I'm in Charleston SC and was looking inland - like Lake Keowee, for example.

Without my handyman skills I could have never started my mini empire with only $5,000 and a lot of luck.

By fixing up the home and refinancing it eventually, you can continue doing the same thing over and over again and thus build your real estate empire.

Does anyone have a good recommendation for an insurance company in Florida that will handle properties held in land trusts ?

Depending on the land it can take anywhere from 6-12 months to finish a cabin and if you do not know what you are looking for in land you can quickly add 20-50K in expenses by purchasing a bad piece of land.If anyone needs convincing of this just shoot me a DM:)  

I don't envy people with empires of single family homes.

Depending on what you want to do California may be a reasonable market for flips, especially the Inland Empire.

Apparently all states besides Pennsylvania allow you to easily put properties in land trusts (just in case you have properties in PA). 

It's less "sexy" than a beachfront condo-tel, but it's a much better option in my book.Or you can be inland a bit where there is far less demand (naturally), but draws for small-town events can make up for it (Dunedin has the Highland Games - bagpipes, caber tossing, and haggis).

We invested in land in Alabang two years ago and are happy to see property values increasing considerably in the past year.