I hope you are doing well.
On May 6th – I blogged about how I make cash flow investing in raw land.
On May 20th – I blogged about what people do with the land they buy which drives the demand for this type of real estate.
Then, on June 2nd – I blogged about why current land owners have such a hard time selling their land.
My Start in Raw Land Investing
Today, I’d like to describe how I started this “land” business and what I accomplished in 2018-2019. Back in my blog on May 1, I mentioned that I started my land business in 2017.
I started by making offers on land parcels and made my first purchases in December 2017.
At the same time, I had started marketing the land and got my first sale in February of 2018. It was a cash sale.
I had paid approximately $650 for the parcel and sold it for $5999 cash about 3 months later. That’s when I knew this could work.
Throughout 2018…
I continued to buy land and market the land.
Building inventory…
I built up enough inventory that I always had options when I found serious buyers. I wanted to always have 20-30 parcels for sale at any given time.
Learning about marketing…
I learned that marketing was the biggest challenge and that I needed to spend most of my time on the marketing side of the business in order to make this business scale up.
I had no experience with marketing, so I spent a lot time and effort learning from experts, experimenting to see what would work, trying new things and continually working to generate potential buyer lead flow.
Hiring employees…
I hired virtual assistants (VAs) to handle the due diligence and research aspects, as well as to mail the offers under my guidelines.
In today’s economy and with the technologies available on the internet, its amazing how easy it is to hire people from anywhere in the world to perform small tasks for my business.
Online tools…
I have used tools like Zoom since 2017 to have video calls with my VAs, Process.st to document processes and create checklists to make it simple for the VAs to follow directions, Upwork.com and Fiverr.com to find and hire people for any kind of task, online payment tools to pay them, etc. etc.
I had enough sales to cover these costs. I also automated as many processes as I could; there are so many tools available on the internet these days.
This gave me more time to spend on the marketing and sales side of the business.
Overall, it continued to grow throughout the year.
What I learned in 2018 was that I could make this business work and that marketing is extremely important and I had more to learn.
As the year transitioned to 2019…
I knew I was taking a new full-time job and I would not be able to spend much time on the land business.
But I wanted to keep growing the business.
I partnered with another land investor where he would handle all the sales and marketing and earn a share of the profits based on their sales. We worked together to find ways to make the business grow and we had some success.
As the year progressed, I found other successful land investors that were interested in partnering to share profits and those partnerships developed to where I was the capital partner and they were the operations/sales partner.
What I learned in 2019 was that I could successfully partner with other people to create even more opportunities to invest and even take on passive investors’ money and give them a very good return on their money.
2020 Plan…
As it got to be late in 2019 and I wanted to start focusing on other types of real estate, I realized that being the capital partner with other land operators was a very similar model to how I wanted to invest in the other types of real estate.
So, I set out a plan to transform my land business into that type of model. That became complete by the end of 2019 and is how I invest in land in 2020 and will continue to do so in the future.
There are now several land operators that I partner with to fund the land they buy and sell and we share in the profits. I have continued to find ways put money to work from passive investors and give them a good steady return on their money.
My Real Estate Companies
I have operated inside my LLC called Match Real Estate Partners LLC since I formed it in 2015.
In 2018, I also formed another entity called MLDJ Land Holdings LLC with a minority partner.
In 2020 and going forward, MLDJ Land Holdings LLC will be my primary entity that I use to invest in land. Match Real Estate Partners LLC will be my primary operating company for my new real estate ventures.
Let’s Talk
If you’d like to have a conversation about land or any other types of real estate, feel free to email me or set up a call with me or just call me if you already have my phone number. I’d love to hear what you think.
For now, be safe and take care of your family.
Mark