All Forum Posts by: Matthew Bailey

Be careful to read the CCRs if it’s in a subdivision. Often you cannot subdivide land already within a subdivision, and if you can’t it will be covered in the CCRs.

What are the largest wholesale operations that you’re aware of? Folks doing more than 10 deals/month? I’ve heard of Simple Wholesaling and New Western.

What are other large operations you’re aware of, and how many deals/month do they do?

@Joshua Roberts I have real estate in my LLC name in CA. If I could do it again I wouldn't. It's not a big deal but certain lenders flag real estate as risky by default, so having it in your name gets you an auto red flag in certain scenarios. Moreover it's a lot of extra letters that you don't need. Keep it simple so you can make a URL out of it and don't need to type "real estate" every time you want to refer to your company.

Try looking up other words to avoid, idk of “investments” is bad or “equity” etc

I now have two acquisitions people fielding my incoming seller calls, my first person ran out of bandwidth and I feel that we've streamlined the process sufficiently that it makes sense to bring on a second person (also nice to have some redundancy, and my first acquisitions person does other roles in the business). Does anyone have more than one person as an acquisitions person? I'm trying to find a way to streamline the business while still being personal, for example, my mail piece says "email NAME@company" not "Acquisitions@company" or "SellMyProperty@company". I like that it has a name there, however as the years go by and I acquisitions people inevitably leave the company I suppose my direct mail letters will become out of date, and people will be getting different people when they call in. Not to mention I'll have to track those emails and make sure they all always forward so I don't lose leads from old mailers.

Does anyone feel like they've found a good way to "people-proof" and "time-proof" how we handle the incoming emails? Is it best to change to generic email address and stop referencing individuals altogether? Should I have everyone email through on "Team@company" email or "Support@Company"? Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated!

@Braden C.

Thanks Braden, I’ll check it out. I am a part of two masterminds and they’re great for sharing tips and tricks for working the land business and getting through day to day issues but not necessarily an ideal fit for scaling a business to the level that I’m intending.

I think the best way to grow into the next stage of my business would be to surround myself with people who have successfully built a team and scaled a business. Presently I’m trail blazing in my two masterminds on this particular front, “developing CRMs, processes, hiring practices, compensation plans, team building”. It’s the old “you don’t want to be the smartest guy in the room” and I won’t claim that I am the best/smartest land investor in either group, but when it comes to building a business I think I am. So if that’s where I want growth it’s best to seek out folks who have that goal and more importantly have achieved it.

I also think that I’d have value to add to the conversation with a conventional wholesaler as I have a lot of experience with Podio development and process development as well as a different perspective since I do land and presumably they do houses. And little conflict of interest since we’re in different asset classes.

Hey Luke, thanks for the quick reply. Yes I've been a member of REtipster for about 3 years now. Haven't messed with the LandGeek but he's not my cup of tea from my listening to podcasts and other investors (to each their own). There's a million "land coaches" and training programs out there but none of which feel like they've really scaled things besides just adding some efficiency but still working in the business to a very significant extent. I didn't mention this in my first post but I don't get the impression that too many of the successful land investors have scaled past that. Plenty of people have outsourced basic things to VA's but most people couldn't walk away from their business for any significant amount of time without it grinding to a halt. So I'm looking to folks outside of the land community for a fresh perspective.

If you know of someone who has multiple acquisitions people that they've onboarded, and has people managing sales, and due diligence, and even prepping mailers/comping properties (I'd still sign off on this stuff) then I'd love to hear about them.  But from all of the land content I consume, the big names (even in coaching) still do significant work and have only a few employees, which is a great upside to the land business, but they still take buyer/seller phone calls themselves etc etc

I am looking to scale my wholesale business (I invest in land not houses) so I'm looking for successful wholesale business (can be homes) that do significant volume to model my business after.  I figure the BP community will know of large scale wholesale operations (like 100's of deals/year).  Then I can look to those business as a model for what mine could look like.  Perhaps those business have their own podcast, group, etc that I could become a part of to help shorten the learning curve when it comes to scaling.  Even if they have no educational material it would be great to hear examples of people who really built a proper business out of wholesaling.

Hey BP folks!  I run a real estate wholesale business.  Technically I wholetail vacant land, I.e. I buy and sell parcels of land (not assigning the contracts).  Year to date (~8 months) I've sold 22 properties and the business is in great shape fundamentally.  It isn't quite where I would like to to be, I still work IN the business more than I need to and in order to really scale I need to get myself out of the trenches a little bit so I can do the high level tasks to really cram the acquisitions pipeline and scale.

I currently have a few virtual assistants, one working acquisitions (talking to seller leads/negotiations) and one doing due diligence, marketing prep work, and posting properties for sale. I am currently onboarding a second person to due acquisitions (as I cannot increase direct mail volume any further on my current acquisitions VA) and another to handle sales (as I cannot keep up with the incoming buyer leads & follow up and still plan & execute mailers, my "one thing").

I have excellent written procedures in place (per E-Myth and "Work the System books) and a fairly developed CRM to manage deal flow through all of the processes, now I just need to scale up.

My question is this, is anyone aware of a good educational space, group, coaching program, course, etc to help me in this endeavor?  I know BP is a great community but I'm looking for a more pointed space without the extra noise.  I'd love to surround myself with people who've done it before, I.e. successful wholesaling companies who have experience determining compensation, KPI's, onboarding, etc for a wholesale team and manage large volume.  The nice thing is that I won't be wholesaling houses, so I'm not direct competition to them and we could learn from each other.

Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

@Ebony Henderson no problem, best of luck!

@Ebony Henderson

This is definitely a viable strategy. I invest exclusively in vacant land. There of course is due diligence you need to do.

The hard part (IMO) is knowing what builders are willing to pay. You can look on Zillow/Realtor/etc for new construction in those subdivisions and call those builders and try to sort out their acquisition criteria. There are some rules of thumb like “X” percent of the sale value of the new build. But I’ve seen some areas where those don’t apply. Be careful because the “for sale” value of lots may not necessarily be near the price where it makes sense as an investment, that might just be where homeowners are buying. You can sell to them too but don’t confuse the two valuations.

You also need to know what due diligence buyers do and make sure you don’t buy lots with buildability issues (percs/can fit a septic system, correct zoning, setback issues, wetlands, etc). The builders can help you with that potentially.

As for courses LandAcademy has an infill lot specific course that’s pretty good. RETipster.com also has a great educational material on land for free.

My advice, if you want to take action quickly, go on Zillow, filter by new construction, call those builders and see if you can bird dog for them (source deals), learn their acquisition criteria then go find those deals. Use direct mail to send letters to land owners that fit that criteria and negotiate a good enough deal to wholesale it to the builders.

While you’re doing that research those two land courses/websites and learn about land. But take action if you can, that’s the best way to learn. Don’t buy anything without the blessing of a builder (wholesale to them) and you can’t get that hurt.