Just for fun, go to Google and enter a search for “Floyd County Virginia”.

In the first two pages, 13 of the listings are for Realtors or real estate for sale in Floyd County. Sure must be a lot of people buying homes and/or property in Floyd County.

Since Amy and I are finishing (finally) the house sale from hell in Belleville, Illinois (her late mother’s home), I’ve taken a renewed interest in real estate transactions and how they come about. Actually, I should know more about the business since I ran the political programs operation for the National Association of Realtors for five years (1987-1992).

But I don’t. We bought our condo in Arlington 20 years ago from the original owner (who was a Realtor) and it was relatively painless since we had lived there for three years as renters. Likewise, the home I owned in Alton, Illinois, was purchased directly from the owner. And property transactions involving land we have in Floyd and Carroll Counties were direct deals with the owners (no Realtors need apply).

So I clicked on some of the “Realtors in Floyd County” links and found, of course, that they did not take me to any real Floyd County Realtors but to form pages where they wanted information that would doom me to endless dumps of spam in the coming months.

So much for real estate in Floyd County. You can, of course, get information on land for sale in Floyd County by visiting the Blue Ridge Land and Auction Company web site and I found an owner listing for a 51-acre Buffalo Mountainview Farm that can be, they say, subdivided into four tracts.

Subdivided? That’s a term that sends chills through the hearts of anyone who moved to a place like Floyd County. You might as well say “Wall Mart Coming Soon!” Has the same effect.