Tax Guru – Ker$tetter Letter

It Was Priced Too Low

For several months, we had been offering our unique 285 acre ranch for a price of $399,950. It would easily be worth well over a few million dollars back in our old stomping grounds of the S. F. Bay Area; but this is just Arkansas, so we adjusted accordingly.

A few months ago, some property close by sold for a per acre price that made our price seem ridiculously low. The final straw in our debate regarding the proper price came earlier this week from an IRS auditor, who was here working on a case. She also owns some farm property in Arkansas and has reviewed other local properties and informed Sherry that we were asking far too little.

So, we have bumped up the price to $449,995, which is still much lower than similar properties are selling for. Perhaps, if we don’t sell at this price, we’ll raise it again in a few months, and again later, until we hit that magic number. There are obviously some potential buyers who suspect that there must be something seriously wrong with a property this large if we are only asking this much.

Interestingly, the same auditor also told Sherry that some CPAs & tax attorneys in Fayetteville, with much less expereince than I have, are charging $500 per hour. While my current rate of $195 per hour is much lower than what I used to charge back in California, I was under the impression that it was very high for Arkansas. We’ll have to check this out after Tax Season.

KMK