Massive passive income from land flipping with Brent Bowers - Payneless Wholesaling Podcast

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 yourself. So today I have Brent Bowers on here, man. This is the land shark flipping 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.

All right. Now that 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 a 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, I mean, keep it simple.

All right. I started in real estate in '07, got crushed, quit in 2009, basically was homeless in 2009, joined the military, did a couple of deployments to Afghanistan, had a failed marriage, 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 land 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 is 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 flip land. I flip land and I try and sell most of it on seller finance. 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? Um, do you like— with— do you buy all cash with cash and then you finance, or do you do a wrap?

Both.

Okay.

Both. Yeah, I try and, uh, I, I shoot to, 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 I— 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 got to 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, the price of everything would come down drastically, right? Cars and real estate and houses. But when money's cheap, the lending's cheap, the prices go up. We just saw that the last couple years, right?

So true, very true.

So 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's going to be in my name, but he's giving me a 15-year mortgage at 5% interest, and he's also given me 180 days 6 months to find my buyer ahead of time that I can wrap. 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 payment's gonna be $2,200 a month to me. And my buyer— my seller, I'm gonna pay him for 15 years at 5% interest. His payment's gonna be $1,100 a month. So I'm going to keep the down payment, the difference every month, and at the end he's going to buy it for a little over $80,000-something more than what I have it, 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 buyer is going to pay those.

Wow. He's willing to pay the letter of intent guy you're referring to, 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 LOLs, land offer letters, or you can call them laugh out loud if you want because we just got a smoking hot deal. But I send land offer letters with an 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, our LOL, go to thelandsharks.com/LOL and you can download that thing. So there you go. I think it's going to ask you for your name and your email and then it'll send you an email. MailChimp will send you an email. But 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 on the MLS without even owning it, correct?

Exactly. And, and here there's going to be very careful doing that. Like you got to 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 market 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 going to have a bunch of our partners and our contractors and all these people looking at— bullcrap. Like, just say you're a wholesaler. All right.

Like, love it. So 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 are— they're professionals. They're 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 wouldn't they know though? Or you're 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 that?

Yeah. 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 down payment to cover my realtor fees, my closing costs. 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 list it for that much? Has that happened or no?

No, it's never happened. And I mean, they might have seen it like most of the time they don't care. They don't care because they're most of the time landowners 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've lived in it for 18, 20 years. They raised their family in it. And like, what are we told all these years? Our 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 houses blowing up and like houses being built everywhere and apartment complexes. There's scarcity, but there's over 3,300 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 multi-family 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 assessor's parcel numbers, right?

Yeah.

So, wow.

Yeah, because they're subdividing it as well. So let me ask you about the guy that, uh, planning on buying it with the letter of intent, but he's planning on buying the one you have. Yeah. Is your seller wanting you to cover the payments before you close on it? Like, how's that working? He's just paying them out after 180 days or 160 days or whatever, however long.

We don't have to close until right at that 6-month mark. And I am fully prepared to close on it because I know the deal I have. I mean, I'm totally cool coming up with $15,000 as a down payment.

Yeah, that's all it is.

Wow. Yeah, 10 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 $15,900 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 in there. Um, 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 5 acres yesterday in Daytona Beach, Florida for $153,000. 5 acres, 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 meat.

Wow. Sounds like you got a lot going on, bro. That's amazing. So you wholesaled, right?

Yeah, I wholesale for a long time. For a, 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 in massive debt in 2016, you know, Well, I could 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 get too personal on you, but 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 3 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 getting $950. My mortgage payment was $750. That $750 was a lot for me. So I was like, get someone in there quick. And then things were constantly breaking, like the septic system and the roof was leaking and the 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 and I was out of the country. I bought another fixer-upper in 2013, another one in 2014, and then a triplex in 2015. And 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 going to lose my clearance and then they're going to 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 exit strategy of wholesaling is a good strategy in my opinion, like finding something at a discount. But you've seen the issues with wholesaling residential and that's why you went to land, 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 4-Hour Workweek, and I was really just afraid to leave again. I didn't want to leave my— like, this time there was 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, don't realize is when you go on a deployment for a year or 9 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 2 years almost. And like, my fear was like, man, I'm going to get— I'm going to 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 4 a.m., 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, uh, man, I had to reach in my garbage can. I found some handwritten letters that I had written so long ago that I didn't even get mail, bro.

How does that make you feel to look back and be like, wow, bro, that's where I started with that handwritten?

Yeah, me and my wife would go 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, uh, 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 as entrepreneurs. Like one day she 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 9 positive things that happened that day. I only tell her about the one negative. And it was like weighing on her. Wow.

Well, have you heard of the book called The Gap and the Gain?

No, I'm going to write that down though.

Yeah, by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy. He just came out with another book called 10X. What do you got? Who Not How?

Yeah, sir.

Yeah, they came out with The 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, um, 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, uh, your mindset's gonna be like freaking unstoppable, bulletproof.

So that's— I'm gonna read them both.

Yeah, you'll love it, man. I just finished, uh, The Gap— no, sorry, 10x is, uh, Easier Than 2x. That just came out.

Money, bro.

It's freaking dope. So, uh, tell, tell the, the Painless Wholesaling Nation, the people, the listeners, what they can do to, to learn how to get into land, because I can't help them. I, I meant, yeah, I would send them to you.

So yeah, I mean, every single day I do a video on TikTok. Uh, you can find me on TikTok at Brent L. Bowers 1. Uh, I talk about how to make money in land. I've 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 the Rolex and all, but why is he giving me all these 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 I— like, your listeners are probably thinking, bullcrap, like, that's not true. 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 assigned 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 haven't been able to sell these, you got a buyer? I said, I don't know, maybe. So we sent them out and we had one buyer He fell through, the 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 out there. So if we can work together, we can get more done. 100%. Well, um, so they got you on TikTok, 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, uh, you know, doing it the way he's saying, be transparent, honest— that's why I like working with you, Brent, because you could just tell the way you do business is the right way to do business. So reach out to him 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 guest you just had before me, like, I'm gonna go back and listen to that one. But yeah, I had my notebook, like, I wrote like 4 sentences of what you said But when you're listening to these podcasts with all this gold, or 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 and time block. Like, write something in your calendar like, I'm going to 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 freaking education mode. I hate when people say, you know, I'm in education mode right now. How long have you been in education mode? Like almost 5 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 9 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.

Or there you go. You heard it here first. Hit him up. He's, he's, he's telling— he just gave you 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, you know, a couple months. God bless, Nathan. All right, later, everybody.