Digital Dirt: Flipping Land in the 21st Century with Logan Swanson

Want to learn more about investing in real estate? Visit www.therealestateinvestingclub.com Interested in investing in my projects? Visit www.kaizenpropertiesusa.com

In this episode of The Real Estate Investing Club, I sit down with land investing expert Logan Swanson to uncover the profitable world of land flipping. Logan shares his journey from working two exhausting jobs with no savings to building a multi-million dollar land investing empire that's given him both financial freedom and precious time with his family.

🔑 EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
Logan reveals how he started with just a $2,000 loan and quickly built a land business that expanded to 14 states within just three years. He breaks down exactly how he finds undervalued land deals, creates passive income through seller financing, and why land investing offers an accessible entry point for new investors with limited capital.

💰 LAND INVESTING STRATEGIES YOU'LL LEARN:
• How Logan was buying land for $50-100 per acre and flipping it for $300+ per acre in West Texas
• Creating passive income through seller financing ($99 down, $99/month deals)
• The power of building a "note portfolio" that generates monthly cash flow with "no tenants, no termites"
• Why focusing on specific geographic areas yields better results than spreading yourself too thin
• How to properly conduct due diligence on land deals (water access, utilities, title issues, etc.)
• The evolution from direct mail to cold calling to relationship-based deal finding
• Why the best deals now come through building a strong network in the land investing community

⚠️ COSTLY MISTAKES TO AVOID:
Logan doesn't hold back when sharing his expensive lessons learned, including:
• The danger of marketing in too many areas simultaneously
• How inadequate due diligence on water access nearly cost him a fortune
• Why title issues are especially common with land deals
• The mistake of blindly trusting third-party data providers for land lists
• How one decimal point error in his pricing cost him $10,000 in wasted marketing

🔍 DUE DILIGENCE DEEP DIVE:
One of the most valuable segments covers Logan's approach to land due diligence, including:
• Checking water line capacity and access
• Understanding potential costs of wells ($10,000-$300,000 in Texas!)
• Navigating easement issues
• Handling title problems and breaks in chain of title
• Why county data is often more reliable than third-party providers for rural land

🎙️ ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Logan Swanson is a successful land investor who's completed hundreds of transactions across multiple states. He hosts The Landfixer Podcast, runs a land marketing website, provides funding for other investors, and leads one of the largest networks of land investors in Dallas.
Want to connect with Logan? Visit thelandfixer.com to learn more about land investing without any courses or upsells.

#LandInvesting #RealEstateInvesting #PassiveIncome #OwnerFinancing #LandFlipping #RealEstateInvestingClub #TexasRealEstate #BeginnerRealEstate #RealEstateInvestor #WealthBuilding #FinancialFreedom #RealEstatePodcast #LandDeals

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Transcript

0:10

[Music] all right welcome back to another episode of  the Real Estate Investing Club i hope you guys  

0:15

are having a great day wherever you are whatever  day it is for you um it is always Friday as I say  

0:23

every episode so we're bringing again that Friday  energy to you um it's gonna be a good day because  

0:28

we're talking about land with Logan Swanson here  on the podcast uh he is a land flipper he is um  

0:35

and also has his own podcast the Landfixer podcast  so for all of you guys who just want to buy some  

0:40

dirt this is the podcast for you um and I do have  to preface all this we are rehabbing my kitchen in  

0:47

the in the other side of the wall um and so there  might be a little bit of background noise but you  

0:52

know it's real estate i'm sure you guys will uh  will understand so with that Logan thank you very  

0:58

much for hopping on the show i'm excited to jump  into this gabe thanks for having me man all right  

1:04

um told you before we got on here we always like  starting with stories we like to hear how people   got to where they are um so why don't you take us  to the beginning of your story and tell us uh how  

Logan's journey from construction project manager to land flipper

1:12

you got here yeah so uh around 2017 2018 I was uh  working as a construction project manager during  

1:24

the day and I was moonlighting at a restaurant in  the evenings uh like a high-end steakhouse here   in Dallas and had three kids married and just no  time for really any of it right i wasn't really  

1:35

able to spend time with my family i wasn't able  to participate in just putting my kids to bed  

1:40

every night um and on top of all that with all my  hard work we had effectively no savings you know  

1:46

we were kind of getting by we were lucky enough  to buy a house early um but we didn't really have   a whole lot else going for us car notes credit  cards everything just seemed to suck every penny  

1:55

out of us so um I said I something's got to change  right and through my uh construction job uh it was  

2:04

commission only so I got a little bit of a taste  for like my first big commission check i closed  

2:09

out a project and I got a $10,000 commission and  I was like you know you were a project manager and  

2:15

it was commission only yes yeah sales and project  management yeah roofing and remodeling in Dallas  

2:22

Fort Worth is a wild beast there's no licensing  you just It's running and gunning so all right  

2:29

um so anyways yeah I got my first big paycheck  $10,000 and it just kind of dawned on me that this  

2:35

world really isn't um designed to make you rich  if you're collecting payments from uh unemployer  

2:43

or at least those opportunities are few and far  between um and I knew the the clip at which I  

2:49

wanted to get my life back on track it wasn't  going to happen working for somebody else so I   started digging into what I could do folks around  me suggested I get into real estate so I started  

3:00

reading and Bigger Pockets and podcasts and all  this and I was like everybody was saying go buy  

3:07

a house you know like go buy a rental home i was  like I could barely afford my house uh you know  

3:13

uh other people said wholesaling and just none of  it really added up for me until finally I kind of   kept going down the rabbit hole and I ran into a  guy who his name is Mark Bolski the land geek and  

3:23

he taught a course on land flipping and I said  wow you know he said you could go buy land for  

3:29

50 bucks an acre 100 bucks an acre and then just  go resell it for two or 30 hundred bucks an acre  

3:35

out in West Texas and New Mexico and some of these  desert arid regions and I said well that's that's  

3:40

more affordable for me you know that's viable um  so I started I like I said I really didn't have  

3:47

money so I went to a family friend of ours who was  kind of a mentor at the time and I got a $2,000  

Starting with a $2,000 loan and scaling to land holdings in 14 states

3:52

zerointerest loan for one year and uh used that  to go send my first direct mail start acquiring  

3:59

land and I've never turned back uh within three  years we had land holdings in 14 states we to  

4:06

date have done I don't know how many hundreds of  transactions funded millions of dollars worth of  

4:12

land transactions um we've grown into more than  just flipping you know we do subdivisions we do  

4:18

uh funding for other investors i have a land  marketing uh website we have a new wholesaling  

4:24

website we've just kind of kept growing and  growing and now with the podcast I'm really just  

4:29

trying to shed light on the industry as a whole  which is more competitive now but there's still   a lot of room to grow within its verticals nice  man yeah I I love having you uh you land I've had  

4:41

Mark on the show um he's very knowledgeable and I  love having you land guys here because it's such a  

4:46

uh unique asset class um for real estate it's  really it is the basis of real estate because it  

4:54

is the land it's it's uh it's what everything is  built on top of that's right foundational so you  

5:00

can't be be more Yeah foundational than land uh  but it's also a really great strategy especially  

5:06

for people who are just getting into real estate  because of exactly the things that you mentioned  

5:11

um that the barrier to entry is a little bit lower  in terms of the capital required for for most you  

5:17

know land parcels i'm not going to say there are  I've you know seen land go for millions of dollars   in inner cities but um but for if you're looking  you know West Texas Arizona some Midwest areas you  

5:29

can find land for pretty cheap um so the barrier  to entry is lower and uh there's still good you  

5:36

know it's not as competitive i I'm not going to  say it's not competitive everything is competitive   but it's not as competitive as you know multif  family um triple net lease that kind of stuff  

5:46

things that are that really have the big dollars  into it so great asset um so yeah I love talking  

5:52

to you guys why don't you you kind of went through  your story you said you got that first deal um and  

5:58

then you said you got you know millions of dollars  later you have you've you've done plenty of deals  

6:04

since then but there is a huge gap in the middle  and that's what we really want to focus on for   people who are interested in this asset class  who want to grow their own own business so  

6:14

um let's start let's start with the the kind of  the catalyst for well after that first deal once  

6:21

you were able to to really establish it into  a business not a hey I did a deal hey I did a   deal but hey this is an actual business that I'm  running um what were the try to pick out like one  

6:33

you know two or three uh things that you did that  allowed you to scale it yeah so well first thing  

6:40

um you know being one of the Mark's students  uh back in the day he he was preached heavily  

How Logan built a "money-making machine" buying land for $50-100/acre and selling for $300/acre

6:46

on owner financing your land generating a note  portfolio um that allowed you to sell land for  

6:52

a higher price point but then also sort of create  a predictable stream of income into your business  

6:58

uh and we heavily relied on that uh kind of two  things happened for us simultaneously uh one we  

7:03

started doing really well in uh this county  Culverson County where we were buying 5 10 20  

7:10

acre tracks of land middle of nowhere uh there's I  think one town in the whole county called Van Horn  

7:16

with a population of like a few thousand people  uh and it's an enormous county um enormous and  

7:24

early on we found somebody who said "Hey I'll buy  any land in this area for roughly $300 an acre."  

7:30

uh he was an oil and gas guy uh and he was sort  of a land collector he was buying speculatively  

7:36

trying to create this patchwork of vacant land uh  because he saw a future and this is what he told  

7:41

me i don't really know he was kind of sketchy  in some ways but he said he had this vision of   Texas being all solar and wind powered and these  solar farms required water because they're all  

7:52

effectively um steam engines i don't I don't know  all the detail actually that That's funny that a  

7:59

uh something that is generating electricity  requires a different source of electricity  

8:04

to power it yeah well I mean I I believe there's  different types but the one that's most efficient  

8:10

is you have this array of solar panels um anyways  I I don't know all the details but so he's like  

8:18

I need I need all this land a patchwork of it  because they're going to eventually need to start   running water lines to all these different farms  that are going to spring up uh and I want my land  

8:28

to be in the middle of all these and I'm going to  get easements and negoti whatever so 300 bucks an   acre i was buying for like 50 to 100 bucks an acre  at the time and there was no shortage of land for  

8:39

me to buy um so very early on we found this like  money-making machine you know we would buy 50 to  

8:49

100 acres at a time get in touch with him uh once  we actually drove out to Midland where he was and  

8:55

you know he would just hand us $26,000 $30,000  um and you know within that first year we I felt  

9:03

like I was stealing you know it was like I was  absconding with money um and then simultaneously  

9:08

we were selling a lot of these properties on owner  finance so we were buying you know 5 acre lot for   $400 and we would sell it for $99 down and $99 a  month for two years or three years um and you take  

9:22

10 of those notes and all of a sudden you're  making $1,000 more a month with no tenants no   termites you know the sort of the classic jazz um  and we did that for a while things slowed down in  

The challenges of balancing cash flow in land investing

9:33

that county we sort of moved closer to the Dallas  Fort Worth area uh where we could actually do more  

9:38

cash flipping which was ended up being like uh  probably one of the most difficult aspects of land  

9:44

is managing cash flow um you're always having to  balance like the cost of acquisitions to the cost  

9:51

of what you're selling to some mix of that will be  sold in notes so it's that's the most challenging  

9:59

part so for those reasons we ended up moving into  areas where we felt we could do more cash deals um  

10:04

then we spread out way too thin i learned a lesson  a very expensive lesson trying to buy land all  

10:11

over the country um and ultimately we found out  the I'm going to pause on that real quick because  

10:16

that was a mistake I I made myself um when I was  just getting started i was flipping homes but  

10:22

uh you know I did some here in Washington and I  was like you know I was getting deals from Google  

10:27

ads because I learned how to do Google ads and I  was running them and I was like you know what i   bet I could get deals all over the country this  way so I did that i I opened up my Google ads  

10:36

to literally the entire United States it's the  worst year deal or it's the worst mistake you  

10:42

can not the worst mistake but it is a mistake  when you do that um you know we preach on this   on this podcast focus in on a niche and that's  both an asset class and an area because there's  

Why expanding too quickly across the US was an expensive lesson

10:54

um especially with if you're doing commercial  properties you you get economies of scale you also  

10:59

understand that area better and you know if you're  doing something like land or or flipping houses or  

11:04

wholesaling or whatever it is if you are marketing  across the United States you have to find buyers  

11:10

for all of those areas good luck it is a nightmare  so sorry I jumped into your story i just wanted  

11:17

that real quick that was the expensive lesson man  and I can recount instances over and over again   where I was just getting in over my skis and you  know luckily we were still buying land at pennies  

11:28

on the dollar for the most part so I can really  only think of a couple deals that we got burned on  

11:34

and we actually lost money um but what we did get  stuck with is long hold times so when you go spend  

11:42

a few thousand dollar on a property or $10,000 or  $20,000 but then it doesn't generate any income  

11:48

for two it's just this big weight on your balance  sheet it's a big headache it's emotionally taxing  

11:53

for us because again I didn't come into this with  wealth or anything like this so the whole idea of  

12:00

um you know just the risks associated with and  having money locked up in something that wasn't   moving um was and I guess still is today one of  the biggest challenges you know we have I don't  

12:11

know like $3 million worth of inventory that's you  know just pending sale we got to go find somebody   to buy this land from us and that's heavily  dependent on the market and and whatever else so  

12:22

um yeah a lot of lessons there but it was this  funny like trend in the industry where everybody  

12:27

said scale your business you know get more more  employees and go do more deals and I got really  

12:32

swept up in that and felt like I could you know  dominate in that arena but now like you said I'm  

12:37

I'm much more interested in the niches um whether  that's a specific area um we like to stay just in  

12:44

Texas really in a few areas in Texas we like to  do our little subdivide projects um and flip areas  

12:52

that we know we can flip in yep yep absolutely um  so yeah land seems you know I've done a few land  

13:01

deals not too many but you know I don't have I  don't have as much knowledge as you on land deals   but um it from the surface it always seems so  simple you buy land you sell it buy land sell it  

13:12

but there's always things that pop up um at least  in my experience the deals that I've done that   just I would have never thought were would be an  issue um so what are the biggest mistakes you see  

13:23

people make when it comes to doing land deals yeah  I mean a lot of it you just get burned in the due  

Common mistakes people make in land due diligence (utilities, title issues, etc.)

13:29

diligence you know we had a deal uh there's a guy  that I'm mentoring right now who's um I'm trying  

13:34

to do the same thing he's kind of starting with no  money i'm teaching him how to like build lists by   himself just operate completely off cold calling  and he's doing a great job but he brought me a  

13:43

deal which the initial underwriting was excellent  this guy was willing to owner finance this 70 acre  

13:49

track to us about an hour and a half south of  Dallas here um there's county road frontage on  

13:55

both sides it was a very simple subdivide into  four lots we would have bought it for around  

14:01

6,000 an acre and the disposition price looked to  be around 12 to 14,000 an acre and on four tracks  

14:08

for a simple subdivision you know we could have  made I don't remember it was a couple hundred,000   or $300,000 something like that in a few months  you know it was a pretty desirable area um we  

14:18

looked into it we kind of played around with the  numbers a little bit we you know started working   at maybe seeing if he could owner finance it so  that our cap capital input was a little lower and  

14:27

we could have a higher cash on cash return and  I started getting this feeling like this guy was   being a little deceptive um so I brought it to my  partner had him help underwrite the deal and he  

14:36

said "Hey you know I'm looking at all these comps  and it seems like a big factor here for valuation   is water." And I said "No don't worry i already  checked there's a water line that runs right past  

14:46

the property you can see homes on either side it's  not going to be an issue um but once we get it   under contract I'll go ahead and contact the water  company and verify all that um but he pushed back  

14:56

on me he said I want you know he's like go check  that out first so I go check that out first and   sure enough this guy that we're buying the land  from he bought it with the intention of doing the  

15:05

exact same thing um and what he did is he reached  out to the water company and the water company  

15:10

says "Hey we no longer have capacity on that  line." Um and the only way for us to run water  

15:16

to you would be to upgrade the line from this  area to this area and then we would have to run   it across the property and then when you factored  in that plus the additional surveying costs and  

15:25

the headache and everything else that would roll  into it it sucked almost all of the profit out of   the deal um and that's something that you know say  you're using a third party due diligence uh person  

15:36

or just lack of experience you could have got  caught up in that and bought a property that you   would have lost money on and it would have taken  you years to get out of it um or you would have  

15:45

had to sell it short so um that's an example but  I mean there's all sorts of zoning bad neighbors  

15:53

um inaccurate surveys inaccurate mapping software  because you're oftentimes just relying on a GIS  

15:58

map or some series of satellite imageries um yeah  water tables if you have to drop a well and you  

16:05

don't know how expensive that well is wells in  Texas can range from $10,000 to $300,000 depending  

16:12

on how deep you have to go um so it is kind of a  different language you have to focus more on like  

16:18

utilities or access to utilities oftent times  easements um easements things of that nature um  

16:25

but then also one thing that we encounter a whole  lot which I think is maybe more common with land  

16:30

is uh messy title issues um breaks in title  cuz yeah you know these affordable properties  

16:35

which is usually where we operate in um oftent  times they're not willed correctly or the will   doesn't get probated or you know so it's very  common to run into a long closing time or you  

16:47

know needing to bring attorneys in to clean  things up or go through the probate process   or do quiet title or something like that um but if  you master that that ends up being a very valuable  

16:58

tool for you yeah that's actually I'm I'm um  curious i'm actually dealing with a property  

17:04

uh when we market for mobile home RV parks which  is what I buy a lot of times we get land because  

17:09

uh um you know somebody had a mobile home park  at one point uh and I'm dealing with this one i  

17:15

actually have it under contract right now and it  was the owners died um and they basically it said  

17:22

in the will or something it was like it it goes  to to their heirs um and but there uh there's a  

17:29

essentially a break in title to the person who  currently owns it because the the original owner   they died in like the n early 1900s and there  was two brothers one both of them have passed  

17:40

one brother didn't have any kids the other brother  had this one daughter and she's the one who owns   it now who's selling to me um but there is that  break because it doesn't directly go to her is  

17:50

that something that can be fixed or um is do those  breaks entitled are those usually things that you  

How to handle breaks in title when purchasing land properties

17:56

pass on there's always a way to fix it now is  there a way to fix it economically i don't know  

18:02

and this does vary dramatically state-to-state but  the sort of founding principle I'm not an attorney  

18:07

but yeah you know I have I have done a lot of  research i've interviewed probate attorneys on my   podcast things like that um but the foundational  underpinning of real estate law in this country is  

18:18

to keep land from going idle like that's the last  thing you want that's why there's all these sorts   of things for like a exemption there's all these  different ways in which the government is trying  

18:28

to push society to utilize land to the best of  their ability um so probate all those laws around  

18:36

um airship are all geared towards making it  possible for land to be used continue to be  

18:44

used yeah yeah so typically there's going  to be a process involved but depending on   where you are that pro process can be as or more  expensive than the property itself um I recently  

18:54

dealt with a probate case on a very inexpensive  piece of land that we were like "This is simple   this this lady died uh it's not a big deal um you  know in Texas there's a separate document that we  

19:05

often file which is just called an affidavit of  airship and we'll just bypass that whole process u   but it didn't work we talked to a probate attorney  and he's like yeah you have to take this in front  

19:14

of the judge and because uh this other person is  effectively being sued for their ownership they  

19:21

have to be represented even if you can't find them  mhm so they were going to say "You have to go hire   what's called a I can't remember now attorney at  Valorum or something like that." Sure okay and it  

19:34

was a nasty process i didn't do it i walked away  from it but it's like yeah you effectively hire  

19:40

an attorney and that attorney has the ability to  represent their non-existent client to as much  

19:48

as they want so they could bill over and over  and over and they'll I mean there's really no  

19:54

cap on what they could bill and you have to pay  for it so you're not only paying your attorney  

19:59

but you're paying this attorney that's operating  against you through the entire process and you   have no ability for and this is you know Texas  it might be different wherever you're this is  

20:09

a Texas property yeah i was like this is insane  um because there's no limits and you can't even  

20:15

call the attorney and be like hey here's the  situation can you give me a quote so you can try   to budget for it um so I just talked to a couple  of the local attorneys and they're like "Yeah uh  

20:24

we we're in the middle of this process right now  and um we're already in it for more than the house  

20:30

is worth so effectively we're just going to have  to walk away from it." Yeah yep that makes sense  

20:35

this uh particular property I'm talking about we  I mean she's going to sell it to me for like 5,000   bucks and I think the market price is like 20,000  and at this point I'm just like nah too confusing  

20:46

well we can talk about it off cam because there  is like I do have sort of a Yeah we'll talk about   it but yeah there's there's a way around it  sometimes um but breaking title that is one  

20:55

thing that happens especially with land there's a  lot of like small title things that I've noticed   i've done you know a handful of land deals and  there's a lot of small title things that pop up  

21:04

that you just don't expect um but then they're  there and you're like [ __ ] how do I deal with   this yep um so yeah let's talk about finding the  deals because that especially for land that is the  

21:14

that's the big driver of your business is finding  these deals so what is your favorite way or how  

21:19

are you guys finding deals now um method wise  yeah yeah right now I'll kind of give you two  

The evolution of land marketing: from easy deals to sophisticated systems

21:26

answers one is the state of the industry and then  what I'm doing so the state of the industry is it   used to be you know when I started uh you could  effectively you know send a carrier pigeon and it  

21:35

would come back with a deed to a property i mean  it was so lowhanging um we would buy a property   for every pieces 100 pieces of mail that we would  send it was really insane wow that is great jesus  

21:46

that is not the case today um there are people who  are running 10 15 20,000 pieces of mail campaign  

21:54

um and not getting a purchase out of it um there's  a few reasons for that most people are just kind  

22:00

of blasting entire counties with really rough shot  pricing or no pricing at all and there's all sorts   of mistakes that the industry itself is making but  um it's definitely more advanced i mean you really  

22:10

have to now understand the areas that you're  marketing to um you need to have your comps dialed  

22:16

in um oftent times to be most effective you're  going to have some sort of multi-touch system so   you're going to like cold call them send them a  letter and then two weeks later you're sending a  

22:25

follow-up postcard and you also skip trace their  email so you can try to run targeted ads at them   if possible like there's there's a lot going on  to really try to get people engaged and for your  

22:35

brand to stand out but um I still believe the  most effective way is to skip trace a list and  

22:42

get on the phones um if you have the stomach  for it that is the least expensive way um you  

22:50

just generate a list either through purchasing  it through a third party um software like data   tree or something or what we do is we aggregate  all the list information from the county maps  

22:59

so we literally I pay someone to go through  and click on each individual parcel gather   all the information off um and what that does is  it pre-scrapes the entire list for me we're never  

23:09

going to click on a property that is irregularly  shaped or entirely in flood zone or doesn't have   road access so it like limits the list to people  with properties that we actually want to buy so  

23:20

it actually makes it cheaper than um buying from  data sorry I'm getting into the weeds but anyways   yeah no no no that's that's good so you go to  the actual county county county website you don't  

23:30

actually um you don't use like property radar is  something that I love to use uh for for single  

23:35

family and land anything like that nope yeah so  land records especially in areas where we want   to operate in are very sparsely populated so um  data tree these third party list aggregators they  

23:48

are very upto-date in like cities uh in highly  populated areas but you know for example one  

23:54

of the areas that we work in is Limestone County  uh Data Tree all these they they have almost no  

24:00

records yeah there's entire counties in Texas that  have inaccurate records yeah title hasn't been   passed in you know 100 years there's a county in  Texas where the courthouse burned down they lost  

Why using county data directly is better than third-party list providers

24:11

everything wow what you're going to do you know  so um I also made and I'll just tell you one of  

24:18

the most expensive mistakes I ever made when I was  in that phase of just kind of buying land all over   the place um I once bought a 20,000 um parcel  list from Data Tree and just priced it within  

24:31

like 10 minutes and sent out the mailer so it was  like $10,000 worth of mail um all of the acreage  

24:38

for that list was one decimal point off so all of  my offers were 10 times more than they should have  

24:44

been got just flooded with calls i will take your  offer everybody was ready to sell i don't know it  

24:49

was crazy uh so yeah I mean I effectively threw  away $10,000 just uh because the not only was the  

24:56

data bad but I was just operating hastily so you  know kind of expensive lesson learned there but  

25:02

um yeah so I don't use those services at all  you want like you need a competitive edge so   your competitive edge in every space should start  with in my opinion the best data possible not the  

25:11

most convenient or the cheapest the best data  y and the county uh if you call the county  

25:18

uh tax office and you say "Hey I need to update  my address." They go into the software and they   go and then five minutes later the address is  updated on on the GIS map um for the most part  

25:30

so if your goal is to have the best data or  the most current address or whatever is going  

25:35

to make you stand out then there's really  only one source uh for that information now   it takes a little bit more work but like I said  it's actually cheaper for my business because  

25:44

um I do not send mail to properties that I don't  actually want to buy i don't flood my acquisition  

25:50

manager with leads that we don't actually want to  engage with um so like the downstream costs um way  

25:57

way make up for the upstream effort yeah yeah that  makes sense um interesting so and you mentioned  

26:05

cold calling is actually your favorite method  even above uh letters you know mailers these days  

26:11

you just prefer to to get on the phone and call  yeah and really that kind of brings me to what   I was answering before these are what I consider  now the industry standards we do really limited  

26:20

acquisition campaigns now but most of my deals now  come from a sizable network um so I've make myself  

How building a strong network has become Logan's primary deal source

26:28

valuable and available um to other people in our  industry you know I run a local meetup group here  

26:34

in Dallas it's one of the biggest networks of  land investors there is um my funding company  

26:39

my marketing company all these different channels  are constantly reaching out and pulling people   into my network um and they bring me deals or the  complicated issues or the things that they know  

26:48

I have experience with and then oftentimes I'm  either funding or doing some sort of joint venture   deal with them um providing them coaching or every  once in a while like I said I'll take somebody  

26:58

from the ground up and educate them fully in the  industry and say "Hey just bring me all your deals  

27:04

you know and I'll make sure that you get paid."  Yeah that's that's smart um cool man i I love  

27:11

uh this topic i love you know you sound like you  your um your strategies you've evolved over time  

27:18

and so seeing that evolution uh really does help  you know anybody who wants to get started with  

27:24

that said we have run down the clock so we do need  to move on um are you ready for the quick question  

27:29

round we'll see yeah all right starts with uh what  does it start with it starts with education could  

27:35

be any form could be a conference you've gone to  mentorship program you've been a part of movie   you've seen book you've read whatever i just need  two recommendations one for general life wisdom  

27:43

and then one for real estate um yeah so I would  say general life wisdom would be either between  

27:50

I'll give you two the Dow of Pooh like I found  it's very important to stay calm so that book   is excellent um or the seven habits of Winnie the  Poo right yes yep winnie the Poo the Dow of Pooh  

28:00

um or the seven habits of highly effective people  i know it's kind of uh very common but man do I go  

28:06

back to that almost on a daily basis in my head um  then as far as like education um I would ascribe a  

28:16

lot of my success to what I studied in college  which is um Greek and Latin um because if you  

28:22

study other languages it programs your brain to  think logically and get to first principles very  

28:28

quickly um so anything that you can do to work on  languages and learning languages you're training  

28:34

your brain to operate maximally um so I would say  that's probably one of the best things you can do  

28:40

to to help yourself across the across the board  very cool yeah when I um I studied abroad in uh  

28:46

in Spain to learn Spanish one time and those six  months it my brain was just it's crazy when you're  

28:52

learning a new language in the country that you're  learning that you're trying to you know learn the   language of you're you just turn to jelly brain  just gets exploded but afterwards you do you it's  

29:03

it's amazing how much language really does affect  your ability to think so that's a interesting call  

29:08

out um and a good one so that moves us to the  next question this is for your younger self  

29:14

let's go back to the Yo Logan who was just getting  started he was just closing that first land deal  

29:19

go back to him look him in the eye give him one  piece of advice moving forward don't be afraid to  

29:25

move quickly and make mistakes um it's fine yeah  mistakes will happen there's no way around them  

29:33

um because you don't know everything especially  when you you start you're just getting started so   uh just get deals done all right next question is  about the US it's a big place there is a lot of  

29:43

opportunity out there give me the single usually I  say metro but you are a land guy so I'm just going  

29:48

to say single area that you are most excited  about investing in today oo the great state  

29:54

of Texas okay any what area in Texas are you are  do you like um really the whole state i mean most  

30:01

people who will ask will say the Golden Triangle  uh which is uh between Dallas Houston San Antonio  

30:09

yep um but for me really if I had to target a  specific market it would be within a 2-hour radius   of Dallas Fort Worth DFW all right all right  next question we've actually already touched  

30:20

on this one but um I'll change it up a little bit  the question is uh it all starts with getting in  

30:25

contact with a seller so what is your favorite  way to generate leads you've already mentioned   cold calling um so I'm going to say for each stage  of your your growth in the land area land industry  

30:38

what is your favorite way to generate leads does  it always cold calling or do you feel like once   you have enough um cash flow coming in that you  should evolve to a new style of of marketing um  

30:49

answer that one yeah so I would say now my my  chief way is to um make myself uh available and  

30:58

valuable um and have people bring to me uh because  it puts me in like my favorite position which is  

The satisfaction of helping others succeed in real estate

31:05

um of service to other people that's when I find  myself most happy it's like real estate actually  

31:11

doesn't make me very happy the freedom of real  estate makes me very happy the relationships in  

31:17

in real estate make me very happy the critical  thinking that sort of stuff makes me happy but   I feel most happy when I'm able to uh help people  help people nice like when you're talking to some  

31:29

like I did a deal last year where we funded a  guy's uh flip um I kind of helped him through the  

31:35

process of underwriting and and all that uh and  he made $100,000 on that flip and just his voice  

31:41

when I told him like "Hey I just wired you you  know $102,000." Um that's a fun call to make you  

31:48

know yeah absolutely uh all right next question is  about lessons learned not every deal that we get  

31:55

into goes the way we expect it in fact many times  things go wrong and we get to learn a lesson so   what was a deal that went a little sideways for  you and what was the lesson you pulled from it  

32:04

oh man that's a lot of I mean I'll tell you one  that we're in the middle of right now um our we  

Lessons learned from a challenging subdivision project in Tennessee

32:10

have this big subdivision in Tennessee that uh we  had owner finance we did a bunch of improvements  

32:16

on and our I had the managers operating it  for the most part and I took a very hands-off   approach early on when I should have been much  more hands-on and much more involved in that  

32:26

process of ensuring everything was communicated  well because we've effectively had a million   dollars worth of transactions just held hostage  at a title company until today we're closing our  

32:35

first two it's been like 6 months that we've had  transactions locked up because of shenanigans that  

32:40

are unnecessary and avoidable yep be involved  is the lesson there sounds like um even if you  

32:46

know it there is a stage at which you kind of  step away and let your team take care of it but  

32:51

um being involved at least to to the extent  to you understand what's going on I feel like  

32:56

is very important yep all right um and that leads  us to the last question this is for the listeners  

33:02

you've given us a lot to think about i'm sure  people want to reach out get in contact with you   um this is a two-parter where can they find you  and then what can they expect when they reach out  

33:11

yeah go to thelandfixer.com www.thelandfixer.com  you'll find my podcast there as well as links to  

33:18

a lot of other services and things that I do um  what they can find is just uh you know not someone  

33:23

who's selling a course i don't have anything  to sell i genuinely try to bring interesting  

33:29

uh and fun content uh around land investing to the  to the world um uh the episode we just published  

33:36

this week was talking with a gold miner Canadian  gold miner and and uh his success in Mexico and  

33:42

how one puts together and structures a mining  operation um and that was fascinating because  

33:49

it is you know minerals and all that is a very  large overlap with with what we do in land so  

33:54

um and again no courses to sell no way to try  to get money out of you just trying to build my   network be a val valuable and available perfect  i will put that link in the show notes so if you  

34:04

guys want to reach out to Logan um all you got to  do is just click a little more in the description   it'll pull down that full description and in  there you can find his links all right man that  

34:14

wraps it up thank you very much for hopping on  the show gabe thank you absolutely for everybody  

34:20

who's with us today thank you guys for showing  up you are the reason we do this so if you guys   have any questions reach out to me Gabe with  the real estate investingclub.com if you guys  

34:27

want to support the show just leave us a review  other than that hope you guys have a great week   keep rocking real estate and I look  forward to seeing you on the next episode