-Submitted photo
Jim Green is the fifth generation to join the Green Auction and Real Estate business in Sac City.

SAC CITY — Col. Festus Green could scarcely imagine where his journey would take him. It must have been quite a trip across the cold Atlantic Ocean. At just 14 years of age, Green left behind the blissfully named Somersetshire, England, a region known for its bountiful apples and cheese.

He traded all of that for a chance in a country that was still recovering from the Civil War. Seeking a better life, the young immigrant would make his way to Iowa, settling in Sac County.

Green made a living by doing a little bit of everything, from farming, to the block and brick trade, and even auctioneering, a trade that would be handed down for generations. It was the Civil War that bestowed on auctioneers the ceremonial title of “colonel.”

“That started after the Civil War,” explained Mike Green, great-grandson of Festus Green. Mike is the fourth-generation owner of Green Real Estate and Auction Company and Sac County Abstracting in Sac City.

“Colonels were given the job of selling all the horses for the army. I’ve never addressed myself as ‘colonel,’ but my great-grandfather was always called Col. Festus Green,” Green recalled.

-Submitted photo
Mike Green has been crying auctions since 1977 and is still going strong.

The auctioneering business took off in the rapidly growing farm country of Sac County. Festus’ son, Roy Green, decided to become an auctioneer as well, and the business was known as Col. F.J Green & Son.

When Roy passed away suddenly, his son, David Green, stepped in to learn the auction trade.

“My great-grandpa Festus got my dad started,” Mike Green explained.

Sadly, Col. Festus Green would outlive both his son, Roy, and grandson, David, who died suddenly of heart issues at 44 and 40 respectively.

The power of ‘grace’

David’s death in 1958 could have easily been the end of the family’s auctioneering and abstract business. Instead, there was a special “grace” at work to nurture and grow the business in the years that would follow.

When her husband, David, died in 1958, Grace Green picked herself up and got to work. Left with three children to raise, the youngest just 3 months old, Grace dove in with determination and, well, a special “grace” about everything she did.

“She was a very vibrant person,” Mike Green recalled of his mother. “She was a great businesswoman. She would tell me, ‘It’s not the business you do today. It’s the business you do a year from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now. You have to treat people with complete honesty’ — and that’s how we operate.”

While Grace grew the real estate and abstracting businesses, it would be nearly two decades before the auction business returned to the Green family name. After all, Mike Green needed time to grow up. He was only 3 years old when his dad passed away.

Mike Green enrolled at the University of South Dakota after graduating from high school in Sac City in 1973. He studied marketing for two years and never even got his final report card.

“I came home to earn some money for a semester, and that semester has now lasted 46 years,” he said with a chuckle. “I guess auctioneering was always intriguing to me. I had so many people encourage me to pursue it.”

He enrolled at the World-Wide College of Auctioneering in Mason City and even got a little help from an old friend.

“There was an auctioneer from Wall Lake, Iowa, that my dad had got started years ago, Loren Albrccht,” Mike Green recalled. “Loren kind of took me under his wing. My dad started him, and Loren helped get me started.”

Auctioneers share both good times and hard times

While the late 1970s were heydays on the farm, that would change suddenly in the farm crisis of the 1980s. As an auctioneer, Mike Green saw the farm crisis up close and personal.

“That was a terrible time,” he said. “I sat with a lot of really nice, good families that were going through financial hardships. It was a very difficult time and I hope we never see them again.”

Looking back, the farm crisis seemed to be the result of too many things going wrong all at once.

“A lot of times, it was just a matter of people who borrowed too much money at the wrong time; interest rates went through the roof, the ag economy slowed down,” he explained. “Those were tough, sad times.”

In today’s world, pressure is again out there on farmers. “In recent years, the biggest gorilla in the room has been the rapid increase in interest rates,” he said. “That, coupled with ag commodities becoming depressed, it’s creating pressure in the ag sector right now.”

While hard times have often been part of farming, most days are good days.

“I like working with the public,” Mike Green said. “Most people are pretty good people, and I don’t think any two auctions are the same.”

Green auctions everything from farmland and farm machinery, residential and other properties, sportsmen’s equipment and antiques, and has even sold horses at the Belle Plaine Western Exchange for many years.

Auctions, he said, have become the preferred method of selling farmland.

“I think probably 90 percent or better of the farmland is being sold at auction versus private treaty,” he said. “There are exceptions to that, if it’s a specialized property, or if it has a large hog confinement or something that is really unique. In that case, it’s probably more conducive to a regular, private treaty.”

A good auction may be over in a few hours, but the actual planning and wrap-up work can be extensive. Mike’s wife, Jeani, serves as clerk and cashier. They often become friends with the families they serve.

“A lot of times when we help sell a family farm, it’s a happy day and a sad day,” he said. “The farm has been in the family a long time and they hate to see it go, but they know it’s time.”

Sometimes it becomes a matter of too many heirs. He’s seen cases where a farm is now owned by even 50 to 60 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and it’s just too many owners to make it feasible.

Five generations strong

For Green Real Estate and Auction, a member of the fifth generation has now joined the family business. Mike and Jeani’s son, Jim, came into the business in 2009, after earning a degree in marketing from Iowa State University.

“He went to work with Hunsicker Real Estate, a very well-established firm in Ames,” Mike Green said. “He got his real estate license and it was great training for him, but he always had a desire to come back here.”

Like his father and grandfather, Jim graduated from the World-Wide College of Auctioneering and is now active in both the real estate and auction facets of the business. Jim’s wife, Cassie, also helps clerk.

To Mike Green, auctions remain one of the best ways to establish fair market value for property of almost any kind.

“There’s an advantage to the auction method of marketing,” he said. “The seller gets to pick the time, the place, terms and conditions of the sale. A well-advertised, well-conducted auction really does determine the fair market value.”

The Greens simulcast most auctions online, taking remote bids and expanding the market potential for each property.

Because Green operates both a real estate and auction business, he can also visit with an owner to determine the best method of sale for any particular case.

“Not everything is conducive to a sale at auction,” he said. “We also sell a lot of real estate through private treaty.”

Talking with a family and getting to know them helps determine the best method in their unique situation.

“An auction is one the oldest methods of marketing, and if it’s properly advertised and properly conducted, it will determine the fair market value,” Green affirmed.

Col. Festus couldn’t have put it any better himself.