Buy Dirt
By Jim Palmer Jr.

The other day my granddaughter was singing a country song called “Buy Dirt”, sung by Jordan Davis.  She said it reminded her of me, which made me smile. 
 
Some of the lyrics go like this, “A few days before he turned 80 he was sittin’ out back in a rocker. He said “What you been up to lately?”  I told him, “Chasing a dollar” and in between sips of coffee he poured this wisdom out.  Said, “If you want my two cents on making a dollar count, Buy Dirt.  Find the one you can’t live without, get a ring, let your knee hit the ground. Do what you love but call it work and throw a little money in the plate at church, Send your prayers up and your roots down deep, add a few limbs to your family tree, and watch their pencil marks and the grass in the yard all grow up.  ‘Cause the truth about it is, It all goes by real quick.  You can’t by happiness, But you can buy dirt. …You can buy dirt and thank the good Lord for it ‘cause He ain’t makin’ any more of it, so buy dirt.”

When Jordan Davis and friends penned those lyrics, they were certainly inspired and are telling the truth!  When I bought my first home about 40 years ago I was ignorantly happy to pay 13% interest and had no clue that I was starting down a path towards one of the best wealth building strategies there is.  Even though my wife and I struggled to make the nominal payment at the time, that monthly sacrifice allowed us to build a nest egg that gave us the leg up to the next level of land ownership and on to even more leverage and equity.

The wise among the rising generation are the ones who have come to understand the value of home ownership as a means to grow wealth.  Home ownership is still proven to be the single best method to develop equity and wealth.  Whole generations in this country have risen from the depths of poverty simple because of home ownership.

Even though the stress of the current market makes it very difficult to Buy Dirt, I’m optimistic for the future of those who follow that good advice to enjoy home and land ownership.  Think about how your decisions will affect your posterity!

Of course this new “tax” to consumers is mostly hidden from the general public, but when it comes out of your pocket it becomes more personal and one has to wonder why.

Whether you agree with the politics of this change or not, it is here and the consequences are causing issues in real estate transactions.  In the past, closers traditionally charged the recording fees to whichever party the documents benefited most, but there is no hard and fast rule on that arbitrary distribution.  MLS attorneys are already discussing changes to state-wide purchase contracts in order to address this issue.  In the future it is likely that this will not be a cost that is arbitrarily assigned by a closing company, but instead will be contractually negotiated between seller and buyer.