Chapter OneKnow the Rules before You Play

“The master knows the rules without suffering them, the slave suffers the rules without knowing them.”

—Chinese proverb

SITUATION #2 This Land Is Your Land

I once consulted to a company in the “raw land” business. Land is considered “raw” if it is either not currently in use or is used only for farming and has no roads or utilities. Buying such land is highly speculative, because developing the land for residential or commercial use depends on approvals at many levels of government, not to mention someone willing to pay for the roads and other infrastructure. My client had a buyer for a large chunk of raw land, a huge public company whose bonds were rated AAA. When it came down to negotiations, the public ...

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