Questions about starting out with land flipping

[Ryan Miller]

Hi everyone - 

So, I'm new and looking to get into RE investing. I'm intrigued by land flipping for multiple reasons: low $ barrier to entry, overall simplicity (vs dealing with leases and tenants and property management, etc), and ability to do it while working a full time job. My initial goal is to develop enough passive income to pay my monthly mortgage payment, and then grow from there, depending on where things go and how scalable I can manage to make the workflow. I've been researching the process and digging into different ways people execute on how they do land flipping (such as listening to @Seth Williams interview several years ago, and reading the trove of information he has on his webpage, retipster.com), and determining what works for me vs what isn't really my style. However, my technical background compels me to dig into some of the weeds of the process, and there are a couple things I have been wondering that I haven't been able to find answers to.

To that end, I figured I'd start by asking some of them here, and see what sort of luck I have with filling in those knowledge gaps:

1) How much do other land flippers worry about things like land perc'ing? Obviously of a piece of land passes a perc test, that can influence the value of said land. Is this something that other folks screen for, or just not give a crap about? Or perhaps it depends on the area? (ie, some areas are virtually guaranteed to perc, whereas others may not be such a sure thing)

2) Do people identify the parcel on the letter/postcard that goes out, so that when the seller calls in or visits the website, they have the pertinent identification info handy? I wouldn't imagine average American Pat having that kind of information right at his/her fingertips. Or do you just do a cross reference of the name with the list that you've pulled so you know which piece of property they are calling in reference to?

3) One of the benefits of dealing with land is that it's simple, and I'd assume far less likely that anyone would get litigious at all - there are no living conditions that have to be maintained, promises about timely repairs, etc. So has anyone had any issues or heard of anyone having any issues with getting sued when flipping land? If so, what sort of issues could come up that could result in a lawsuit? (It's not like land gets broken or anything..) I ask this mostly to determine how necessary a RE attorney is after the first few deals, once I see how the process works - especially when the paperwork for each deal is 98% the same as other deals. Fortunately, my neighbor is a RE attorney, so I do actually plan on enlisting her help and paying her for writing up contracts and guiding me through the first few deals - but I'd imagine that after that, it's fairly cookie cutter and a full on attorney wouldn't be necessarily be needed.

4) Following on question #3, just to get a general idea - is the process and language used in documents pretty much the same regardless of state? I'm still looking at what area I want to start out in, and I'd imagine that when it comes to paperwork for a deed, its pretty standard across state lines, but just curious if there is something else that can be incredibly state dependent.

5) Is it fairly standard to use a loan servicing company when doing seller financing? If using one, does it matter what state its in? Like, could I use the same loan servicing company for all deals, regardless of whether they are in FL, TX, AZ, CA, etc - or is it better to find one for the state that the property is in?

Thanks for any information that can be provided!