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We do not accept respondent’s argument that no discount
should be employed because the coowners were cooperative and
jointly sought to find a buyer for the Busch property. That is a
matter of conjecture, and if a buyer purchased decedent’s one-
half interest, there is no showing here that decedent’s sister-
in-law’s trust would have cooperated with any coowner, including
decedent’s estate. More significantly, the coowners’ intentions
were discernable as of the date of decedent’s death. It was
obvious that the owners and/or heirs to the Busch property were
not interested in continuing its agricultural use. Accordingly,
we conclude that some discount for the partial interest is called
for; the question that remains is the size of that discount.
DeVoe’s partial interest discount was based on five of the
nine comparable sales and ranged from 18.8 percent to 45 percent.
Two of the five involved 50-percent interests, and they had
discounts ranging from 27.5 percent to 45 percent. DeVoe
concluded that those two sales showed that a large fractional
interest resulted in a larger discount, and he concluded that a
40-percent discount was appropriate. DeVoe, however, did not
explain what aspects of the two sales relied on were comparable
to the circumstances we consider involving the Busch property.
Hulberg discussed several factors in also arriving at a 40-
percent discount for the fractional interest decedent held in the
Busch property. First, he explained that a fractional interest
reflected a lack of control. Although decedent’s interest was
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