All Forum Posts by: Mason Moreland

In most places for almost anything permanent that isn't ag (storage barn, planting, etc), you will likely need to either engineer to meet floodplain requirements/permitting or find somewhere else.

Happy to take a look at it if you DM me the location, my W2 is environmental consulting and I've done floodplain development permitting for about 7 years, mostly in TX and the gulf states.

Plenty of pockets friendly to those sort of developments in Texas. To put your question in context of breadth however, it is sort of like asking "can you build a house in California?" Yes, but you need to narrow it down a lot to have a coherent answer.

You will have to look at (I'd recommend in this order) the city codes (if it's inside a city, many cities above 50-100k population aren't friendly to development of these), the county codes (most counties are friendly to these, but you will probably have significant issues in major counties like Bexar, Travis, Dallas, Denton, Tarrant, Harris, etc), then you will have to comply with the state-level (TCEQ and others) on the water supply and waste water treatment systems.

To put it in perspective again, in say Dallas or Austin, you will likely have prohibitions or very significant hurdles on developing RV or tiny home properties even on unincorporated, "unrestricted," AG-zoned properties at both the city/municipal level and county level. Meanwhile, in unincorporated areas of Smith County, there isn't even such a thing as a building permit. All you have is either deed restrictions or state-level regs on septic/water supply. Many areas are still like that in TX (no permitting office, no building permits or zoning), while others are highly restrictive like (Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Etc).

@Faye Carroll, is it requiring a SWPPP? This is part of the national NPDES process which is typically delegated to the state's DEQ agency.

If so this is pretty easy/basic in most places. Any decent environmental consulting or engineering firm can knock one out pretty quick and inexpensively in most cases. Here in Texas we have several blanket SWPPP plans that apply to certain projects of certain sizes you can operate under.

DM me and I can connect you with someone local who would know more and either be able to help you take care of it by getting the SWPPP done for the loggers or if they can't they could direct you to someone that could help! My W2 is environmental consulting, but obviously I'm located in TX. We have offices (and engineering firm connections) nationwide though.

@Jose Grimaldo glad to see another investor from the area! My advice centers around one word: action. Take a step, any step, and use the result to identify and take the next step.

Step 1: Define your risk tolerance - all relative; high, moderate, or low? This will dictate what strategies you investigate based on the leverage, timeframe, and other risks required of you. This step allows you to call financial institutions with some ideas of what to explain to them of what you want to do. Write the strategy(s) out on paper before going to steps 2 & 3 and try to condense and simplify the explanations of the strategy(s) as much as possible, 3-4 steps, focusing on the questions of "How is this creating value/cashflow?" and "What is the end-goal/steady state that is desired?" and NOT focusing on the mechanics of the financing or minutia of the process. 

IE: House Hacking - 1) Identify a 2-4 unit property I can live in and rent the other units such that net rents cover most of or exceed the mortgage payment, goal: live rent cheap-or-free; 2) Secure long-term fixed rate mortgage/debt; 3) Hold and live in the property as I focus on honing my property management systems/skills and accumulate of capital for the next deal.

Step 2: Call financial institutions (local banks, I'd start with Happy State. credit unions, Frost, etc) and figure out financing options for your chosen strategies. Make clear you don't have a deal right now, but want to know the mechanics and structures that would work with your chosen strategies. Start building relationships with these lenders now! Set up a reminder on your phone to call the institutions/each contact on your list every 3-45 days regularly. This should be done concurrent to Step 2, once you have a couple possible strategies outlined.

Step 3: Analyze deals using strategies that fall within your risk tolerance. This is a numbers game and the most important step, the more houses/duplexes/etc you analyze, the more you will learn and start to see trends and what strategies may work in your area. This is also the easiest step to get stuck in (analysis paralysis, so UPFRONT set criteria (% CoC yield, debt coverage ratio, etc) that means you WILL take it to your financial institution and then put in an offer on it. Do this step every day from now on, set a quota for how many you'll do a day and stick to it.

Step 4: Whatever you need to work on in your life to have the means to execute a deal based on your chosen strategy(s), start making changes to your life to make it possible NOW! They may or may not need to be drastic depending on how bad you want to move quickly.

Step 5: Pick a deal that pencils out and try to make it happen. Set a goal for yourself to make a certain number of offers/week or month and hold yourself accountable by telling others what you'll be doing. If you aren't finding enough deals that pencil out to meet your goal, that means you need to either analyze more deals (increase throughput first!), shift your strategy, shift your target asset class/area, or revisit the financing structure.

The key is taking that first step and not EVER ceasing to move forward. By just trying to do something, anything, in any strategy or asset class, you will immediately start learning and making connections which will lead you to where you are "meant to be." Don't forget Lubbock is still a small town at heart and RE thrives off of human relationships. The more people you talk to about RE, help out generally, and befriend, the faster your career will accelerate. 

I went from W2-->SFR live-in-then-rent-->SFR purchase and rent-->SFR live-in fix-and-flip-->small MF/townhomes-->Medium MF and failed-->wanting to buy a farm but the deals stunk-->more small MF/townhomes-->finding vineyards and learning to underwrite them-->2 years figuring out and putting first vineyard deal together-->now building a winery services business-->syndicating development of wine grape vineyards in our area to grow an empire.

The point is this: Life is unpredictable and fun, unless you're doing nothing. If you're doing nothing, the outcome is known and that is boring.

If there is ever anything you'd like an opinion on, please feel free to to DM me. We (me and @Matt Moreland) have been involved in the Lubbock market for a good bit and are always excited to help someone else grow and learn.

You're going to be hard pressed to find vacant land close to Irving! That's in the belly of the beast and it has been in development since.....forever. I'm sure there are still parcels left but competition will be stiff. Best bet is looking towards Denton, the Mid-Cities (between Ft. Worth and Dallas), outside of Ft. Worth, and northeast of Dallas (Rockwall, Lake Lavon area, etc). Still has vacant land and seeing significant growth in the outlying areas. For context, I lived 1.5 hours away from where I worked when I lived there... people commute a long ways.

@Gregory Greene Lubbock can be a great market. It is a hub for education, medical, and farming in a vast area that goes from Amarillo down to west Texas and from the Eastern 1/3rd of New Mexico east to Sweetwater.

One thing to look out for in TX is high property taxes, Lubbock being no exception. Be sure to do thorough due diligence to make sure you understand that rates and price into your underwriting the escalation of taxable value/taxes with appreciation. 

In Lubbock @Matt Moreland and his team at KW are a good RE agent contact, he and his group are investor and commercial RE-focused. Full disclosure, he's my brother, so I'm a bit biased :) 

In AZ, almost everything is utility scale, so 2.5 acres isn't going to attract much attention from power purchasers or solar developers. Most are in the 1,000-10,000 acre range.

Probably the best way to leverage solar (photovoltaic or "PV") panel farming is to own land and get a major developer to lease it long term for panels. Or figure out how projects are developed and get one "most of the way" (land leased, site planned, permitted, power purchase agreement signed) and then sell the deal to a big developer.

My perspective: My W2 for the last 8 years is environmental and development consulting for oil & gas, renewables generation, transmission, and commercial RE development.

Hopefully it was helpful @Trey Bonner!

I did check with some of my colleagues on the east coast as well and they agreed that getting a power purchase agreement with (likely) TVA would be the hardest part. Apparently it can be a ldifficult process.

What downsides are you thinking of avoiding RE: leasing vs. developing it yourself?

So I think it is doable to develop and operate one yourself. The main drawbacks to this are that it is very much not passive as this would likely be a full-time job for 3-5+ years to get it stood up, your new entity would be responsible for upkeep and repairs for the next 20+ years, and once the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) is up you'd be responsible for disposing of the aging equipment if they don't want to re-up. Main plusses would be you control the property in full, you learn some valuable skills and potentially create your own business in the field, and you could realize higher annual CoC returns by cutting out the developer/operator. There are several main hurdles to overcome for you to realize the higher returns of ownership over leasing:

- Get all the variables needed to accurately underwrite the deal

- Permitting for the facility (this will likely be a large portion of non-CapEx budget and the timeline)

- Get a PPA with a power company

- Get financing for the deal

- Find and secure a contractor that will correctly build the facility

Edit: One other thing to note, most of the developers in that area are looking for facilities in the 1,000 acre range, so you may have some size/economies of scale disadvantages but that's to be expected vs. large national and multi-nationals. You could consider leasing neighboring land for your installation if it made sense.

Typically look out that they are covering the tax increases (PV panels are an improvement!) for the life of the lease. Have an attorney that is familiar with land usage look through it for sure.