What is up everybody? Welcome to the painless wholesaling podcast where I bring on experts to talk about how they’re crushing it in the real estate game so you can learn from them. So you don’t have to go through the pain yourself and trying to figure out your yourself. So today I have Brent Bowers on here, man, this is the land shark flippin genius. This guy knows how to do it all. And I want you to learn from him today. So, Brent, congratulations on your massive success on flipping you just told me about one of your students that was crushing it. Tell me, let’s bring you on in. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Alright, now that you You’ve literally made me feel amazing and made my head big. I’m not an expert. I’m not a genius. I’m just the guy flipping land. And there’s a reason why I chose land because it’s simple. It’s easy for me. These houses and apartment complexes are complicated. And like I am all about zero complexity. I think that’s why businesses fail.
But yeah, keep it simple. All right
I started in real estate and oh seven got crushed. Quit in 2009 basically was homeless in 2009. Join the military did a couple of deployments to Afghanistan had a failed marriage. I met another beautiful lady married her we started having babies and guess what history was repeating itself. So I was running from a problem. That’s why I jumped back into real estate I found lands because I heard some guy on a podcast saying he was doubling his money overnight. I was like, No way. It can’t be that easy. And it’s kind of that easy. It just takes work. It actually takes work hard work sometimes, of course, and you know, I started buying and selling land but I didn’t I didn’t sell all of it for cash. I sold a lot of it for seller financing and that allowed me to get out of the military I haven’t had a real job since 2018. And I just flipped land I flipped land and I try and sell most of it on seller financing so I can have that I’m gonna do air quotes passive income everyone talks about the mailbox money and you know, just having a great time doing it. That’s amazing.
So let me ask you about you sell it you’re saying you sell it on seller financing? So do you close on it yourself and own it? Do like would you buy all cash with cash and then you finance or do you do a wrap both?
Yeah, I try and I shoot to buy it and close on it myself and seller finance, but sometimes I have to wrap it and let me just explain that to everyone what if I understand you correctly, when I wrap it is when the seller holds the financing for me when the seller becomes the bank because here’s the thing most banks don’t lend on land. So sellers of land landowners usually know that they got to sell it for cheap, or they gotta allow someone to make payments to them because you can’t just go out and get bank lending. Now if we took away all the bank lending at the price of everything would come down drastically right? Ours and real estate and houses but when money’s cheap, the lending is cheap, the prices go up. We just saw that last couple of years right? So true, very true. I’ve got a seller right now on a piece of land in Florida, he is allowing me to pay him for 15 years the land is gonna be in my name, but he’s given me a 15 year mortgage at 5% interest. And he’s also given me 180 days six months to find my buyer ahead of time that I use that I just got a letter of intent from a buyer they’re gonna they’re gonna pay me for 30 years at 12% interest, his payments can be 2200 a month to me and my buyer and my seller I’m going to pay him for 15 years at 5% interest his payments gonna be 1100 a month so I’m gonna keep the down payment the difference every month and at the end he’s gonna buy it for a little over 8080 something 1000 more than what I have.
I am buying it for basically amazing amazing that that is that is so sweet and it’s land so you don’t have to worry about the maintenance of the house or anything like that right
Yeah there’s not even a road on it. I mean literally the county road goes to the land I literally have no repairs no contractors no unexpected expenses it’s the taxes we just pay the taxes once a year and then guess what my buyers gonna pay those wow he’s he’s willing to pay the tax the letter of intent guy you’re referring to him Correct? Exactly.
Yeah, how did you find the buyer guess what
I have a so I have a very specific way to find these these sellers we send out what I call LoL is land offer letters or you call laugh out loud if you want because we just got a smokin hot deal but I send land offer letters with a actual offer price on them. So how we do that is that allows me we have a blurb in there that allows me to market that land on the MLS market it all over. And if anybody wants a copy of one of the letters that we’re using, that’s just crushing it or lol go to the land sharks.com forward slash lol and you can download that thing. So I think it’s gonna ask you for your name and your email and then it will send you an email MailChimp will send you an email but And once we do that, we get that thing signed, I send it to my real estate agent, my land specialist, real estate agent, he throws it on the MLS. So that’s how we found the buyer.
So you put it on the MLS without even owning it correct, exactly.
And in here, there’s gonna be very careful doing that, like, you gotta have the right you know, the right blurb as well as the broker that’s willing to do it, as well as the land specialist that understands land and make sure the seller knows what’s going on. Because, like, you want to, like explain to that seller, look, I’m not keeping this land, this is my business. You know, we mark it for buyers, and when the sellers are cool with it, like you’ve already explained it to them, it’s good to go. But it’s like if they if you catch them off guard, and you’re kind of like, you know, operating in the shadows, and like, Yeah, we’re gonna have a bunch of our partners and our contractors and all these people looking at bullcrap, like just say you’re a wholesaler, alright?
Like, I love it. So what what keeps that guy who just said, Hey, yeah, market my deal, what keeps him from just doing it himself, since you just put it on the market to find your buyer.
You know, I can hang blinds and curtains myself, but we hired that out too. And I know, the guy had a markup. And he also picked up the curtains and the hanger, I’m sorry, and the blinds for us. And it’s just speed and convenience. Like, just choose what you want to do. These guys who are they’re professionals are actually in they are professionals. They’re in the law industry, and they just didn’t want to deal with it. And the only request they had was, just don’t let the neighbors know what we’re selling it to you for.
Okay. But when they know, though, or your listing at a price that doesn’t? Obviously it’s not the price that he’s given to you for is that? Is that what how you’re getting around? Yeah interesting.
We’re listing it at a higher price about 100,000. Higher, and you’re not looking for cash, necessarily, you’re looking to sell it on terms.
Exactly. So I’m getting a big enough downpayment to cover my realtor fees, my closing cost and the down payment to the seller. Amazing for 10% down.
Now, if he sees that 100k above, does he does that happen? Where he’s like, why you got to listen for that much has that happened? or No?
No, it’s never happened. And um, they might have seen it like that. Most of the time, they don’t care. They don’t care, because they’re most of the time land owners are very, like disengaged, or they’re not attached. You know, a lot of like, house sellers are very emotional about the house. You know, they lived in it for 1820 years, they raise your family in it. And like what are we told all these years? Or houses are your biggest investment? And what do investments? Do they increase in price, right? Well land, they’re not being told that or they inherited the land sometimes or they live out of state or they’re behind on their taxes. So they’re aggravated most of the time, they just want to get rid of it?
Is there a certain is it is there like a limit to the amount of land out there where there’s like, kind of scarcity involved with land or not? Not really, I don’t really know much about land. You know,
I think a lot of buyers think there’s scarcity because they see the housing, you know, the house is blowing up and like houses being built everywhere in apartment complexes, their scarcity, but there’s over 3300 counties, and there’s more land parcels available than there are houses and mobile homes and storage units. There is so much more land available than house and mobile home and multifamily deals put together. So you might have that scarcity thought, yeah, a lot of our a lot of our buyers do so they want to snatch it up and buy it. But there’s actually more available and they say buy land, they’re not making any more of it. But technically, when we subdivide it, we are actually making more assessors parcel numbers.
Yeah, so Wow. Yeah, cuz there’s subdividing it as well. So let me ask you about the guy that’s planning on buying. He’s the letter of intent. But he’s planning on buying the one you have. Yeah, he is your seller wanting you to cover the payments before you close on it. Like how’s that work? And he’s just No, you’re paying them out? 100 after 180 days, or 160 days, whatever, however long.
We don’t have to close until right at that six month, six month mark, and I’m fully prepared to close on it because I know the deal I have. I can I mean, I’m totally cool. Coming up with $15,000 as a down payment. Yeah, that’s all it is. Wow. Yeah, that was seven acres. You can see the water. You can see the river from this land.
And he said 10% Right. He wanted 10% down. Yep. So 115 1900 down. Did you negotiate that from like a 20%? Or was he just wanting 10 And you’re like, Wow, this is a layup.
There was a little negotiation. And there. There was a little back and forth. You know, he was a little concerned about the the purchase agreement like he wanted a couple like nuances changed in it. So you know, generally you don’t see that very often. But on this particular deal, yes. And this is just one of many like I’m just telling you my most recent I just bought five acres yesterday in Daytona Beach, Florida. For $153,000.05 acres is very close to a Walmart surrounded by multifamily. So the next call is going to be to the to the mayor and the city planner. And I’m going to ask them, What do you want done with this? We’re going to survey it and possibly subdivide it. And I usually don’t do a lot of value add. I usually try and just flip it. But this one, I think there’s some plenty of me. Wow.
Sounds like yeah, a lot going on, bro. That’s amazing. So you wholesaled right Yeah, I wholesale for a long time for for a long time. Residential. Correct. Yeah, houses, and then it turned into land. And a lot of these I would assign the contract on my land deal. And that’s how I was able to build up my bank account. That’s how I was able to get out of debt because I was at massive debt in 2016. barely afford the postcards.
What happened to get you in debt? Did you Was it because you were flipping? Was it? I don’t want to do personal on your butt. Yeah, no,
I bought a bunch of rental properties. That first one was in 2007. And I really learned through the gutter with that one I had to evict over three different tenants. And I learned that you’re not supposed to charge at the top of the market, people with good credit scores. They don’t have to pay high rent, like so. That was one thing I learned better background checks, never rent to someone that had a felony in their past. But I was desperate. Like I had to get that thing rented out like that. $900 a month mortgage, or actually I was I was getting 950. My mortgage was 750 that 750 was a lot for me. So I was like get someone in there quick and then constantly breaking like the septic system and the roof was leaking and water heater. And then in 2013, I had that itch I got back into real estate because I took that little break during those deployments to Afghanistan.
Now it’s out in the country, I bought another fixer upper in 2013, another one in 2014, and then a triplex in 2015. And then these are all fixer uppers. And I accumulated so much debt, my Amex was maxed out my Capital One my Home Depot card, and my credit score was starting to go down, I was starting to get fearful because I had a clearance with the military. And I’m like, Oh, my God, like I’m gonna lose my clearance and then they’re gonna demote me, like all these negative things were going on in my mind. So I had to figure out a way to pay off this debt, plus make enough money to get out of the military because I didn’t want to do a third combat deployment. I was tired of being away from home.
Wow, wow. So you were able to get out of debt because of land? Is that what you’re saying? Yes. So we all know, I mean, I don’t necessarily just say, hey, wholesale residential. Like that’s where most people start. But it’s just the the exit strategy of wholesaling is a good strategy, in my opinion, like finding somebody to discount. But you’ve seen the issues with wholesaling residential. And that’s why you went to when? Correct, yeah,
I was spending a fortune sending out postcards, and I was in a highly competitive market, I was in Colorado Springs, and I would send out these postcards, and then it’d be time to go to the field to prepare for whatever deployment or whatever we were training for at that time. So no one was answering the phones. So this money was literally I would have been better off just going out in the street and handing it to just just handing it out burning that ish, bro, literally. And I was searching for answers. I had just listened to The Four Hour Workweek. And I was really just afraid to leave again, I didn’t want to leave my like this time, there’s children involved. And I didn’t want to leave my family for another year and a half. Because what a lot of people don’t realize is when you go on to deployment for a year or nine months. There is a training regimen before that for about a year.
So you’re in the field for about a year, then you deploy for about a year. So you’re basically gone for two years, almost. And like my fear was like that I’m gonna get I’m gonna go through another divorce. This time. there’s children involved. So I was just like, hyper focusing on how can I make enough money to support me and my family, so I don’t have to be in the military any longer. And that’s how you got it done. Got it done. Like I was getting up at 4am. I was time blocking. I was like my lunch breaks. Like I didn’t go and eat lunch. I like crammed a sandwich while making phone calls to landowners and talking to land buyers. And then at night when we put the baby down, like I’d go back to work. Literally, I just threw away. I had some man I had to reach up my garbage can I found some handwritten letters that I had written so long ago that I didn’t have your mail, bro, how’s that make you feel to look back and be like,
Wow, that’s where I started with a handwritten?
Yeah, me and my wife would come down in the basement and write these things at nighttime.
You know? Wow. So she was a part of it too, then, huh?
She was at the very beginning. And, you know, we she doesn’t she doesn’t do much with it now other than like, listen to me complain. And what I realized, like we got to be careful with as entrepreneurs like one day she’d said, You know what, you just tell me when the deals fall through and the negative things. I was like, Oh my gosh, I don’t tell her about the nine positive things that happen. They only tell her about the one negative and it was like weighing on her.
Wow. Oh, have you heard of the book called The gap in the game? No, I’m gonna write that down, though. Yeah, by Dan Sullivan. And Dr. Benjamin Hardy. He just came out with another book called All 10x What do you got? Who not how Yeah, so yeah they came out with a gap in the game they just came out with another one called 10x is easier than 2x So basically the gap in the game refers to like focusing on your where you’ve come from like the gain that you’ve achieved versus just focusing on the gap of what you haven’t and if you’re able to do that your your mindset is going to be like freaking unstoppable bulletproof so that rainbow yeah you’ll love it man I just finished the gap no sorry 10x is easier than to exit just came out money to grow it’s friggin dope. So tell tell the painless wholesaling nation the people the listeners, what they can do to to learn how to get in the land because I can’t help them. I’m in Yeah, and I would send them to you so every single day I do a video on tick tock. You can find me on tick tock at Brent L.
Bowers one. I talked about how to make money in land. I got my youtube channel I’m talking about how to make money in land Brent L. Bowers, I got my Instagram channel Brent L. Bowers, like I am like, like with the loudest I’m trying to be as loud as possible, showing people like this is a great opportunity. Like so many people are going past this like and there’s virtually no competition in this business. And I teach people how to do this. And I’ve heard people ask, Well, why are you giving away the secrets? Like aren’t you creating your own competition? And I used to be the same way when I went to these real estate seminars in 2004 and 2005. I’m like, why is this guy? If he’s doing so? Well? He’s wearing a Rolex.
No, but why is he give me all the secrets? Here’s what I learned. When you create a community and you give away all your secrets. Just because I take a piece of the pie doesn’t mean there’s less for you, Nathan, and like, I’m sure like your listeners are probably thinking bullcrap. Like. Well, now that I have created this community with other sharks, other land sharks, there’s lending in the community. There’s guys buying deals, I literally just did 28 lots with one of my so called competitors that I created 28 lots we split. We did assign those we assign that contract, we just split $22,000 And guess what? He got those 28 lots in my market my farm area, he called me he’s like, Hey, I’ve been able to sell these you got to buy us I don’t know maybe. So we sent them out and we had one buyer he fell through next one purchased it, bro
I freaking love it the community everyone that’s listening again. We tell you these things not because of scarcity but it’s just like we there’s an abundance of act out there so we can work together we can get more done. 100% Well, um, so they got you on Tik Tok. We got you on Instagram. We got you on YouTube. You heard it here. First people if you want to get into land, if you want to forget residential, you go right to land, you’re going to be successful. That’s the way to go. I honestly think that you know, doing it the way he’s saying Be transparent, honest. That’s why I like working with your brand. Because that you could just tell the way you do business is the right way to do business. So reach out to them if you’re interested in getting the land. Love it. Brent, is there any other thing you want to leave the listeners with? Like a golden nugget, anything you want to say before we dip out?
Yeah, I mean, go out. I mean, there’s so much like you give so much value on this. Nathan, you told me that the actual guests you just had before me like, I’m gonna go back and listen to that one. But while I had my notebook, like I wrote, like four sentences of what you said, but when you’re listening to these podcasts with all this gold, or the YouTube or whatever it is, maybe it’s the who not how book, write one sentence down that you want to implement within, like, the next day or so. And then the next step is go in time block, like write something in your calendar, like I’m gonna get up early tomorrow or stay up late. If you’re not, if you’re a night owl, like stay up late and get it done within 24 hours. like Tony Robbins says never leave the scene of a goal without like actually taking some action towards it. So just take action. You know, stop, just get out of freakin education mode. I hate when people say oh, you know, I’m an HMO right now, how long have you been in education? Like almost five years, right? Well, I found myself in education mode from 2004 to about 2000. I don’t think I really was successful until about 2013 In real estate, so 2004 to 2013. That’s nine years get the heck out of education mode, and call me I’ll help you 863-801-6959 That’s my cell phone number.
Leave me a message if I don’t answer for you go you heard it here first hit him up. He’s he’s telling me he just gave me a cell phone. So I love it. Hey, Brent. Thanks again for coming on. And we’ll have to have you on in the future. See how you’re doing it again. And you know, a couple of months. God bless. Alright, let everybody
