OREP 21 | How to Get Started in Land Investing with Brent Bowers of The Land Sharks

In this episode, we welcomed Brent Bowers, the owner of The Land Sharks and an experienced land investor and coach. Brent shared his journey from being an Army Officer to becoming a successful real estate investor, with a focus on buying and selling vacant land.

Key Takeaways:

1. Getting Started: Brent emphasized the importance of taking action rather than just studying and reading. He started with $5,000 and did his first land deal, which sparked his passion for this investment strategy.
2. Land Investment Strategy: Brent prefers being a "lazy land investor," which means he does not do entitlements or any major development work. He focuses on finding deals online, ensuring there's a market to sell the land, and using seller financing or private lenders to finance his deals.
3. Finding Deals: Brent highlighted three main steps to doing land deals: online sources like PropStream, ensuring a market to sell the land, and using seller financing or private lenders since banks typically don't finance vacant land.
4. Building Relationships: Brent emphasized the importance of building relationships with key players in the industry, such as title companies and land realtors, and going the extra mile by sending them lunches or small gifts.
5. Scaling and Hiring: As his business grew, Brent discussed the importance of scaling and hiring a team to handle different aspects of the operations.
6. Veterans in Real Estate: Being a veteran himself, Brent shared insights on how veterans can leverage their skills and experience to succeed in real estate investing, particularly in land investments.

Throughout the episode, Brent provided valuable tips and strategies for those interested in getting started in land investing, including the importance of due diligence, understanding the market, and building a strong network.

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Welcome to Optimize real Estate Podcast.Hey everybody, it's Rod Wilson with another
episode of the Optimized real Estate Podcast. Thanks for joining. Really, what
I do on this podcast is lookfor the movers and shakers in real estate
and try and pull out some oftheir ideas, strategies, tactics, you
know, whatever makes their business tick. This episode is going to be really

(00:25):
awesome. I think you're going tolike it. It's actually around land investing,
which I haven't done much content onor even really talked to too many
people on. And this guy isa superstud Brent Bauers. He has a
coaching program, a website. Infact, I give you a little bit
of background. He owns a companycalled the land Sharks, and he's an
investor and coach focused on buying sellingvacant land. He was an army officer

(00:48):
for eight years and he talks aboutsome of his deployments a little bit.
Doesn't share a bunch. I wouldlike to do a whole podcast on that,
to be honest, But he wasspending a great deal of time away
from his family. He needed tomake some changes in order to be more
present with his wife and children.His interest in real estate began in two
thousand and seven when he purchased hisfirst home. He talks about how he
was fixed and flipping and you know, doing just tons of work and not

(01:10):
making a lot of money. Sohe got into land investing. So while
he invests on many different types ofreal estate, his favorite is investing strategy
deals with buying and selling vacant land. He enjoys sharing his experiences and coaching
clients passionate about this business. AndI'll just tell you a couple of things
that we cover. You know whyhe likes land investing so much, especially
in comparison to flipping, How hefinds deals, how he finances deals,

(01:33):
why he calls himself the lazy landinvestor, And you know what kind of
properties he looks for, how toanalyze markets. He shares some of his
websites he uses, so he reallyjust kind of goes through all of it.
So I'm super glad you're here andenjoy the show, Brent. How
you doing. I'm great, Rod, good, good to be here.
Now. I appreciate you taking thetime. This is actually, like I
was saying before we start recording,I'm very interested in this topic. For

(01:57):
a couple of reasons. One,I've done it myself in the past and
leading up to two thousand and eight, so I took a little bit of
a bath. And when I saya little bit, I'm being nice because
I, you know, ran intoeight, the market melted down, financial
markets, everything else, and thenI was sitting on a bunch of land.
So I'm just curious from a riskperspective, how you view this,
And also just for you know,my clients, followers, you know,

(02:22):
various people network that are pretty heavyin fix and flip and ground up,
you know, spec development, andI think this would be a nice maybe
compliment or even just another option toget into given you know, the tight
inventories. So with that, youwant to give maybe a quick snapshot on
your background. I was actually inthe military when I found land investing.

(02:43):
I had already owned several rental propertiesthat were really kind of keeping me down.
A lot of my discretionary income wasgoing to that. I remember getting
back from my first deployment and Ihad saved actually like five grand back in
twenty eleven, and you know,that was quite a bit of money for
the guy that was only making likeforty five hundred a month. So I
was like happy that I'd saved andI gotten out of debt and no bills.

(03:07):
Came back to having to evict atenant and then she did like ten
grand worth of damage to the houseand so I literally had to go borrow
money plus spend all my money.And remember this is my first wife.
Unfortunately we didn't make it after thesecond while I was on the second deployment
to Afghanistan. But long stories short, she goes, Man, I hate
that you own real estate, orbecause we own real estate, she goes,

(03:30):
I hate that because you were gonea year. Now we're stuck in
the house for your two weeks vacationthat you get and all the all the
discretion income went to fixing up ahouse we don't live in. And I
just remember that was just soul crushing. Wow, I bet. Fast forward
many years later, multiple evictions,I learned everything not to do with rental
properties was wholesaling houses just to payfor college courses. I'm with my second

(03:53):
wife now, we had just hadour baby, just moved across the country,
and history was about to repeat itself. I was preparing for the third
comp that deployment to go to Afghanistan. Once again. This time there's kids
involved, and I'm kind of freakingout, like I don't want history to
repeat itself, because I think itdoes if we let it. So I
was searching for podcasts. I waslistening You mentioned Tim Farriss earlier, the
four hour work week. I waslistening to anything and everything I could do

(04:17):
to learn how to make additional income. I wanted to. I wanted to
replace my army salary. And Iheard a guy talking about land investing and
I was like, holy cow,no one else is talking about this.
I'm from Okachobe, Florida. Ourbiggest producer event of revenue is feeder calves.
This is this is cows. SoI know one thing about herds.

(04:38):
They eventually get slaughtered. So Ididn't want to follow the herd. So
I immediately took action that evening.And let me tell you, Rod,
it worked. Man. There areare two huge nuggets there. I mean,
taking action and not following the herdthe definition of insanity. You want
to keep you want to expect differentresults, and you keep doing the same
thing over and over, You're notgoing to get different results. You know.

(05:00):
It's like I could have chosen todo exactly what all my army buddies
were doing. Just be miserable andjust keep sticking out for twenty years,
like I'd still be in and notelling where i'd be. So it's just
like I wanted different results, soI had to do something radically different than
me and everyone else I was aroundwas doing. No, that's a great
perspective. And you know, asI had mentioned before when we were talking,

(05:23):
you know, the tight inventories.I like topics like this because it's
just it's off the beaten path,not everybody's doing it, less competitive,
and I think it's worth you know, people checking out. And by the
way, before we go any further, I do want to thank you for
your service sincerely. Yeah, Iappreciate that. I honestly I would love
I follow a few different Navy sealsand different military guys, so i'd love

(05:44):
to, you know, dive intothat. But yeah, in the time
constraints, I think we'll stick onthe real estate side. And it's funny
you mentioned the five K. Youalmost my first purchase with a partner was
twelve five, which it's funny togo back, you know, this is
like early nineties, but it wastwelve five and so we had to come
up with what is that six thousand, two fifty each, So like coming

(06:05):
up with a million dollars today?I think I I was making, like,
you know, I don't even knowwhat I was making. Not very
much, that's for sure, comingout of college. So anyway, I
have been there, and it's kindof funny to talk about those kind of
numbers. It's like, you know, that's like a payment. Now,
that's a low payment. It's ahouse payment. It's crazy house payment.
Yeah, anybody that's just starting outthere. And I was. I was

(06:28):
interviewing pay some morby the other day. It was like, be careful with
what's called lifestyle creep. What doesthat mean? Expences increase. I was
talking to a very very successful guythe other day and he asked his dad.
He goes, Dad, why didn'tyou work harder? Why didn't you
build a business bigger? You couldhave done all these things? Just real
cocky, you know. When hewas younger. He asked his dad this

(06:49):
because his dad was passing on thebusiness to him and he was like,
son, you can double this business, you could do all these things.
He said, well, why didn'tyou do it? Dad? And his
dad said you know what, son, I can only sleep in one bed
at a time. I was like, I've got goosebumps thinking about it right
now, because we don't need asmuch as we think we need. No,
no question. Well it's funny,you know, as we're well,

(07:12):
probably not you, but me gettingin my age. I'm getting older,
right, And so I think aboutsome of the way I approached real estate
specifically, but just even you know, just wealth accumulation, income and all
that. And actually i'll share this, I'll probably borce people with it.
But I had a CEO of astartup company that I was in sales and
enterprise technology sales in Silicon Valley alifetime ago, it seems like, and

(07:33):
one thing that always stuck, andit kind of it's related to what you
said where he's like, if you'rea typical sales guy, the line is
like this, right, it justkind of goes up into the right and
he said, your income and yourlifestyle just follow each other. And he
was basically selling me on coming tothis startup company because I was like,
well, I'm making really good moneyand you guys want to give me a

(07:55):
sixty seventy percent income reduction. I'mlike, how does that work? And
he's like, well, you're alife lityle is going to stay at this
income and then you're gonna have thesebig pops, which are you know,
usually an equity event or even bonusesor commissions whatever. But he's like,
your lifestyle stays here and then youget a big bump and that's where you
that difference is where you can createwealth. And it was very, very

(08:15):
insightful. That always kind of stuckwith me. Yeah. Yeah, so
getting in you know what you do? I guess, Brent, how about
sharing? Like what either led youinto land developments and just what do you
like about it versus other forms ofreal estate. I hate land development,
to be honest with you. Iused to flip houses. I would buy

(08:37):
houses, renovate houses, fix themup, and then we started building houses.
Uh well, let me back up. So I started my land business,
and then I got a little likeI wanted to build my ego as
well, so we started whole sellinghouses as well as uh, buying houses,
fit, renovating them and selling them. Then I was like, Okay,
we're getting this land really cheap,let's build houses on them too.

(08:58):
So we're doing all this at once, and when I went and figured out
where most of my time was going, it was the houses eighty percent of
my time and then twenty percent.Maybe actually I think it was less.
It was more like a ninety tenninety percent of my time was going to
the houses, about ten percent tothe land side of the business. But
if I looked where ninety percent ofmy profit was coming from, guess where
it was at Where I was onlyspending ten percent of my time. So

(09:22):
in twenty twenty two, I wishI was smart enough to have seen the
riding on the wall beforehand. Intwenty twenty two, I lost money on
several houses on large parcels of land, so I decided, Okay, I'm
going to stick to what's really makingme money. So since twenty twenty two,
I haven't even touched the house,and it's been wildly profitable. I've

(09:43):
dug myself out of those holes thatI dug in. I had a lot
of money in those houses, andI ended up having the short sell one
of them, and I'm still Ialmost paid off that lender, and I
took out a second mortgage on oneof my rental properties to keep paying my
team because I didn't want to layanybody off, and it was just the
ego thing. It really was.Now I have a way smaller team.

(10:05):
I don't develop land. I justbuy the land and I resell it,
and I prefer to resell it onseller financing to where I'm the bank and
I get payments for many many yearsafterwards. That's where passive income comes from.
That's where lifestyle freedom comes from,geography freedom, because every time I
do a deal, if I getpaid for many years after that, it's
almost like I just get the revenueand the dividends and the income stream.

(10:28):
But if I do a deal todayand you buy the land from me cash,
yeah, I get a pop ofmoney. Now I got to do
something with that money. Right.A lot of people are like, don't
you sell your Because I have seventysomething notes. They're like, don't you
sell your notes? Why would Isell a note at seventy per cents on
the dollar when I can collect Imean I collected over forty nine thousand dollars
and just interest last year interest payments, and that's nothing compared to what we're

(10:50):
going to do this year. Soit's just like when I look at that
number back in twenty fifteen, twentysixteen, twenty seventeen. I used to
do these on zero percent loans whenI didn't know what I was doing.
I still don't know what I'm doing. I've been doing this for nine years.
I'm still learning every day. Ijust read this book called invest in
Debt by Jimmy Napier, I openingeye opening. I always thought I was

(11:11):
being greedy by charging interest when Iwas making a three x return. If
I buy the land for nine thousand, I sell it for twenty seven thousand,
I was like, who am Ito charge interest? Well? Then
I started borrowing money from other peopleand I was like, okay, I've
got a charge interest. And thebanks do it. The banks are the
biggest, prettiest buildings in every city, in every state. They know something
about about money that I should probablyfollow the success and do what the billionaires

(11:35):
do. And I started putting themon thirty year mortgages because seven years is
the first seven years is like allinterests. What interest are you? If
you don't mind sharing, what interestare you? Is your target? I
should say thirty seven percent? Notjust kidding well, I should always shoot
for twelve percent, But sometimes thebuyer. You know, they might negotiate
or we'll do a deal sooner.I always like to negotiate because heck,

(11:58):
if I mean, anything is betterthan what I used to charge, which
is zero percent. So if theyget me down from twelve to ten point
nine to nine and they feel likethey won, I'm really happy. Absolutely,
that's right. Okay, So areyou entitling or when you say you're
you're buying land and you're selling land, that's it. Yeah, I've done
a couple entitlement plays that take longerthan I want. They're more work than

(12:22):
what I want to do. I'mreally and I don't say this in the
negative way. I'm like a lazyland investor. I want to I want
to be profitable today and forever.So I've got a deal we're selling right
now for one point four million.Yeah, we entitled that one. But
that was a lot of work.I don't want to do that anymore.
It took a couple of years.That's amazing. So I mean, I

(12:43):
guess that's going to lead into howdo you find these deals? Because I
would say my own experience has beenmost of the land. I guess,
you know, obviously, it alwaysdepends on the market. You know what
direction the market's going, and thenall the dynamics of that market, supply,
demand and all that stuff. ButI would say, of the land
that I purchased in the past,I probably could have sold it, but
I felt like doing the work onthe entitlement side really increased the multiple as

(13:07):
far as you know what you couldsell it for. Right, So I
did write this down the lazy landinvestor. I'm I'm fine being a lazy
land investor. Yeah, well,how do we do that? Yeah?
So okay, For instance, that'sfunny, Like I have a couple of
parcels of land in Colorado right nowthat that was just purchased. And going
back to this, I want toI want my land to sell faster than

(13:28):
everyone else's because a lot of peopleare like, well, why do you
do land? It sits forever,It takes forever to sell. Exactly.
Well, if I figure out whateverything else is for sale, and I
priced mind less and I offer financingoptions or financing availability like mine is a
no brainer to choose. So Ijust sold. I had sold these two
parcels many years ago on seller financing, and I took them back. I

(13:50):
paid nine thousand for both of them, and I had sold them I think
the first time for like twenty seventhousand total. Well, they had paid
me several thousand. I think Igot almost all my money back out of
this land deal. Well, Ijust resold him a few months ago for
fifty five thousand total. They gaveme fifteen thousand down, and I'm financing

(14:11):
the rest at ten point nine tonine. That's where at ten point he
was a negotiator. But he wantsto pay interest only for thirty six months
with a balloon of thirty six months. And I'll never take the property.
I'll let them refinance, but I'llcharge them a fee for that restructure or
the refinance. So this is abuilder. He's a builder. He puts

(14:31):
tiny homes on these He's going throughall the processes of you know, developing
this land, getting it changed forhis zoning, which he actually didn't need
to change that. So I preferjust to be the guy to provide that
opportunity for someone that's got boots onthe ground they want to work it.
I could do this from anywhere inthe world. I mean I was doing
land deals from Costa Rica the otherday, like after surfing, and I

(14:54):
only I made sure I didn't work. We were only there for six days,
so I only did like one landdeal while I was there because it's
just pass up. But how doI find it? You asked, how
do I find this parcels of land? So it starts with we want to
know where the demand's at, whereland is selling, because I used to
go out and buy a land inthe middle of nowhere and then create demand.
Now I prefer to go where thedemand is at and get the land

(15:15):
deals under contract and buy them then, because then I'm feeling demand rather than
creating demand. I want to bean order taker. It's way easier.
You know, welcome to McDonald's.How can I take your order? And
that's no disrespect for anybody that worksat McDonald's, Like I'm just saying,
I want to be that person wherethey come to me. So I go
and I look on redfin and Zillow. I go to where the land.
I want to see the last threeto six months of where land's selling.

(15:37):
You can start anywhere, like startin your own backyard if there's no land
in your own backyard moving and thengo somewhere else you don't have to physically
be there. Once I figure outwhere the land pockets are selling the parcels,
I'll go down to the neighborhood,subdivision, community level and I'll figure
out what it's selling for, andthen I make I generate offer letters to
them. If anybody wants to copymy offer letter, go to the land

(15:58):
Sharks for slash Lol. It willbe emailed to you. Just give it
a few seconds. If it doesn'tcome to you, then reply back and
someone on my team will send itto you. But that's how we do
it. That's how I'm finding theseland deals. So okay, I want
to first go back and unpack thatdeal you just described. So the your
first buyer was that one hundred percentYou bought it for nine nine thousand?

(16:21):
Yeah, the two parcels for ninethousand, and do you just do you
just buy it and cash out youryou own it? Yeah? Most of
the time, sometimes these sellers willsell or finance me for principal payments.
So what does that mean? Theywant? They want decent payments, So
I'll give them decent payments that zeropercent interest so which really cool, Like
every time I pay them a paymentthat the balance comes down. But yeah,
those I bought cash. Do youallow one hundred percent finance when you

(16:45):
sell or are they giving you likea depositor down payment. I used to
be pretty close to one hundred percentfinancing. I did a lot of deals,
a lot of deals where we wouldjust get one thousand dollars down,
so like seven fifty of that wouldgo towards their down payment. The other
two fifty would be a documentation fee. But I see those we call those
will eventually default if they don't putat least five grand down, They're pretty

(17:08):
much gonna guarantee the default, mostof them. Nostly, that's a good
let's least sixty five percent of them, that's a good nugget right there.
You're basically I mean, you gota great deal, and depending on what
you're selling it for, it's likeyou've got this note, but if you're
not getting the upfront money, it'slike you don't want it to unwind down
the road if you could help it. Although in this case, I don't

(17:29):
think you're too bummed out about takingit back and selling it for fifty plus.
Yeah, you know, it's it'sactually been very well for me.
I've kind of I used to hearold time land investors brag about this,
and I was like, that's ridiculous, Like why would you brag about that?
But I'm seeing it happen more andmore, and it's just one of
those things. It's just you usuallyget your money on the first first buyer,
and the second buyer is like pureprofit and you sell it for more.

(17:52):
Because some of this land I've ownedsince twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen,
I'm reselling it now in twenty twentyfour. Like if you look at what
land values have done and guess whatthe values could go down, Like right,
we can have a market shift tomorrow. And if I'm buying most of
this stuff at less than fifty centson the dollar, So in two thousand
and eight, like did it likeif it was worth one hundred, did

(18:15):
it go past fifty or below fifty? Most of the stuff didn't know.
So I should be in a prettygood position. I can tell some horror
stories, but that we'll save that. I don't want to. I don't
I want to stay positive here.That was somewhat unique. Obviously, it
was the one hundred year flood thatwe got in the middle of there,
So I guess let's get back toOH. I was going to ask you,
do you ever option or do youusually take them down? I try

(18:37):
and take them. I always preferto take them down. I have assigned
contracts before, where I'll give itunder contract and assign my contract, but
I don't really do as much ofthat anymore now that I've got my own
funds. I live off the profitfirst system. I also have tons of
lenders people that want to lend memoney on land deals, because you know,
if I'm buying this stuff at likefifty sixty cents on the dollar,

(18:59):
my lenders are in a amazing positions. Most of the time, we put
them in the first position, andI mean like ninety nine percent of the
time to whether the first lean holder, we record their lean, give them
a mortgage or a dieda trust anda promisory note. We get them a
lenders a title insurance policy. SoI do everything I can that put them
in the best positions. And sometimeslike these lenders want to stay on board

(19:19):
with me longer, so we'll sellour finance to land and they're paid nine,
ten to eleven percent interest on theirmoney for years, and I'm selling
it for like twice as much,so it's a beautiful arbitrage. Oh that's
great. Okay, let's go backto finding deals. You'd mentioned, you
know, Zillow redfin, So you'reusing that to basically just see what areas

(19:40):
or markets or whatever are you know, are active? Is that right?
So you're looking for active buyers.Yeah, and then you go out do
you go to like a public recordtitle company data and find out find the
landowners and that's who you then targetvery similar Yes, So once I figure
out where the sales are happening,I then target all the landowners in that
area and I give them an offerthat will make me money on that deal.

(20:03):
So I use propstream. I loveusing propstream to pull those lists.
And if anybody wants a seven dayfree trial, just go to the land
sharks list dot com and you canliterally start pulling a list tonight. They'll
let you pull up to fifty recordsand mail those guys. Mail them that
letter that I already gave you.If you're like, what do I offer,
then look at what's what the stuff'sselling for? You know, it's

(20:26):
just a step by step system weteach in the land sharks community. I
mean We're getting guys and gals,women and men their first deal usually in
like forty five days, and nowI mean they're getting paid on this stuff.
So it's just like my first landdeal, I made five thousand bucks
and like I just couldn't believe it, Like and it was like two hours

(20:48):
of work. Actually it was morelike two and a half because I with
drove to the land. But Iwas like, I work for a whole
entire month and I'm working thirteen fourteenhour days in this military and I make
like forty five hundred a month.And that's that's after I'm sorry, that's
before taxes. You know, that'samazing. Yeah, you start, you
start doing the math on the hour, you're hourly rate. It's not a
bad thing to work for twenty fivehundred bucks an hour. I don't want

(21:11):
to do that because I don't wantto depress myself. I'd like to stay
positive. Okay, And so youfind it, you determine the markets,
you reach out, you get ahot one, you take it down.
Then what Yeah, so once Ionce I get it under contract, I
start I want to double check mynumbers first, you know, once they
sign that offer letter and send itback whether email facts and yes, they

(21:33):
fax it back. It's crazy.I pay twelve dollars a month for my
facts and they usually get a faxevery two months. It's a pretty good
ROI on that fax that twelve dollarsa month. It's electronic facts, my
facts dot Com. But now Igo to the land Selle specialist real estate
agents. Hey, where's will yousell this lamb for me? Will you
list it for me? What doyou think it's worth? What if you
were to buy this? Pretend you'rethe real estate agent? How do I

(21:55):
find you? First of all,I go back to red finland Zelo and
I see who's selling all the land, who is listed by, who it's
bought by. Because I don't wantto deal with like Uncle Bob that's got
a real estate license and he sellsone house a year. No, I
want to deal with like Daniel Casanathat sells thirty parcels in a month.
You know that guy knows the area. So I say, how dam can
you go look at this area forme? I need you to get boots

(22:18):
on ground, especially if it's inthe hills or the mountains, like does
it have a million dollar view ornot? Type thing. Is it in
the valley? Like? Does itdead end? Is is it? Like?
I bought land that I never wentand looked at before. So I
learned this the hard way. Bythe way, this is worth a million
dollars right here, just this onetip. I bought land that you couldn't
get to and like, I neverlost money on it, but I pretty

(22:40):
much, you know, sold itfor the same exact price I bought and
I had to sell her finance it. So I send that realtor to go
look at it. Listen, yougot to go look at it. I
want to know, Rod, ifyou were to buy this land, if
you were to put your money intothis land, what would you list it
for to sell it in thirty days? I want the blowout price. I
want to get or done now,as if it's still sitting there in six
months or fired. That makes sense. You cut through all the bs putting

(23:06):
it in those terms. Yeah,because everyone was like, I can't believe
he's so cocky like that, Wellhow did I how did I learn this?
I dealt with enough and I don'twant to call him bad realtors.
They just thought that they could popit on the MLS and sell it for
me. No, that's not howit works. Like we're dealing with my
money, not someone else. Andit's like I'm not dealing with like you
know, this is not a publiccorporation where investors are happy to see one

(23:30):
percent. No, I want likea three hundred percent return, right so
you know, yeah, we cutthrough the bolt the bs and you know
some will some won't. So whatwe just call the next one right now?
I think getting that feedback. Wehad a I was in Idaho doing
my land development part of eight andwe had the land dog. You know,
he was he was wearing his boots, you know, maybe not the

(23:52):
most most professional looking guy, buthe was the guy that was knocking on
doors and getting stuff in contract andselling it. So yeah, those guys
are invaluable. Yeah, yeah,Okay, you mentioned you've got lenders.
And by the way, I wanteveryone to go check out the landsharks dot
com and I will share some ofthe land shark list and the loo on
in the show notes, so youguys can go there and kind of check

(24:14):
it out. The Optimized real Estatepodcast YouTube channel, and and my website,
Rod dash Wilson dot com. Butanyway, as far as lenders,
I'm sure people are going to bewondering, well, where do I go
to finance these What would you adviseand do you share you know, your
sources on that. So like tofinance a piece of land to buy,
So I don't use banks. Idon't want to deal with banks. I

(24:37):
usually have the land seller finance meetor I use regular people like my plumber,
my in laws, my neighbor,people that hear me on these podcasts.
Guys, I go out and youknow, I have a real estate
meet up. I teach people whatI do. You know, there's there's
no shortage of capital out there.Banks really don't lend on land. They
really don't. And I'm not goingto go and plead my case. Now.

(25:00):
If I asked enough of them,I'm sure I could find one.
I think Mid Florida Credit Union willdo lot loans, but you've got to
come up with fifty percent down.I don't want to deal with thanks at
all. Do you know do youknow j Connor? Have you? I
love Jay Connor? I got abook somewhere over here. Absolutely I do
too. I have his book veryclose. But yeah, he's he's amazing.
We had a podcast so for thoseof you go back and watch there

(25:22):
we go. That's it. Yeah, where to get the money now?
Yes, great book, tons ofgreat tips and anyway, we're definitely worth
a read. Opened my eyes andbrain to that you know how to approach
individual investors and kind of private money. Well, listen, I really appreciate
the time, Brent. I mean, this has been awesome. Again for

(25:44):
those of you listening, I encourageyou to check out the landsharks dot com.
I've done land and I've had successand failure, and I think,
you know, this is kind ofthe point of this is really to share
someone like Brent who's doing it right, and he's what I call paid the
dumb tax. He's done things wrongand he's figured it out. He's now
sharing all the nuggets, all thetricks and strategies. I still pay the

(26:04):
dumb tax from time to time.I think that's why you know this is
such a great business. I learnedit on every landale. Almost We almost
lost a ninety five thousand dollars dealprofit deal today by a dumb little mistake.
Thank god our title agent saved it. Now, if I had just
some random title agent that's not usedto working with investors, we would have
been done done. We would havelost that whole deal. I would have

(26:26):
cried. But thank god I foundan investor friendly title agent. How did
I find her? Because I askedinvestors in the area. It was it
investor? Or was it land?Even this was a parcel of land,
But I mean that there was somuch investors and assignment fees and all these
things. Okay, she knew whatto say when the seller got a little

(26:49):
freaked out when she saw things changing, and it's like, listen, it's
okay, these guys will close.And I was prepared to close it,
but the neighbor came to us wantingto buy it really bad. So I
my closing three days and we werestill early. We're still gonna be closing
earlier than what we said on thecontract. So I want to underpromise and
over deliver to all of our sellers. But the seller was like, why
did this name change? What's goingon? And I told my agent,

(27:12):
I said, listen, if shewants my name back on it, i'll
close it today. I'll wire themoney. Don't let this stop the sale.
That is actly I think I've providedin prior either podcast or even some
quick tips and stuff is that's ahuge nugget, right, there is the
right title title in escrow, havingpeople that are savvy with investors, and
then obviously in your case, themore they know about the intricacies of land

(27:36):
investing even better, you know.Yeah, yeah, and you better believe
there's gonna be a lunch for thistitle agent in her whole office next week,
because yeah, it's like you.You want to get in good graces
with your title company, figure outwhat they like for lunch. Send them
a lunch on the day and timethat they want it, usually on a
Friday. Do the same thing foryour real estate agent office, your lender.
I used to use a hard moneylending group. I would send them

(27:59):
lunch all the time. Just littlethings like that, and I mean like
full lunches, like dessert, snacks, drinks, like just let them have
a party. And I would nevereven go to them that they would just
have a great party. That's greatidea. I love it. Well,
listen, Brandon, it was superfun catching up and going through this.
I think I like the model.I love all of the nuggets and tips
you shared today, So again,appreciate the time. Yes, my pleasure.

(28:22):
Rod, thanks for having me,God bless man. Last thing is,
can we get one of those landhats on your website? No,
I need to do that. Ineed to add let's talk more about it.
But I need to add that tothe to a merch store or something.
I'm getting a lot of requests andI keep ordering them. We just
keep sending them. I love itall right. Well, that's all for
now, everybody. Thanks for joining. Thanks for joining another Optimized real Estate

(28:47):
podcast. If you want to findme, you can go to roddash Wilson
dot com and you can find allthe past recordings on my YouTube channel Optimize
real Estate Podcast on YouTube. AndI I wanted to share with you that
the content shared here is information forinformation purposes only, and I thought i'd
share a little disclaimer. The contentshared here is for information purposes only,

(29:10):
and I am not making any claimsthat the information or opinion shared are true
or correct, or that you shouldtake any action or expect to achieve similar
results. You should not rely onanything that is said here as financial,
illegal or tax advice, and youshould always consult your own financial, illegal
and tax advisors.