Mike Browning

Tag: Land Deals

  • Yes, They Had TVs The Last Time The Cowboys Were In The Super Bowl

    Yes, They Had TVs The Last Time The Cowboys Were In The Super Bowl

    They were even color TVs. Just not HD.

    You have to be pretty old these days to remember it, but there was a time when the Dallas Cowboys were the unquestioned kings of the NFL.

    It can be kind of funny when younger people ask why older people continue to watch and pay so much attention when the team “never wins anything.”

    Habit, I guess.

    That and stubbornness, which is a superpower of mine. Not to mention we’re all sort of pot committed on the deal. We’ve been at it so long that really the only thing to do is keep going. Then on the off chance the team does win again, we can claim to have been behind them all along.

    We can hope anyway.

    I don’t know why it came to mind recently, but I was thinking about something I heard about those early 90s teams. About how, on defense especially, they noticed a market inefficiency which they exploited by prioritizing speed over size.

    Of course every team, including the Cowboys, wanted the athletic freaks. The guys who were huge while also having world-class speed.

    But there aren’t many of those.

    Once you got past them, most teams would look for big guys who might not be quite as fast. The Cowboys decided to go after really fast guys who might be a little undersized.

    Since fewer teams were looking there, they could find better players in that bucket. Not to mention they presented a different challenge than their opponents were used to.

    Or maybe it was just because they had Hall of Fame-level talent at all the key positions, and it didn’t matter so much who was on the back end.

    Either way, it was fun to watch.

    If you’re an investor, you’ve probably noticed it’s harder to find deals in the areas where everyone is already looking.

    You’ve heard the saying about location, location, location.

    Location matters.

    So does basis.

    Everybody already knows where the hottest areas are. And when everybody knows, you tend to pay for it.

    Sometimes I’d rather own something bought right in an outlying area than something I had to overpay for just to be in the fairway.

    That’s part of the reason the Buyer’s Short List covers more than 20 counties in North Texas.

    I look for things that appear to be priced well relative to what’s around them, then start looking for the reason. Most don’t survive that second part.

    When one does, I let the List know.

    No spam. No schedule. Just when something looks worth a closer look.

    They won’t all be a fit for you.

    But is it a bad idea to have someone looking where everybody else isn’t?

    Check It Out Here.

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  • It’s a Short List

    It’s a Short List

    In more ways than one.

    Successful land investing isn’t complicated. You find something underpriced, verify what you’ve got, buy it at the right number, and let time do most of the work.

    Simple. Not easy.

    I recently ran a quick search. Drawing a 60-mile circle around DFW Airport, there were just under 5,000 land listings of one acre or more currently on the market.

    Most aren’t investment opportunities.

    Anyone who’s spent much time looking at land already knows that. Pretty quickly, most people start looking for a better way to sort through the noise.

    Which might lead to joining a few wholesaler text lists. I’m on some myself. I’ve never bought anything from them, but I did make the mistake of asking for more information a few times. It didn’t take long to realize the property wasn’t a fit. The follow-up calls lasted much longer.

    Makes you wish there was a better way.

    Guess what?

    There isn’t a perfect way, but I’ve built a process for filtering thousands of listings down to a handful that deserve a closer look.

    Most get rejected immediately because of something obvious. Floodplain. No access. Bad location. Unrealistic pricing. Some other issue that makes the property unsuitable as an investment.

    You don’t need to hear about those.

    Every so often, though, something survives the first pass. Not necessarily a deal, and not necessarily something I’d buy myself. But interesting enough to warrant a closer look.

    Those are the properties I pay attention to.

    When I find one, I prepare a short report explaining why it caught my eye, what nearby sales suggest, and what I think deserves further investigation. Then I share it with people who have asked to see them.

    No requirement to become an exclusive client. No incessant follow-up. I may check once to make sure you saw the information, but that’s about it.

    Because I’m not a salesman. I’m a filter.

    Be In The Know

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  • No Calculator Required

    No Calculator Required

    I can wade through 90% of it before you even pick up a pencil. Sound interesting?

    There’s a saying you’ll hear a lot in real estate investing: if you need a calculator to determine if something is a deal, it’s not a deal.

    Obviously you need to run financial projections and all that.

    But the point is that a truly good deal will sort of jump off the page at you. It’s clearly priced in a way that makes it appear to be below market, without requiring a spreadsheet.

    Of course, it doesn’t take long being in this business to learn that if something is really cheap, there’s usually a reason.

    Something’s wrong.

    It’s almost totally in the floodplain. It’s got pipeline easements on it that make it look like a spiderweb. It has no road frontage. Or any number of things.

    A lot of times what catches my eye turns out to be something that wouldn’t really be worth owning if they gave it to you. At least not from an investment perspective.

    But not always.

    Every so often I run across something that’s priced low and doesn’t appear to have the usual problems. The sort of thing that makes me stop and look harder.

    And if it’s in an area where I already know someone who would be interested, I usually know who to call. But sometimes it’s in an area where I don’t have someone looking.

    That’s what the Buyer’s Short List is for.

    Covering 21 counties in North Texas, I have a screen that flags newly available or reduced-price listings that are priced low relative to what’s been selling around them.

    Most of them aren’t deals, for the reasons discussed above.

    But every once in a while, one makes it through the first screen and still looks interesting after I dig into it.

    If you’re on the Short List, when that happens you get an email and a chance to see more.

    No schedule. No spam. Just when something makes it through.

    Is it a bad idea to minimize the time you spend looking at bad deals?

    Learn More Here

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  • If It Sounds Too Good To Be True

    If It Sounds Too Good To Be True

    It probably is. Except when it isn’t.

    It’s happened to most of us.

    You’re in the used car market and see something online that looks like a really great deal. You’re skeptical that it’s just a scam to get your info, but it turns out to be a real person. So you get excited, only to find out it has a salvage title. Or it’s been in three accidents. Or something. The seller wasn’t lying exactly. He just wasn’t volunteering.

    We’ve all heard the saying and mostly believe it. If something sounds too good, be skeptical. Knowing that and acting on it in the moment are two different skills, and the second one is a lot harder than it sounds when you’re the one standing next to something you need and want.

    Nobody falls for the Nigerian prince anymore. We’ve all had that training by now. It’s the smaller version that still gets people. The retirement account with a “guaranteed” return. The stock tip from a brother in law who heard it from a guy at work. The story about a politician you already don’t like, one that fits exactly what you expected to hear about him, so you share it before you check it.

    There’s always somebody out there advertising a screaming deal on rural acreage, half the going rate or less. The honest question isn’t whether you can afford it. It’s why a deal that good needs to be advertised at all.

    Most of the time it’s cheap for a reason you haven’t found yet. Floodplain. An easement running through the middle of it. Something next door nobody wants to look at from their porch. Maybe the listing agent knows. There’s a pretty good chance the neighbor who’s farmed next to it for thirty years does.

    And by the time an obvious screaming deal reaches somebody two counties away with no history in the area, it’s worth asking why somebody closer to it hasn’t already grabbed it.

    There’s a difference between a deal nobody’s found yet and a deal everybody already turned down.

    Every so often, the real thing does show up. An estate that needs to close fast. An out of town agent who priced it off the wrong comps. An owner who’s been sitting on it since 2004 and never bothered updating his number. Those exist. They’re just a lot rarer than the other kind, and the little jump in your pulse feels exactly the same either way. That’s the part that gets people.

    Whether you check first or get excited first is on you.

    That’s why I run a screen through thousands of available tracts looking for the ones priced under what’s around them. And that’s only the first pass.

    Most of what survives it turns out to be fool’s gold once I actually dig into it. Every once in a while, one doesn’t.

    Usually I already know who the right buyer is for it. Depending on the area, the size, the timing, sometimes I don’t, and I end up sitting on something worth a look with nobody in mind for it yet.

    That’s what the Buyer’s Short List is for.

    When something actually clears the screen, I send a short note to a small list of people who asked to see them. No spam, no newsletter, nothing on a schedule.

    They won’t all be a fit for you. And something being on the list doesn’t mean you should buy it.

    It means I’ve looked for the reason it was too good to be true and haven’t found it yet.

    [Add me to the list.]

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  • Take The Win

    Take The Win

    You don’t also have to announce it.

    Celina’s city council recently approved some incentives to land a second Walmart. I won’t break it down here, but it could be pretty substantial. And probably a smart move, I’d say. Sales tax is one of the few revenue levers a city actually controls, and a big box store just inside your line pulls shoppers in from both sides while the tax dollars only land on yours. So far, so good.

    Then the mayor opened his mouth.

    Ryan Tubbs told the room they were going to build the best Walmart they could “so every resident of Pilot Point comes and visits Celina and shops at Walmart… so that we cause sales tax leakage for our lovely neighbors.”

    He’s not wrong, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Pilot Point residents will drive to the closer store, and Celina banks the tax revenue while Pilot Point’s roads absorb the traffic that got them there.

    But saying it out loud like that is a low status move. It’s also not smart business.

    There’s about a 100% chance Tubbs sits across a table from somebody in Pilot Point again before too long. A road project, a shared utility line, some regional thing nobody can avoid. And now he’s the guy who stood up and gloated about it on the record. Doesn’t matter that he was right. That’s not a great position to negotiate from the next time he needs something from them.

    Win the deal. Then keep your mouth shut about it. Be gracious.

    If you’re a land investor you know this.

    You make your money when you buy, not when you sell. Old idea, still true every time.

    When somebody’s willing to sell below market today, there’s almost always a reason behind it. A health scare, a divorce, a job that’s moving them, an estate nobody in the family wants to deal with, a note coming due next month.

    You didn’t create the situation. You just showed up with a solution when they needed one, and the price reflected the circumstances.

    The deal closes. You’re very happy with the deal. That doesn’t mean you explain to the seller how much you saved, or mention it to their neighbor, or bring it up again down the road when the tract’s worth double.

    You say thank you and you mean it.

    And that you hope your paths cross again, because in this business they usually do, and you want to still be the guy they’d sell to next time.

    Gloating doesn’t get you anything the win didn’t already get you. It just costs you the next deal, or the next referral, or the next seller who was on the fence and heard how you talk about the last one.

    Most of the good deals I’ve gotten over the years came from somebody who trusted me enough to call again.

    People have long memories when you make them feel like the loser.

    PS- If you’d rather hear about a deal before it goes anywhere else, I keep a short list for that. Nothing fancy about it. When something worth a second look clears my screen, the people on the list hear first. No spam, no newsletter, nothing on a schedule.

    [Add me to the list.]

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  • The Ones You Never Heard About

    The Ones You Never Heard About

    Not every deal I lose track of was a bad one.

    A while back I flagged a property that looked promising. Priced well below recent comps, no obvious defects, decent location. The kind of thing I’d usually already have a home for before I even finished looking at the listing.

    This one, I didn’t.

    I made a couple calls. Nobody was in a spot for it right then. One guy just closed something else. Another was focused on a different area. By the time I got to the third call, somebody else had already put it under contract.

    I never even found out who bought it.

    That’s the part that sticks with me. Not that I lost the deal. I didn’t have a deal to lose. I just didn’t have the right person on the other end of the phone in time.

    It happens more than you’d think.

    Most of what I see isn’t worth a second look. Access, utilities, topography, floodplain, buyer demand, surrounding uses, and a dozen other factors kill most of it before it goes anywhere. But every so often something survives all that, and when it does, it doesn’t wait around.

    The properties that are actually underpriced don’t sit on the market long enough for you to find them on your own. Somebody has to already be looking, already know what you want, and already have your number.

    I think there’s a difference between wanting to hear about a good deal and actually being set up to hear about one.

    If you’re not on my list, you’re not missing out on deals I send. You’re missing out on deals I never get the chance to send, because I didn’t know to call you.

    I’m trying to fix that, one name at a time.

    If you’re an investor and want to be one of the calls I make when something survives the filtering, click below and tell me what you’re looking for.

    No obligation. No pressure. Just a way to make sure you’re one of the calls I get to make instead of one of the ones I don’t.

    Is it a bad idea to be on that list?

    Learn About The MBR Buyers Short List

  • It’s All In How You Look At It

    It’s All In How You Look At It

    We often make things harder in our minds than they really are.

    I’ve heard land investors talk about searching for deals and use the metaphor “like looking for a needle in a haystack.” And I get it. You have to look through a lot of stuff you don’t want to (maybe) find what you do want.

    But think about it a minute.

    And don’t assume rules that nobody spoke.

    Hay is flammable. Needles aren’t.

    Needles are magnetic. Ashes aren’t.

    So if you really want to find that needle, just burn the haystack. Then take a magnet or metal detector to find the needle in the ashes. And you’re done.

    Instead of getting worked up about how hard something sounds, just think it through and see if there’s a creative solution.

    I recently ran a quick search in the greater North Texas area (22 counties). In the land category, there were a little over 4,200 properties available.

    That’s a pretty big haystack. Over 99% of those aren’t going to be suitable for what you’re looking for. Makes it hard to want to start looking.

    And even if you could look through them all, the list changes every day. New properties come on the market. Others sell, expire, get canceled, or get reduced.

    I’ve figured out a way to screen daily for new and reduced properties that appear to be priced well based on recent nearby sales. Burning the haystack, if you will. That leaves me with a much shorter list to run the magnet over.

    Most low-priced properties are cheap for a reason. Floodplain. Access problems. Utility issues. Some other defect that isn’t obvious from the listing. Those get ruled out too.

    Every so often I end up with one or two that are worth a closer look.

    And I have a list of people I alert when that happens.

    But there’s not always a fit.

    It may not be in an area they like. Or it’s more (or less) money than they’re looking to invest. Or maybe they just bought something else.

    So every now and then I end up looking at something I think deserves a closer look and don’t really have the right investor to send it to.

    I’m trying to fix that.

    To hear about opportunities when they survive the filtering, click below and tell me what you’re looking for.

    No obligation. No pressure. Just a way to see what catches my attention before it disappears.

    Would it be a bad idea to know about them?

    Learn More Here