Henry Sells a Building Lot on the first Day
By Henry Burt Stevens, June 25, 2003
Income for life has been a long time goal of mine. Each morning, I wonder what I can do today that will pay me tomorrow and next year. It can be done, and I have been able to do it for a long time.
Twenty years ago one of my plans was to buy Port Charlotte building lots for cash and sell them on time. Just this last month I finally sold my last remaining lot ending a span of 20 years or more when I always had between 1 and 35 lots for sale. However, I still receive payments on lots I previously sold. I average 10% interest on the outstanding balances. This is a nice return in view of current low interest rates of 2003. This income helps me greatly in my retirement.
I sold the lots by advertising in newspapers, both here in Charlotte County and in New Hampshire, my home state. I’d talk with prospects by phone, show lots in person while I was here in Florida, and sell lots sight unseen when I was in New Hampshire. This sounds hard to do, but really isn’t.
About 15 years ago while in New Hampshire and looking for ways to expand my lot activity, I hit upon the idea of setting up a table at the local mall on Saturdays and selling lots to people walking in the mall. I contacted the mall manager and made arrangements to have my table at a certain location. I made up a folding display with attention grabbers; pictures of Port Charlotte from the Tourist Bureau, news stories clipped from the Charlotte Sun and a map. I had a picture book of the actual lots I was selling, along with my brochures and price lists.
The first day I sold a lot before noon time. The buyers, a couple from Berwick, Maine, had been thinking about buying a Florida lot, and were happy to have an actual person to talk to. I wrote up a contract, they signed it and gave me a $50 check for a down payment.
This was my standard plan, sell the lots with $50 or $100 dollars down, pay off in seven years with interest the current rate at the time of the contract, often 10%.
I was elated. This mall idea was going to work. I might even sell a couple of lots each Saturday. I pitched lots all afternoon and evening till the mall closed at 9PM.
The next week I was back, and I kept going back each Saturday. I decided to try a mall about 70 miles north and then would alternate each Saturday. I’d get to the mall at 9AM and stay till 9PM, when the mall closed. It was a long day, because there was not really any sense of time when in the mall. The hours rolled by, each exactly as the one before. It was strange to me because I’d never been in complete artificial light for any period of time before.
However, I liked the work. Often when you see people selling from a table in the mall you will notice they are sitting behind the table. They may try to make eye contact with you, but mostly they will read or talk with another person also behind the table. If you approach the table and ask a question they will help you.
Not me. I’m always on the other side of the table and out in front. I speak to everyone who walks by. I don’t drag them to my table, but with eye contact and chatter I make it real easy for them to ask me about my product. A variation is for me to stand some ten or fifteen feet away and watch for someone to approach the table. Then I slowly approach and act like I’m also looking at the table and start talking with the people. Because I like this kind of work I really didn’t mind the long hours.
But my wife Pat began to get tired of these Saturday lot selling trips. Not that she went with me, she stayed at home. But I was gone 14 or 15 hours.
Business was very slow. I talked to many people who were interested, but I couldn’t get to close a deal. After about eight weeks I gave it up as a bad idea and just stayed with my telephone sales and in person sales that had always worked for me.
But the real boot in the butt was when the couple who purchased the lot in the morning of my first day got cold feet, backed out of the deal and called me. I mailed back their down payment.
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