learn everything at the last minute. They’re the ones who already have a pretty good idea of what’s happening around them.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for.

    It looks at nearby sales, competing properties, market activity, and the factors affecting value that are easy to miss if you don’t spend much time in the land business.

    You don’t have to do anything with the information.

    But is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Check It Out Here.

    PPS- If you’re not ready for a Land Reality Check but enjoy reading about land, negotiation, markets, and how business actually works in the real world, you can sign up below and get future posts in your inbox.

    No hype.

    No sales funnel.

    Just new posts when I write them.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • AI Won’t Save You

    AI Won’t Save You

    But it might make talented people even more dangerous.

    When talking about AI, people tend to act like it affects everyone equally.

    I don’t think that’s true.

    Look back to the steroid era in baseball. A lot of people talked as though steroids turned ordinary players into superstars. As if anyone could take a few injections and suddenly start hitting fifty home runs.

    That wasn’t really what happened.

    You still had to be able to hit a baseball. And that’s a skill most people never come close to mastering.

    The player who couldn’t hit before steroids? He couldn’t hit afterward either. The player with mediocre talent and a mediocre work ethic didn’t magically become great.

    What steroids did was amplify what was already there.

    Most people focus on the added strength. The home runs. The highlights. But the bigger advantage was recovery. A player could train harder and more often. He could deal with nagging injuries better. He could stay closer to his peak performance over a long season.

    The biggest gains went to the people who already had talent and were already willing to work. Those so keen on getting an edge they’d keep at it even after it became illegal.

    A decent player might become a good player. A good player might become a star. A star might become an all-time great. Later disgraced to hear some tell it, but at the time it was amazing to watch.

    AI is a lot like this.

    The person who doesn’t understand land values today isn’t suddenly going to understand land values because AI exists. The person who has poor judgment isn’t going to develop good judgment because a machine gives them answers.

    In some cases, the opposite may happen.

    As I said last week, there are really two groups using AI right now.

    One group is using it as an escape hatch. They don’t want to do the work, learn the subject, or develop the expertise. They want the answer without the process.

    That works right up until the machine gives them a bad answer.

    Then they’re stuck, because they never learned enough to recognize the mistake.

    The other group is still doing the work. They’re still learning, still analyzing, and still making the decisions. AI simply helps them move faster. It helps organize information, challenge assumptions, and automate things that used to consume more time than they were worth.

    That’s how I use it.

    When I’m working on a Land Reality Check, AI isn’t determining value. It isn’t selecting comparable sales. It isn’t deciding what matters and what doesn’t.

    I’m doing those things. Because I’m responsible for the answer. But because I can do things faster, I improve more quickly.

    People predicting AI will make everyone equally capable are missing something.

    The people using it to avoid thinking are going to get worse, and those using it to enhance their thinking are going to get better.

    And the gap is likely to grow a lot faster than most people expect.

    PS – Most landowners are not planning to sell today.

    But markets change. Development pressure changes. Buyer demand changes too.

    The people who make the best decisions usually aren’t the ones scrambling to learn everything at the last minute. They’re the ones who already have a pretty good idea of what’s happening around them.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for.

    It looks at nearby sales, competing properties, market activity, and the factors affecting value that are easy to miss if you don’t spend much time in the land business.

    You don’t have to do anything with the information.

    But is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Check It Out Here.

    PPS – If you’re not ready for a Land Reality Check but enjoy reading about land, negotiation, markets, and how business actually works in the real world, you can sign up below and get future posts in your inbox.

    No hype.

    No sales funnel.

    Just new posts when I write them.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • Don’t Assume God Wouldn’t Use You

    Don’t Assume God Wouldn’t Use You

    He’s used flawed people since the beginning. He has no choice.

    Even among professing Christians, many people’s exposure to the Bible mostly consists of whatever passage their pastor teaches from on Sunday, or from devotionals they read during the week.

    There’s nothing wrong with any of that. But it can leave you with a strange idea of what the Bible is actually like when read straight through.

    You mostly hear the stories where somebody trusted God, did the right thing, and things worked out in the end. It gets in your head that the people in scripture were kind of superheroes of faith. More disciplined. More obedient. More spiritually stable than regular people are.

    At least that’s how it felt to me.

    Then I actually read the whole thing straight through.

    Surprising to say the least. A huge percentage of the Bible is people screwing things up.

    Moses kills a man and runs away.

    David impregnates one of his loyal soldiers’ wives, tries to cover it up, then arranges for the man to die in battle.

    The sons of Eli the priest were corrupt and openly abusing their position.

    The disciples themselves constantly misunderstand Jesus, even while following Him directly.

    And this kind of thing keeps happening over and over.

    At first it’s confusing because you expect the “heroes” of the Bible to act differently. But most of them were not spiritual superheroes. They were regular people. Flawed people.

    In some cases, people who did things most of us have never done and hopefully never will.

    Yet God kept working through them anyway.

    That does not mean their sins were unimportant. Scripture is very clear that actions have consequences. But it also means failure was never automatically the end of the story.

    People sometimes disqualify themselves because of things they’ve done wrong. Or because they assume God only uses unusually gifted, disciplined, impressive people.

    The Bible really doesn’t support that idea very well.

    God uses regular people.

    It’s the only kind He has.

    P.S.- If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary.
    No telling you what to think.
    Nothing to buy.
    Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

    PPS- If you’d like to receive these in your inbox, enter your info below:

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • You Can Use It, But Be Careful Not To Lose It

    You Can Use It, But Be Careful Not To Lose It

    Don’t let a tool become your boss.

    On Wednesday I wrote about how someone can sound pretty smart to people who know less than they do. At least until an actual expert walks into the room.

    Most of the time it’s harmless, or close enough for government work. Nobody is really acting on what these people are saying, so a little error doesn’t matter much.

    But if they did act on it, things could get expensive.

    There’s a term for it: knowing just enough to be dangerous.

    It’s hard to go anywhere today without hearing somebody talk about AI.

    Depending on who you ask, AI is either going to make everyone rich, put everyone out of work, or both.

    I don’t know.

    But it’s obviously making the “knowing just enough to be dangerous” problem worse.

    This week Dan Kennedy mentioned a commercial real estate investor who was bragging that he had delegated all the due diligence on a deal to AI and got an answer in eight and a half minutes.

    The investor thought this was wonderful.

    Kennedy’s response was simple:

    “Have you ever done the same analysis yourself and compared the two?”

    That’s the right question.

    Because there are really two kinds of people using AI right now.

    The first group is using it to avoid doing the work.

    Those people are headed for trouble, and you should avoid doing business with them if you notice it.

    Not because AI is always wrong. It’s not.

    But because they have no reliable way to know when it’s wrong.

    And if they keep relying on it, eventually they won’t know how to do the work without it.

    Think about navigation in your car. Most people can still get around, but they’re not nearly as good at it as they used to be. The skill slowly deteriorates because they stopped using it.

    The same thing can happen with analysis, writing, valuation, negotiation, or anything else.

    If you’re not careful, before long you’re no longer using the tool. The tool is using you.

    You’re just accepting answers instead of evaluating them.

    It won’t bite you every time.

    But it doesn’t have to.

    The people getting the most value from AI tend to use it differently.

    They’re still doing the thinking.

    They’re still forming opinions.

    They’re still responsible for the answer.

    I use AI for things. I’d be crazy not to.

    But I’m using it to enhance and accelerate what I was already doing, not as an easy button like on the commercials.

    I’m able to create better reports and information for people, much faster than I could a year ago.

    Not because the AI is doing the work.

    Because I’m still doing the work.

    It helps organize information. It can challenge assumptions. Sometimes it points out something I missed. Sometimes it’s right. Other times I tell it to shove off.

    But it isn’t making the decision.

    I am.

    There’s a difference between using a tool to augment what you’re doing and letting the tool do all the work.

    Right now those two people can look very similar.

    Give it a few years.

    They won’t.

    PS – Most landowners are not planning to sell today.

    But markets change. Development pressure changes. Buyer demand changes too.

    The people who make the best decisions usually aren’t the ones scrambling to learn everything at the last minute. They’re the ones who already have a pretty good idea of what’s happening around them.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for.

    It looks at nearby sales, competing properties, market activity, and the factors affecting value that are easy to miss if you don’t spend much time in the land business.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Check It Out Here.

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