Out of state owners selling property, listings are no where?

[Tashina Taylor]

Recently, I sent some yellow letters to out of state owners of raw land. The last two responses I've had are from people who have their land for sale already. The weird part is that the realtors who are supposed to be selling this land don't have these parcels listed. One owner even directed me to the realtor who had multiple websites, and their parcels weren't on any of them! But the owners still referred me to the realtor even when I told them I don't see it on the websites anywhere.

The second one to contact me was the realtor himself - the owners of this parcel I inquired about actually had a few parcels they wanted to sell. The realtor assured me they wouldn't be interested in a lease option (which is what I was looking for). However, they have only had ONE up for sale ( FOR TEN YEARS!!!). I asked why in the world wasn't all three up for sale this whole time? He said that it was his (the realtors!) suggestion to put a well on the one for sale, and once it's sold, put wells on the other two and then put them up for sale. No where to be found on the realtor's website - no sign outside...nothing. What the heck?? Isn't it his job to sell the property, not convince the owner to hold it? I'm so confused. My first thought was that if the owner had considered a lease option all those years ago, all 3 could have been paid off by now!

I'm just all around confused by this, actually. Is this normal practice? Do realtors have properties they just don't list and hope for the best? Is this something I can use to my advantage?