Welcome back to the Discount Property Investor podcast. Our mission is to share what we have learned from our experience and the experience of others to help you make more money investing like a pro. We want to teach you how to create wealth by investing in real estate, the discount property investor way. To jumpstart your real estate investing career, visit freewholesalecourse.com, the most complete free course on wholesaling real estate ever. Thanks for tuning in.

David: Alright guys, welcome back to the discount property investor podcast. I am your host David Dodge and today, I am joined by Brent Bowers and he is the owner of The Land Sharks, an expert investor and coach, and his specialty is land and I'm excited to have Brent. Brent, how are you today buddy?

Brent: I'm really good. You know how I know this is going to be like the best interview ever? Because you're a double D and I'm a double B, David Dodge and Brent Bowers gonna light this place up.

David: That's right. I love it man, I love it. So Brent, I've been tracking you and following you for a while. I've definitely heard your name around the neighborhood a few times in this community.

Brent: Don't believe any of it, it's all bad. Hahaha.

David: Hahaha, so I know you're doing big things man and man, I'm really just happy to have you on the show. I'm grateful for your time and I know that we are going to kick it off and provide a ton of value to our audience and our listeners, To get it- to get it going here, why don't you tell everybody a little bit or tell me, you know, a little bit about who you are, how you got into real estate and then why land?

Brent: Yeah, absolutely. I'll go forward and I'll start with the present and I'll go a little backwards, you know, living the- living my dreams, you know. I am Wholesaling Inc.'s land coach, you know, the best training, best real estate education, best you know, way to get people started in real estate. I'm surrounded by some amazing other coaches, Brent Daniels, Lauren Hardy, Chris Craddock, Chris Arnold, and Rafael Cortes. So we're out there, you know, and with Wholesaling Inc., the student comes first. At the end of the day, we've got to get our students deals. So, you know, life hasn't always been this great. I had to go through the gutter, you know, the road to success is through the gutter. So 2007, purchased my first rental property, just got my real estate license, I'm living on top of the world. Had a lawn service that was very successful, I'm mowing grass. We've got a lot of accounts that I built in high school. Graduate high school, my father comes out in the business with me. I no longer want to mow grass anymore. I'm just gonna get my real estate license and buy a rental. So that first rental I bought, I actually had to ask my great-grandmother for the $1,000 loan, so I can put the money in the earnest- as an earnest money deposit and I was like, don't worry great- grandma, I will pay you back. I'm getting a commission of like $3,000 for buying this house. Well, everyone knows what happened in 2008. I had literally just given up a business that was making me good money and moved to the coast, rented that house out and ended up having to move in with my in-laws and no grown man that owns a rental property that has a real estate license and his run a business since he was in middle school wants to move in with their in-laws, and no offense, I love them, you know. So grandpa told me go back to school, start over, reset, recalibrate. Tried to join the Air Force, they weren't taking anybody. Luckily I'm coachable, they say go next door to the Army, they'll take anyone, so I did.

David: Hahaha, no way. That's awesome

Brent: I was in basic- Yeah, in basic training and two months later, get through basic training successfully and I'm sitting in Afghanistan right after that.

David: Wow.

Brent: So November 2010 to November 2011, did a deployment. I was home in Germany for one year and did my second deployment and was gone for almost- my first four years, I was gone probably three, three and a half.

David: Holy cow. The majority.

Brent: My first wife got tired of that and said I'm out of here, no longer dealing with this anymore, and the Army pulled me out of Afghanistan to send me to school to be an officer so I get to go back to Florida. I'm sitting at Florida Tech, getting paid to go to school so guess who's back in the real estate game? This guy.

David: Love it, love it.

Brent: [inaudible] my house and start house hacking because I'm a single bachelor now in college, so I rent out all the rooms except for the master suite that's my room. I'm making like $150.

David: Dude I did it too. I did it three times whenever I was in college. Hoes hacking's how I started.

Brent: Yeah cuz I first-

David: Love it.

Brent: I first moved in with a guy because I had like one week to get out of Afghanistan, bounce to Germany, like literally get everything out of my house and then go start school so I was like, I found the house on Craigslist. I literally found a room to rent on Craigslist and the guy who worked for Harris Corporation top secret clearance, wasn't worried about him murdering me in my sleep, but there was one problem, like the house was disgusting and I'm like, I could buy my own house, why am I renting from this guy? And I'm going to do the same thing he's doing. So that's how I learned about house hacking, not on Bigger Pockets. I didn't know what house hacking was back then. So I got all this equity in my house, did a quick cash out refi, got a $55,000 check, bought another rental, it's time to move again, bought a triplex and started wholesaling houses with Wholesaling Inc. Tom Krol, found him as a mentor, but I had another problem. I'm working like 13, 14 hours a day again for the Army, now met the woman of my dreams, Emily, my wife, and we're about to have a baby.

David: Nice.

Brent: So lots going on, this is in 2016.

David: Okay, okay.

Brent: I'm like I got to get out of the army. I want to be home, I want to be present, I want to be back, I want to be in my child's life and especially my wife's life as well. So, you know, the houses were working okay. I was wholesaling about a house a month, but I had a problem. If I- I had one hour lunch break so I had to like zoom out, go meet the seller and if I couldn't get a contract in five minutes, I didn't get the deal. So I heard about this guy on a podcast and I know this is a long intro.

David: No, this is great. Thank you.

Brent: But I heard of this guy on a podcast just killing it in land that I'm like oh my God, I'm not mailing the land. I've got a tax delinquent list with 687 records of landowners that aren't paying their taxes and they- some of them live out of state so there's probably motivation there. So I mailed it, 687 postcards, handwritten postcard, simple, got it from Tom Krol and basically said hey I'd like to buy your land, if you're interested, call me. My phone blew up, got 85 phone calls, returned 20 of them, and out of those 20, I did two deals that netted me $4,500 each within about two weeks. So ever since then, 2016, I did that. Those two deals within like two weeks., I've rinsed and repeated and rinsed and repeated. Now we have over a hundred notes, did over like 280 land deals and just keep rolling with it.

David: Man, that was one hell of an introduction. Over a hundred notes and you've done over 280 land deals?

Brent: Yeah, yeah. We're doing one right now where it's literally building 44 townhomes, so we've literally purchased for as little as 280- actually free, we've gotten land for free. $285 was the lowest purchase price, the highest was 1.2 million, obviously with partners on that one.

David: Yeah, but that's awesome. Holy awesomeness. Wow. That is so crazy man, very cool. I love the story.

Brent: Discount properties.

David: Yeah, I love the story man. That's really cool. So on this show, you know, we teach people to buy properties at a discount and that's really where it all begins, right? You make your money when you buy, you get paid when you sell. And if you get good at buying right, you can do it with houses, you can do it with apartment buildings, you can do it with land. And Brent earlier this year, my team and I, we wholesaled 117 units.

Brent: Dang.

David: Essentially it was 52 houses, a 30 unit, a 10 unit and a handful of 2's, 4's and 6's. Bought it for 4.5, sold it for 5, so it's a nice little payday and but the thing is we bought it at a discount, right? And that's really what it comes down to. You can do it with houses, you can do it with packages of houses, you can do it with land. It's so really- it's just so cool. So teaching people you know, how to get into these deals is really what we focus on, so I love it and you are obviously doing it exclusively it sounds like with land which is just awesome. Very, very cool. Where do you live?

Brent: I live in Florida now. We actually were out in Colorado Springs, Colorado and in the last month and a half, we just moved to Florida, back to Florida because I was stationed out there, and we just stayed there. My team is still out there, my office is still out there, but we're back in Florida. Close to family, grandma's and grandpa's for my 3 kids to be a part- be around. Life is good because we haven't had babysitters in the 6 years we've been out there. So back in Florida and super happy about it.

David: I love it man. I love it. Alright, we're going to go into what I like to call kind of like a fire round, right?

Brent: Fired up.

David: I'mma fire off some questions and you can give me a 30 second answer or you can give me a 5 minute answer, it's up to you. Doesn't matter, right? So why land, right? What are the top three reasons why you love land?

Brent: Top three reasons all right. First, financial freedom. I can buy land at an absolute discount. You know, Benjamin Graham says buy your stocks like you buy your groceries on sale, not like you buy your perfume at retail prices. I'm buying land at massive, massive discounts. Land that's on sale from people that are motivated. Number two, time freedom. Every time I sell a piece of land, nine out of ten times I sell a piece of land, I sell it with seller financing where I get a down payment and a monthly payment so that gives me time freedom. Most of my loans are anywhere from 7 to 10 years. So if my team, well my team last week did- well two weeks ago now, did 9 deals in a 7 day period. So each one of those 9 deals is bringing us an additional 300  and something dollars a month. Well let's keep it really simple, let's just say we only did 10 at 300 a month. That's an extra $3,000 a month, every single month, coming in my door for a minimum of 7 years, so I can calculate that. I mean 60 months from now, 5 years from now, we keep that that path up, we'll be over a 125 thousand dollars a month coming in every single month consistently, we can bank on it and we can go on vacation for a month and come back and know we're going to still have the same amount of income. You know obviously, there are defaults, people get behind, that's about 10% so if we have a hundred notes, we got ten people behind, and we collect late fees on them. So that's number two. Number three reason, I have a third reason, geography freedom. I just moved across the country, didn't skip a beat and we actually increased our income.

David: Wow, financial freedom, time freedom and geography freedom. Damn, that was awesome. Very, very good.

Brent: Freedom.

David: I love all three of those things. That's amazing. All right. So what are three tips for buying land that most first-time buyers, you know, need to consider or don't consider?

Brent: All right, three tips. Let's give your listeners some practical advice. You know, let's get some people doing some deals by just listening to this podcast. This is the discount property investor podcast, let's tell people how to find land at a discount. So one, you got to pick your playground, pick your playground. Now, the hundred- I've had the opportunity now to coach a 181 students in the last 14 months. It's been phenomenal. It's been like literally jumping on a speeding train. But the top three things I see from students is one, they pick their playground quick, that playground is within- number two, that playground is within about a two-and-a-half hour time radius of where they currently live. Now granted I have students that are stationed in Korea and Alaska and deployed. Now, you can't obviously buy land in other countries or you- I guess you could but I don't recommend it right now or anytime. Go with what you're familiar. So if you're from Atlanta, Georgia, then branch out somewhere in Atlanta, Georgia where you're familiar with.

David: Two and a half hours. Two and a half hours is like, I mean that's probably like a 150 miles in every direction, right?

Brent: It's huge, it's a huge radius unless you're like on the west coast of California which you go two and a half hours east, there's desert and there's- and people like well, who would want desert? Who wouldn't if you offer them easy monthly payments? Because Americans don't care what it costs in the end, they just care most of the time, nine out of ten of them are-

David: Can they afford it today, right.

Brent: What's it going to cost me each month type thing.

David: Right.

Brent: So yeah, two and a half hour radius is huge. And number three, they're consistently, consistently sending out their mail, their marketing. I love mail because it's passive. I can set it, go on vacation, come back and have literally what I call LOL sitting there signed ready to go, land offer letters. We laughy- they call them LOL's because we laugh out loud every time we get it because we just got a property at a discount, a piece of land at a discount. So practical steps, pick your playground. Number two, you got to find a list of people that own that asset that you're going for. My asset is land, the commodity is land so I want to get in front of landowners. So number two is get that list and you can get it literally from like ListSource, Propstream, I love priced.com because it actually tells you what the land's worth and then number three, you got to get in contact with that list. My magic sauce is mail.

David: Right.

Brent: Some people love cold call, some people love to text. I say do all three, be aggressive, be offensive with it and get ahead of it because my dad, he's on his 60th land deal. He just got some return mail, he's like yeah, I see the mail houses in Washington, we use 3D mail Tara over there and I said great, call those people. Get on been verified and call those people because if you're mailer's not getting to them, no one else's is and he's going to get on the phone with those guys. That's going to be pure gold.

David: Holy cow.

Brent: So those are the three tips right there.

David: That's awesome. Okay. Tell me about the competition in land. Are there- is there a lot of people doing this?

Brent: I don't know anybody that's doing it besides me- no, I'm just kidding. There's like virtually no competition. That's number four. I got five reasons why I love land. Virtually no competition and I'll tell you why. David, you, your listeners, you probably have driven by land in the last two weeks and haven't even looked twice at it because there's no mobile home parks on it, there's no storage units on it, there's no multifamily or you name it, whatever your recipe is for investing, because most people don't see the land sitting there. There's nothing to rent out and make money. Well, how I make money is I buy it at a massive discount and I turn around and sell it to someone at a premium in retail price, you know, I get a down payment and a monthly payment. That's a huge buyers list, a lot of people are walking around with a couple thousand dollars right now because the government's literally been mailing them that or putting it into their bank account and then a lot of people can afford 4, 5 hundred a month. It's like a car payment but you own a piece of land and it's called like there's literally a term called land banking out there, but there's no- that's another subject. There's no competition because most people don't know how to make money with it.

David: Got it. No, that makes perfect sense man. That makes perfect sense. So how do you locate the property, you know, in markets outside of your own like you know, like you said earlier, if you live, you know, on a border town or something like that, and why would you want to locate properties outside of your own?

Brent: Well, I'll tell you what, because you know, one reason, I'm in 10 counties now. One reason is there's only so many landowners so I- and I'm also a shiny object person like most entrepreneurs. So I hear about a land investor over here kicking butt in this area or I drove through it on one of my cross-country camping trips that we do with our camper. I'm like, this is beautiful land, we should mail these guys. So why would I, you know, it's just how do I pick the market? Let's back up there. I got a couple reasons. Why would I is because I'm just like, fascinated by it.

David: Sure.

Brent: Like I got my office building, I'm looking out my window podcasting and I'm always like man, that piece of land across the street, I should mail that owner and I guarantee that neighbor probably wants to buy it but he's just never taken the step to mail it or call that person. But how do I pick markets? How do I pick a market? I love to see like growth happening, building happening, things happening, you know, volume buying and selling and I like to just go right on the outskirts of that if possible, if possible. Just be right on the outskirts of that, because those sellers don't see those skyscrapers going up, they're not in the hustle and bustle, and there's still deals to be made. But what's- what if you don't have the ability to go on the outskirts? What if you're in the hustle and bustle?

David: Right.

Brent: Well, go out there and get one of those lots that's left at a discount and sell it for just a little bit more, and you could do this with bicycle. You get a bicycle on the side of the road for free tat's rusted up and two flat tires, well go put some tubes in the tires, shine that thing up and sell it for a profit.

David: Love it. I love it man. That's- great answer. Okay, how does investing in land differ from investing in like single-family and multi-family homes? Obviously you're typically, you know, it depends if the land has a home on it or not, but I would imagine most people that you're targeting don't have property, don't have lands on there or- I can't talk, don't have a building, you know, a single or multi family on that land, or do they?

Brent: Yeah. Well, how is investing in land different from investing in multifamily? Is that the question?

David: Yeah, how is it- how is investing in land different from investing in single family or multifamily?

Brent: Or multi family. Okay.

David: Yeah either one, because either one of those has a fixture on the land.

Brent: Right. Well, I would say it's just simple, you know, easier, there's no structure, there's no roof to repair, there's no foundation to fix, no plumbing through your place. I mean we had a house one time, the sewer line exploded, still own the house by the way, it's going to cost 11 thousand dollars to fix the sewer line. Well, a piece of land, I'm not going to find that. Let me give you another example. On my Facebook page, I just posted a property today that we've owned for 2 years. It's a 19 unit apartment complex, 1-bedroom, 1-bath. It took us 2 years to get, just one four-plex renovated and we just listed at last night. 2 years to deal with architects, engineers, city, red tape and oh my God, I thought we made the biggest mistake. I was like this property is going to bankrupt me, I should have just wholesaled it and made the quick profit but a land deal I can sometimes be profitable the next day.

David: I love that man.

Brent: Because I get my money back out.

David: So you're basically not having to do repairs or updates or get permits or deal with tenants in most cases. I love it. So you're just eliminating a lot of the headaches and you said, it's just simpler. Wow, love that. I love that. Okay, so next question. Why would someone consider investing in vacant land? You know, if they're already investing in other types of real estate like me.

Brent: Yeah, I mean I was just talking to a sales guy yesterday. He's building a million-dollar home and he makes a lot of cash. Some days he makes $7,500 in a day, some days he makes 5,000 and you know, he's got some rentals, you know, he's done some flips and I was like what if you took that hundred thousand dollars you have in your account or let's just say only 20,000 of that and bought a piece of land at a discount at 33 cents on the dollar, that land's worth 60,000 so you're using the margin of safety that Warren Buffett talks about, you're buying at a discount. So you take you take 20,000 of your funds, buy that piece of land that's worth 60,000 and turn around and sell it to someone for 30,000 down or $20,000 down, get your money back out. Now you have no skin in the game and the rest is pure profit for the next 30 years that you finance and you're going to collect about probably about a 120 over 30 years. So that's what people are doing, that's what we do. You know, I flip houses, I wholesale houses. I love it however, the land gives me cash flow, gives me time freedom, gives me financial freedom, there's no competition and I know what my cash flow is going to be 6 months from now. But with a house flip, I never know what it's going to be unless I have a consistent system of the houses coming in, a buying machine and a selling machine, and there's a lot that goes in between it.

David: Man I love it. So your- wow, so you're preaching- you are talking my language here Brent. You are buying a property at a discount in some scenarios, you know, you- so I would imagine somewhere between 10 and 33 percent give or take, right?

Brent: Yeah, and I'll tell you, a couple years ago I used to get a lot of land deals at 10 cents to 30 cents on the dollar. I've been increasing that lately because there's such a demand on land right now. When you got people like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, the top 1% like richest people in the world scooping up land, there's something going on, you know, that's making- that's driving the value up or say we're 20 million houses short because the developers, you know, and the builders took about a 10 year stent off to where they weren't building nearly as many houses and land was just sitting there, well all of a sudden in the last, well last two years since covid started, I've been seeing land values rise so it's turning from a seller's market- let me correct myself, it's turning from a buyer's market for land where the buyer had the power, now the seller is getting the power and it's turning into a seller's market because there's such a demand on land. So lately I've been having to increase my offer prices like-

David: Where are you at? 30, 40, 50 percent now?

Brent: I'm at 50, 60 in some areas.

David: Wow.

Brent: Now the stuff in the middle of nowhere, the desert land, yeah I'm still getting that for 30 cents on the dollar.

David: Sure.

Brent: But the stuff like that's buildable and places like Colorado Springs and just areas where there's a lot of growth happening, yeah I'm getting stuff at 60 cents on the dollar and selling it like the next day.

David: Yeah, at a hundred cents on the dollar.

Brent: Exactly.

David: I love it. So one of the cool things though that I like and that you mentioned is that you're able to buy it at a discount and then you're able to go sell it, in some cases, you're able to get them to put a portion down which could be the full amount of your investment.

Brent: Yeah.

David: So you get all your money back and then you're getting payments on it. Wow, that is cool Brent.

Brent: My second land deal was just like that. My second land deal and I had no clue. I failed my way through it. That's- when I- those two calls I set or those 20 calls I made back where I got two deals, that second one I paid 500 dollars for that second parcel of land. I put it on Craigslist that day, I got a $500 down payment and I got 400 dollars a month after that.

David: Wow. Let's talk about like teams and you know, how are you- how are you scaling your investing business with your teams? Or with a team?

Brent: Yeah, absolutely. And that's at the end of the day, you show me a business owner that's struggling and upset and unhappy, I'll show you a business owner that's doing everything by himself, he's bought himself a job. I have a team because as an entrepreneur, as a visionary, I get bored with things very very quickly and if it's up to me to make it happen, eventually I'm going to let some balls fall out of the air and I- it's not gonna happen.

David: Totally.

Brent: Like mailing. Something so simple as getting my mail out every single week, I had to hire someone in the Philippines. I pay her every single week to make sure the mail happens. She's in charge of it. If it doesn't happen like I'm upset.

David: Right.

Brent: I knew I couldn't do it so now I've got someone that's in charge of doing it and obviously we automated it as much as possible but I got a person that I've delegated that responsibility to. So that's one of my team members. She also posts all the land on our websites, all the land website, the Craigslist. She requests the photography, she does the due diligence, she checks to see, you know, are there any liens on this property? No, there's no water tap, there's never been water here but she still calls the water company and says: is there a bill of any sort for this property? Because title company can miss that. So that's her role and she's just amazing graphic designer, does all like the web stuff. Then I have retired grandmother that literally, she bounced, she spends her time in Vegas, Arizona, Colorado and Ohio. She's always on vacation, always with her grandchildren, works part-time just selling the heck out of this stuff and making hundred percent commission. I said she did 9 two weeks ago. Well, she gets paid 275 dollars for every one of these that she does so she was pretty happy. She went to Vegas and probably you know, tripled her money too, hopefully.

David: Hahaha, we hope, we hope. Man, that's awesome. I fully, you know, what you just said, I agree with 100% in terms of having a team and show me that guy that's like struggling with his businesses because he's trying to juggle all these balls and you know, I've been full-time at this for about 7 years and I have you know, probably about 8 or 9 VA's. We have an acquisitions, a dispositions, book keeping, closing coordination. You know, we have a role for all these different jobs.

Brent: It takes a herd.

David: Yeah, exactly. And it's a herd, right, right. But it allows me to you know, be able to take trips and do fun stuff and not have to worry about trying to juggle all these balls and simultaneously everybody's getting paid and they're part of the team and we're driving this train forward and everyone's happy so it's just-

Brent: Culture [inaudible].

David: Versus being one or two guys and trying to do all these things and no one's happy, right?

Brent: No.

David: Yeah.

Brent: You do what you do best and you contract out the rest. I just hired an executive assistant. She's so organized, like she was running a restaurant on Palm Beach Island, high-end restaurant management.  Well, this is gonna be a walk in the park for her like because this is not restaurant business, there's no life or death here. But yeah, it takes an entire team and acquisitions, dispositions and at the end of the day, it all- like one thing connects to the other and they all have to jive.

David: I've never heard that before and that's really, I like what you just said. I don't know if you use that a lot or what, but you said do what you do best and contract out the rest.

Brent: I think Steve Jobs said that. I've been saying that for a couple years but I darn sure didn't make it up.

David: Okay. I like it though because you know, in our business, we have a similar saying that says keep the best and wholesale the rest, right? Because that's what we do.

Brent: Oh yeah.

David: Yeah, like really I'm a landlord, I like using the BRRRR strategy. I love teaching people the BRRRR strategy. I've, in fact, I'm an author of a book called 'The BRRRR Method'.

Brent: The BRRRR method.

David: Yeah man and you know, it's very similar but you know, all of my wholesaling or I shouldn't say wholesaling, all of my marketing efforts are really for me to find a deal. We keep the best and then we just wholesale all the rest that comes in and ends up being 5, 8, 10, sometimes 12 deals in a month. We're not even trying to wholesale, we're just trying to find deals for ourself, we do a lot of marketing, right?

Brent: Yeah.

David: So man, I absolutely love that.

Brent: You know my favorite thing about marketing is like you know, going to the school dance when I was in middle school. You know, I had to ask like ten girls to get a date but the girls, they had 10 guys asking them so they got the pick out of 10 guys. Well, if we're doing a lot of marketing, we get to pick between 10 deals of what we want to buy first, what we want to keep as far as the best and wholesale the rest. You know, that's the way I look at it. You got to have options like you got to constantly keep that pipe full of water with a constant deal flow trickling in and in front of you coming across your desk and just imagine having options, like people just starting out don't have very many options and they pick a bad deal. Well, we want to pick the best deals.

David: I totally agree man, I totally agree. So with you being a veteran- being a veteran, are you helping other veterans get started and you know, why should veterans you know, choose real estate or more specifically, land investing real estate?

Brent: Yeah, I have several students that are veterans. One of my really good friends is doing this as well, you know, he's an army captain and I just got the pleasure of doing an interview with him. He- well, this is his second interview I've done with him on the wholesaling podcast but he started with the desert lot. Nothing wrong with that, he was 3x-ing his money while still being paid by the military while deployed to Korea, basically in Korea doing that and basically he made up to where he had a passive income of like 45 hundred a  month just coming from land. Well, and that was net coming in every month. Well, he changed his strategy just a little bit because he now got stationed in Texas and just started buying and selling buildable infill lots, so getting them at a discount and throwing them on the MLS right away. The guys pulling a hundred thousand dollars a month net profit every single month while working a full-time job in the army.

David: While working a full time job. Wow.

Brent: Yeah, you know, and I had so many friends in the military that's like I gotta do 20 years, there's no way I can get out before 20 years. I can't afford the insurance when I get out and I got to feed my family, my five children, I can't get out. Well me, I had to get out. I was like, I'm not losing a second wife, God forbid, like I just saw the worst possibility happening and I wanted to see my children. When my first son was born, I was like I got to change something because I want to be around for this little boy's life because I mean, I missed the first year of his life basically.

David: Sure.

Brent: I'll never get that back and then my second- my daughter came, I missed the first 8 months of her life. So I was- I looked at my expenses and I was like all right, I'm going to make this and I'm going to add 3 thousand to that, that way I'm comfortable and I can get out. I did it 9 months, I had a huge why and I put in my packet to get the heck out of the military, not because it wasn't a good job, I felt good at the end of the day, I feel like I was doing a good profession, career, business but I just, I set my- I burned the boats, you know, I was ready to get out.

David: Man I love it. You are- you got the- you're very interesting my friend.

Brent: [inaudible] I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

David: I like it. Okay cool. Really quick, what are some of the softwares that you're using in your business?

Brent: Software, I love Pipedrive, my team loves Pipedrive. It's our CRM, our customer relationship manager. What else do I use? I use GeekPay, it tracks all my notes. It tells me when people are late, when people are behind, when people pay their-

David: Incpay?

Brent: GeekPay.

David: Oh, GeekPay.

Brent: You can find- you can find it with- let me see what the link is. I apologize, I should have that up.

David: You're good. So Pipedrive is a CRM and you use GeekPay.

Brent: Yup. GeekPay, that tracks all my loans. What is it? Ah darn.

David: And are you your own servicing company essentially or do you have a servicing company?

Brent: So no, GeekPay services it for me.

David: Nice.

Brent: So it's called easynotetracking.com, easynotetracking.com. Another software I mentioned was price.com. They actually give me a list of land. It also works for houses but here's what's really cool about price.com is they show you what the value is of the lands. One caveat to that, you need to keep the buildable infill lots separate, keep apples with apples and oranges with oranges. So sometimes that will skew, if you're looking at two acres-

David: Sure.

Brent: Two acres is worth 20 grand but the buildable lot's worth 30. Well, it's got water and power on it, so then you want to focus on the 1 to 2, 2 to 5, 5 to 10, but priced.com/thelandsharks will get you a 7-Day free trial plus your first 400 records free to where you can literally start mailing tonight.

David: Hell yeah, that's what's up. Anything else that you're using in terms of like comping? How are you comping land?

Brent: So I'll tell you one of my- one of my ways is using price.com but here's another way. This is like some stuff and this doesn't work for every market. If Redfin's not in the market, then use Zillow, but I love to go on Redfin and pick my little area, my ZIP code or my town, and then I narrow in on all that land. I look at the sold's in the last six months and I want to see who listed it and who brought the buyer, who it's buyer agent was, and then I look for a pattern. When I see one realtor three or four or five times, I know that's the land expert.

David: Yup.

Brent: And I call that realtor and I say, hey Jimbo, I see you're the land expert in Teller County, what is the blowout price for a half acre on this street? I want the blowout price, the get it done now price, I don't want the pie in the sky price. I want to get this thing sold quick and they tell me the real number and sometimes they go out and look at it for me because they're that land expert. They're awesome.

David: Right. Holy cow, that is awesome. Okay cool. Brent, what's the key to success in your opinion?

Brent: Well one, energy.

David: I agree. Haha I love that answer.

Brent: Earlier I was sitting on the couch, it's like one o'clock, I just had a big lunch which I found out stop eating cheeseburgers for lunch, eat a salad, you want to have some energy.

David: Hahaha.

Brent: Well I'm trying to bulk, I'm trying to bulk up and salad's don't bulk me up. Yeah, well put yourself to sleep every day at lunchtime, have energy and I'm sitting on the couch, had a big lunch, I'm trying to send some emails. I'm like man, I could totally lay down on this couch but luckily I had time blocked to where I couldn't do a nap. I had something else to where you know, I had already set with someone else an appointment. So energy and block your calendar out, you know, and also take the time for rest. I used to be that guy, you got to get up at 4:00 a.m. to be successful. Now, I get 8 hours of sleep every night now so I'm 35 and I'm starting to take care of my body for once.

David: Man, those are awesome answers. Last question I got for you before we wrap up and we get your- some parting words from you. You know, what's your next goal? So you've done you know, essentially, you got over a 180 students at this point, you're doing tons and tons of land deals, you hold over a hundred notes, looks like you've done close to 300 land transactions. Wow, that is amazing. What's next for you my man?

Brent: You know, I just started a YouTube channel. No one else out there is talking about land on YouTube.

David: That's awesome.

Brent: So my next goal- that's one of my goals is to build that up. The channel name is called Brent Bowers but you know, I'm trying to change a thousand lives by this- by July 1st 2022 and land changed my life, real estate changed my life for the better, but yeah, I'm trying to train a hundred- a thousand people to set up businesses that serve them, their family and others.

David: Brent, I can't wait to jump off of this and go subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Brent: Thank you. Appreciate you.

David: But I'm telling you, that's awesome, that's really, really cool. Brent, where can people connect with you? I know you said- you had mentioned the land sharks, is that the .com?

Brent: Yep, thelandsharks.com. You know, I'm on Instagram, Brent L. Bowers, and also I'm a coach for Wholesaling Inc. wholesellinginc.com/land. So couple- several places.

David: Yeah, several places. So guys let me recap that. thelandsharks.com, Brent L Bowers, that's your IG, right?

Brent: Yeah, that's my IG handle.

David: All right, and then Brent Bowers is the YouTube.

Brent: Yeah, and I go on there, I answer people's questions like.

David: I do too man. I love it. I love helping people, giving back. That's what we're doing right now, you know, just trying to teach as many people and spread the word. So Brent L Bowers, IG. Brent Bowers, YouTube. wholesalinginc.com/land as well. Brent, thanks for coming on. I am so incredibly grateful to get to meet you and network with you and learn from you today as well as you know, your time. So thank you so much for that, really appreciate it. I know my listeners and my viewers will also be very very grateful for having you on the show today. What would be some parting words that you'd give the audience, you know, if they're- we have a lot of new people that listen to this show and they're kind of getting their feet wet and maybe not have- maybe haven't done a deal yet or maybe they've even done a couple deals yet in terms of their investing but what would be just some advice that you would give anybody that's kind of new in the game?

Brent: Yeah. Stop getting your feet wet. You know how I jump in pools like I jump in. I can't walk in the steps because I don't like cold water. I'm from Florida, I've got thin blood so I just jump right in the pool. That's how I started my land investing business. I sent 687 mailers before I even knew what the heck it was. So I heard a great quote today from a land realtor. He said, what did he say? You know, those too afraid to make the leap will always work for someone that wasn't too afraid to make the leap.

David: I love it.

Brent: Just jump right in.

David: Jump right on in. Guys, you heard it from the man, the myth, the legend himself, Mr. Brent Bowers. Brent, thanks for coming on the show today. Guys, go check him out online: thelandsharks.com. Brent Bower, Brent L. Bowers on IG, Brent Bowers on YouTube and of course, wholesalinginc.com/ land. Brent, checking- signing off for today. Thanks for coming on. Talk to you soon.

Brent: Thank you David.

Thanks for listening to the discount property investor podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, share, and subscribe to help us reach a wider audience to jump-start your real estate investing career, visit freewholesalecourse.com- the most complete free course on wholesaling real estate ever. We would also appreciate it if you left us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. Thank you in advance for your support and remember you make your money when you buy, you get paid when you sell. Now let's go build some wealth.