Every story about Monette Farms' 274,000-acre sell-off has led with the acreage.

Big number, big headline, easy to grab a reader's attention.

But there's a smaller number buried in the file that tells you more about where this market actually sits.

Zero.

That's how many of the roughly 45,000 British Columbia acres in the sale have found a buyer, across two separate attempts.

What happened. A first listing missed a Jan. 9 deadline with no sales.

A second attempt, run through a Ritchie Bros. tender-by-auction, closed March 3 and also came up empty, with title concerns cited at the time.

The ground is now back on the market for a third time, relisted as 11 packages with LandQuest Realty Corp.

Why it happened.

Two strikes on the same land in one sale process is unusual enough to be worth sitting with rather than skimming past.