P.O. Box 429, Cherokee Village, Arkansas 72525 USA 870-257-5137

We appreciate others who enthusiastically promote Cherokee Village and area - it is a beautiful place - but we have decades of real estate experience. SunSpring's huge Cherokee Village Website (www.sunspringroperties.com and www.cherokeevillage.com) took five years to build and is still a work in progress - it contains factual information. And, we and our professional associates know how to transfer land in Arkansas properly!

Buy SunSpring land and you'll get fresh actual photos of your carefully-selected residential land.

Ozark Mountain Real Estate is what we do full-time - we know the business, we live in the area, we walk and talk with the residents every day, and we get you the land and the deals you can trust.

Can someone who has never even seen the land they're selling give you a real description? Not all the lots in Cherokee Village are buildable or worth as much as others - responsible sellers need to make sure they know exactly what it is they are selling!

Marcel noticed a photo in someone else's online description with the caption: "The Spring River roars through Cherokee Village." People who live here know it's actually the South Fork, not the Spring River, and it doesn't "roar", it gently meanders through the Village. Do those two descriptions paint the same picture of life in Cherokee Village? How reliable could that other seller be? Someone else emphatically states in his/her description that there are no association fees here - seems he/she thinks our 350 miles of paved roads, recreation centers, private lakes etc. don't require maintenance! I suggest that you read the factual descriptions on our website, then buy your Cherokee Village land directly from SunSpring.

SunSpring has been getting a lot of emails and telephone calls lately about cheap land prices that are appearing on some other websites and elsewhere on the Web; so I think it appropriate that I (Marcel) post a bit of information here in anticipation of your questions.

As I update this page I am now getting three or four phone calls almost every day from people who bought local land online from an absentee seller. Invariably, these people are asking for information that the person who sold them the land should be providing for them, but probably can't because that seller has never even been here! In all fairness to SunSpring Properties, my response is to direct these callers back to their seller, we will only provide specific information and deed service to our own customers. Please continue reading for information that you should have before you buy! 

The following statements and opinions are accurate to the best of my knowledge:

1. Yes, there are some lots being sold and resold online at prices lower than ours. We recently took action when it was brought to my attention that someone (not one of our customers) had stolen copyrighted photos and descriptions from our website and was displaying them on his own. Is that the kind of person you want to buy your real estate from? A few others have been reported to me as well - we're gathering evidence and will be going after them...

2. My guess is that most of the sellers I'm writing about are people who have successfully sold other items online, and who apparently believe that real estate is just another 'product' and not a potentially complex matter that normally requires professional training and local presence to responsibly market, sell, and transfer title to. I don't think that any of those sellers actually live here in Cherokee Village, most have probably never even been here, and most have probably had no professional training in Arkansas real estate whatsoever. I personally know someone who bought some land online and discovered later that the transfer document (the "deed") was not even valid in Arkansas! Another lady recently told me she was still waiting for her deed from an online seller three and a half months after making her payment. She was in contact with the seller, and received only excuses. That seller is still advertising land for sale.

I noticed another seller blithely (with no disclosure, because he/she probably doesn't even know) selling a lot in the only Addition in Cherokee Village that allows mobile homes. Won't the buyer be surprised when he/she arrives with their house plans tucked under their arm to find only mobiles surrounding the lot they bought? And yet another seller listing Cherokee Village lots that we know are small unbuildable "gift lots". Again, that seller does not live here and therefore does not know the local market or property! There may be a few other things too that could come back to haunt absentee sellers when their buyers actually come here. Do you not agree that it would be smarter to buy real estate from an owner or agent who lives in the area and knows the ins and outs of the local market and properties? 

3. My guess is that most of the local lots being marketed by others have not been photographed and visually inspected to see if they are suitable for building - they are simply being traded online over and over as a commodity to make a quick profit, with no concern for the harm that may be caused to the local economy when the false impression is given that good building lots here are of little or no worth.

4. I recommend, if you are considering buying online from someone else that you first ask the seller the following questions:

a) Have you personally inspected the land, or retained a local real estate professional, to make sure it is what you say it is? Are you certain that what you are selling is not one of the little unbuildable "gift lots" or the mobile home Addition, or a lot with a deep gully or drainage ditch? As an absentee seller, are you capable of meeting the legal requirement to provide full disclosure?

b) Do you live near the land, or have you recently spent enough time in the community and talked with enough people to understand local land values and trends? Can you provide an accurate "Fair Market Value" for the land you are selling, and if so, what is it based on?

c) Have you received professional training in real estate, or have you retained a local attorney or broker to properly transfer the title when the land is sold?

Some online sellers are apparently issuing "quitclaim" deeds to their buyers. Ironically, you yourself could legally give the seller a quitclaim to the same property - or to the Brooklyn Bridge for that matter!

I'm not a real estate attorney but my understanding is that a quitclaim only records that the seller will not exercise any claim on the land - it does not warrant that he or she actually had any rights in the first place! If you get only a quitclaim from the seller, you may run into problems when it comes to getting a construction loan, or when you want to resell the land to a more knowledgeable buyer. My recommendation is that you seek advice from an attorney or real estate broker before accepting a quitclaim deed.

Another example of the damage untrained sellers of real estate can cause to a community came to my attention on September 13, 2002 when Beverly received a call from someone wanting to sell two nice Cherokee Village lots right across the road from one of the lakes. We were interested in buying until we found out they'd bought them online from an out of state seller who gave them only a quitclaim deed. Now, those lots are unbuildable, no bank will advance a construction loan on property that can only be transferred by quitclaim from now on. There is a way out of this dilemma, but it is expensive, time consuming, and takes a great deal of knowledge. If that seller had been trained in how to transfer Arkansas real property properly, someone would have been able to build a nice home on those two vacant lots in our beautiful community...

5. It is not my intention to alienate other online sellers, just to help buyers better understand that real estate is quite different from the thousands of other items being sold on the Internet and, unless it is someone selling a house they've lived in themselves, it should be left to sellers who are professionally trained and very familiar with the community the real estate they are selling is located in.

Another example: We have an actual airport in Cherokee Village, but another nearby development has an airport showing on the map, but no real airport exists there anymore, not even a runway. Yes, you guessed it, someone's online description for that other community includes an airport as one of the features!

An online seller from another state has prominently listed a lot for sale in Hidden Valley, Arkansas. Hidden Valley is a nice little private community bordering Cherokee Village. We live here, we know Hidden Valley well. But the absentee seller is saying the lot he has for sale is "a large buildable residentially zoned lot". He further states that the lot he is selling is a "large lot", with "$170 in back taxes, plus approx. $200/year", with "water to property", and on "a paved road". He gives the legal description of the property so we have without question identified it.

We happen to know, because we live in this area and because we own some land close to the lot the absentee seller has listed, that:

a) the lot he is selling is actually a small unbuildable 30 foot by 100 foot "gift lot"

b) the taxes on that lot are $1.81 per year

c) it is on an overgrown dirt road

d) there is no city water in that Addition

My guess is that the lot will sell at the seeming 'bargain' price listed and that it will soon appear online again as a resale by the person who buys it who will describe this little gift lot in the same manner as the person did that he/she bought it from!

The above statement, written in 2002, proved completely true when I received on March 4, 2003, the following from a prominent online seller who was advertising a little gift lot as a "buildable" lot "ready for immediate development". The seller was responding to my email request that they join us in accurately representing our community:

"Thank you for your information. We buy our lots site unseen and take the previous owners word for what they sold us. So your information is very helpful."

I noticed that the absentee seller did not change their description even after I had warned them about their false ad. Beware of uninformed absentee online sellers!

Here's another:

I had a phone call from a lady living in England who had purchased two lots from us. She was quite upset because she had bought some additional lots in Cherokee Village from another online seller and what she received from them did not resemble what she received from SunSpring Properties!

She said she made her payment then she waited and waited and called and called, then finally received a copy of a 'deed'. It did not contain the same stamps and impressions that her SunSpring deeds contained, and although it had her name on it, the land described on the 'deed' was not even the land she had paid for. She called the county office in Arkansas and was told that the land on her 'deed' from the out of state seller was not even owned by the seller she had bought it from - outright fraud!

This caller from England who had bought some land from us concluded: "But I'm very happy with buying from you (SunSpring Properties)."

We continue to get phone calls almost every day from people who bought from someone other than SunSpring and who now turn to us expecting to get the information their out of state seller should be providing to them - we don't provide it!

Another man recently called me from Australia, he had bought a Cherokee Village lot from an out of state seller. He said "it has been a very rough transaction". That particular absentee seller was making claims that he was the biggest Cherokee Village dealer in vacant lots and inferred apparently that even we (SunSpring Properties) bought our land from him! Really...

Just a quick update from Marcel again. There are still some absentee sellers trying to make a quick dollar selling local real estate on the Internet, but they seem to be decreasing a bit. Some of the most recent that have come to my attention:

A company is advertising lots in this area online, claiming them to be building lots and saying they have fifty more to sell. I managed to get a list of their inventory and out of their fifty lots only two appeared to be as described. The others were either small unbuildable gift lots, or out of city limits in an area that is almost inaccessible - none of this is disclosed. This company also seems to be selling property owned by others and is therefore probably breaking long-established real estate agent laws that require agents to be trained and licensed, and to provide full disclosure, thus protecting the public from unscrupulous sellers.

UPDATE MAY 12, 2003: 

Some of the absentee online sellers are gone but today another one came to my attention because he/she is displaying photos that were stolen from our website, and is making claims about being "the only" seller to be doing this and that, etc. Knowing that local business people have recently taken some steps to shut down absentee sellers who are misrepresenting our community and devaluing our real estate, I did a bit of checking with our professional associates and received the following interesting information about the lots that person is selling online:

"He is selling lots he acquired from the state and that are also included in the foreclosure suit. I have advised him by email that he has until this Friday to pay the assessments or he will see these lots deeded to new owners. Have not had a reply." 

My guess is that people who purchased from that absentee online seller and got their 'deeds' are going to be out of luck. But at least that particular absentee seller is not likely to be selling Cherokee Village land online for much longer!

Better to buy from a local seller like SunSpring Properties, don't you think?


Have I made my point? You've read this far, do you not agree that, regardless of the seeming 'bargain' price, it is still much smarter to buy real estate only from a seller who lives in the area where the real estate being sold is located; or from a local licensed real estate agent? Even though a seller claims to be a "broker" or trained agent, if he/she does not live in this area, how can they provide full disclosure?

Will they be here when you come to visit? 

Here's an email we received March 6, 2003:

"I just read with amazement your description on the property you are offering because I had considered selling a similar lot I own in Indiana and was looking for pointers. I am impressed by your accurate and complete discussion of the issues of the pitfalls of buying real estate online and the tricks used by other sellers in your development.

I am a real estate broker in Westchester county NY and know how important full disclosure is. You obviously take it seriously and your site is written very clearly. I just wanted to praise you for doing the right thing--I hope you sell your lots and have happy buyers. That's all I wanted to say--no strings attached. I will never sell my lot, it has none of the amenities yours does!"

It is my opinion that real estate should not be lightly traded as just another product from which to make a quick profit on the World Wide Web. "Under all is the land" - real estate and real estate values intimately affect the lives of everyone.

SunSpring Properties LLC sells hundreds of carefully-selected, beautifully oak-forested residential building lots to people who intend to actually build a vacation, get-away, or retirement home on their land, and/or perhaps to sell it some day for a reasonable profit. It is unfortunate, in my opinion, that the value of their land is currently being undermined online by sellers, most of whom probably have no professional training whatsoever in the sale and transfer of Arkansas real estate. Hopefully, this will be just a quick phenomenon that will have little lasting impact on our beautiful Ozark Mountain community...

Click here to see what you can still buy in Cherokee Village.

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