Joe:  Welcome. This is the Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast. Hey, what's going on, guys? Welcome to the Real Estate Investing Mastery podcast. Super glad you're here. You know, one of the problems that a lot of people have when they're looking to buy land deals is, where's the money gonna come from, right? You do all this marketing, you get all these leads, come in, you send all these offers, and all of a sudden you get a seller that says, “Yeah, I'll take your offer. I'll accept your offer, I wanna sell my deal.” And then you're like, “Oh my gosh, what do I do next?” And you're freaking out. Well, this is why I wanted Elise Limoges.Did I get that right, Elise?

Elise:   You got it, great.

Joe:  Liberty land group and this is one of the funding companies that I've been recommending for a long time in my program And so I reached out to her the other day and I said hey can we talk on a podcast and talk about what it is that you do and what are some of the things if you're a Funding company and you partner with people on deals you provide the money and you do the all of the done-for-you stuff Afterwards what kind of deals are you looking what makes a good deal a good? Deal what makes it bad deal a bad deal when somebody is submitting a deal for funding what are the important things that you need to see so that, you know, we can save each other. Everybody can save a bunch of time and you don't have to like worry about spending bad deals. But one of the biggest reasons why I like working with companies like Liberty is because they're going to tell me if it's a bad deal. If Liberty will not lend me money or will not partner with me on the deal, then you might not want to do it either yourself. Does that make sense? So we're going dive deep into this. Lisa's got a great model. She works people all over the country. She knows what works, what doesn't. She has seen it all. She's seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. And so at least one of the biggest questions I want to ask you on this podcast is like, what are the biggest mistakes that we can avoid? What are the biggest lessons learned and how can we avoid those kinds of bad deals? So welcome to the podcast. Glad you're here. Thanks.

Elise:   Thanks for having me.

Joe:  How did you get started in the land investing business?

Elise:  Sure. So a friend of ours was already in this space. He was doing it as a part-time gig, had a full-time job, but it was a weekend warrior in land flipping, vacant land, and was looking for some funding. And so we partnered up with him and we started Liberty Land Group. Actually, we were doing our own deals internally. Soall of the things you guys are going through, I have been there because we did about 50 of our own deal across the country before we ever started funding anybody else's deals. So, that was about seven years ago. We were doing outbound mailers. We had de-intake, we had the CRM, we were doing all the things. And we learned the hard way, just like you're saying. You got to underwrite properly, you've got to do your due diligence. And after a while, we learned that funding was an issue in this space. We have friends, fellow travelers who are looking for capital. They didn't want to go to a lender for whatever reason, couldn't get lending on vacant land and a lot of the major banks just won't lend on vacant land, it's too risky. And so we started lending to, or we started funding deals for friends and fellow travelers. And from there, Liberty just sort of organically grew. And in the last five years, we've done about 700 deals across the country. I would say we've, yeah, it's been pretty wild when you think about it, but we've invested, I want to say about 38, 40 states we've bought and sold deals in. So we feel really fortunate. We've had some great partners, some that come to us and we've been funding almost since day one. So we've got these great long term partnerships, which we absolutely love. Some people come to us occasionally because they say, hey, I've got a really bigdeal and I just don't have the capital for this one. And maybe the other 95% of deals they fund themselves, which is amazing. I love that.

Joe:   All right, I like it. So I'm writing down, as you're talking, I just got five questions to ask. So you've been there and done that. You've done a lot of land investing in a lot different markets. What are some of your favorite markets right now?

Elise:   That's a good question. I actually try to stay neutral because we do consider ourselves Switzerland. We aren't in the outbound space and we are doing our own deals. So I always tell my investors, I don't want to send someone to a place you're working in and have people flood your market. So, I really do try not to share that information on where we're doing deals. But I would say actively, we're in about 25, 30 states right now. So there are feels to be had. Everywhere and i would say if you have had success in a market and you haven't mailed there in a while go back to that market because you've already done that research you know what works what doesn't each market is unique and if you haven t been in a market don't flood it with 10 000 mailers or outbound whatever you do text messages phone calls, SEO, just start small and test it and see what works for you and what doesn’t.

Joe:   I'm gonna give you a couple of counties here and I want you to tell me their first reaction. The first thing that comes to your mind, okay? Castilla County, Colorado.

Elise:  It's one of the places we started. I think that's one place a lot of people start. Every time I look, it's flooded.

Joe:   Lee County, Florida

Elise:  Done a couple deals there. It was fine. Nothing jumps out, positive or negative.

Joe:  Okay. That's funny. You laughed at Castilla County. What's crazy is like that is a very competitive County as is Lee County. How about Charlotte County, Florida?

Elise:  Again, I know we've done a handful of deals there. Nothing jumps out as huge or small. We've done lot of deals in Florida, but I would say they're pretty spread out, not really a ton concentrated in any one county. But yeah, Castilla County, when we start out, we were doing our own outbound mailers, we went there first because it was easy to get vacant land, it was cheap. But I see a lot of people having a hard time offloading it. So if it's working for other people, great. I haven't done outbound there for years, so I'm not sure what it's like.

Joe:   That's one of those markets I'm scratching my head thinking, what? I don't understand it because there's a lot of land for sale right now for $5,000. Five acre lots for sale for $5000. How is Russia going to compete against that? I don't know. I don get it. I think the people are doing a lot of deals there and probably how they're doing it is they're buying it for 3000, selling it for 5000 and they're okay with those quick little $2,000 profits, assignments.

Elise:  Yeah, and I would say when we were doing it, we did a lot of seller financing there. So I would be speculating, but I would think a lot of stuff that is moving there is probably $99 down, $99 a month kind of deal.

Joe:  Which makes sense if that's what your model.

Elise:  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some people are making it work and I see people that have been doing it for a long time still buying and selling stuff there. So if the right deal came along, there are some pockets in that county that are great. So it's hard to paint any geography with a broad stroke. I'm sure we still own stuff there, but especially stuff we sell or finance for forever in a day. But yeah, I don't know that I would mail there right now if I were mailing.

Joe:   Okay, so let's talk about what it is that you do. You fund people's land deals, but you're not a lender. Talk about what is that actually do. And talk about, I think this is brilliant. I love this, especially for people just beginning in the business, because you kind of take away all of the risk, almost, right, or you take on the risk.

Elise:   Absolutely. So typically, what happens is somebody gets a deal under contract and they approach us and say, look, I've got this deal under a contract. I have done some preliminary due diligence. I feel like I understand what it's going to sell for. Here's what I think it's gonna sell for, I think, it's going to be roughly 2X of what I'm asking you to invest in this deal. And I would like for you, Liberty, to fund it. And so what that means is I'm paying not only the acquisition costs I'm paying. Closing costs, if there are back taxes, if they're back HOA dues, anything we need to do to get within reason, right, to make sure the property is free and clear, all of the money after the person has gotten that property under contract is coming out of liberty. Sometimes there's testing that needs to be done. Certain geographies, you need to know if it's good soil and if you're going to be able to put in a septic test, we are paying for that test. If there's a title search and for some reason the deal doesn't close, we're the ones paying for that title search. If we feel like it's a good deal, we feel strong enough to send it full underwriting and I've given you preliminary approval, that means whatever costs I expend, I'm never going to expect you to come out of pocket worth.

Joe:  Okay. And then if it's a good deal, you will lend on the deal. If it's not a good deal, you don't lend on the deal, right?

Elise:  Exactly. If I say, hey, I think this is too risky for Liberty, I'll tell you why. I will show you the comps we've found. I'll show you where there's a floodplain or a wetland that's problematic. I'm going to show you if we're seeing access as problematic or something and the title commitment is problematic. We will give you a reason. We're not just to say hey. We're not going to fund on this and turn you away. We'll try to use it. As you mentioned earlier, we'll use it as an education opportunity and say, based on what we've seen in the past, this is going to be a challenge. We really think this could be a deal breaker. Here's why. And 99% of the time, if we don't think it's a deal worth funding, a lot of times the investors will just walk away from it.

Joe:   Which is a good thing.

Elise:   It is a good thing.

Joe:   You want to find this out now. Exactly. You don't want to this not after you buy it. Do you ever tell the person, hey, hey listen, if you get it under contract at this price, we might be willing to slightly interrupt.

Elise:  Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of the time, I will say, hey, you know, I know this market, and I've seen comps go this way. I've see challenges here. Have you talked to a realtor yet? What do your comps look like? And if I see conflicting comps, I'll say, Hey, look, I really think we're expected at a price that's a little high. So I think we're going to exit at X. Can you get the contract down to half X?

Joe:  That's a beautiful thing. I mean, because now, guys, you can go back to the seller and say, hey, listen, I talked to my financial partners. I talked to my lenders and we can't do it at this price. We could do it at this, right? So you now can blame a lease for why your offer was too high. And you could go back to the sellers because sometimes people were afraid to do that. We're afraid to go back to the cellar and say I'm sorry, I made a mistake. But now you can blame it on somebody else and go back to the sellers and get the discounts that you want. Now they may say no, forget it, but that's fine. You maybe need to send a termination notice to cancel the agreement that you had, but you can now follow up with that seller every 30 days. And you know the lease will fund the deal at this price, right? So now you can send the offer to the seller as part of your follow-up for the next five years. Send them that offer over and over and again. So I love this because this is now, when you decide to partner with somebody with Liberty land, they're acting like a filter for your deals, which most people here haven't done 700 deals in 38 different states. So wouldn't it be good to get some advice and an opinion from somebody who has.

Elise:   And we're happy to be that sounding board. I tell people all the time, hey, if you're uncertain about something, send it my way, and I'm happy to give you feedback.

Joe:   I love it. Okay. So now you, you have different structure on how you partner with people on the deals, right? You either just lend the money, they do the work, or you lend the money and you do all the work. Right.

Elise:   Yep, absolutely. So we have two different funding models. The first is a joint venture model where if Liberty funds the deal and we manage, that means we're doing all the work, get it through title, work with the realtor, get its sold. In that instance, we get 60% of the profit splits and our partner gets 40% of the profits splits. Importantly, there is no deadline for the property to sell under that model. So if you're a worried that it's going to take a while for the property to sell. You think it could sit for a minute. Sometimes people will go towards that model. Sometimes it's because of the timeframe, sometimes it's because they got a lot of the other stuff going on. They'd rather go focus on the acquisition side. They don't want to deal with dispo and they send it our way and we take it over and go from there. The other model we have is the partnership model, which a lot of our seasoned investors like because the opposite is true, right? So they do all of the work. We will still underwrite it and we will still go through the title commitment and all of that stuff, but they're the ones working with the realtor, they're the ones hiring the contractor if needed to do any improvements, they are the ones hiring the soil testers or the well testers, or whatever we need to have done, hiring the drone folks, and they are shepherding the property through that full life cycle of acquisition sale process, and in exchange, they get 60% of profits and we get 40%. But under that model, they have eight months from date of acquisition to get the property sold. So that is a big deal and I like to make that a point simply because we need to know that everyone's working earnestly to get their property sold right. Usually eight months isn't a big, we've had it become an issue only a handful of times. That is a long time for something to be on the market but that deadline is in there.

Joe:  This is so good because here's the thing. I have never done a deal that I can think of or can remember where I did 100% of everything all by myself. I have always found other people to partner on a deal with. And it might be a realtor, it might be another wholesaler, it might be another landlord or hard money lender or something, somebody, I am partnering with them on the deal because I don't want to do it all, right? And you might think, man, I have to give up 60% of my profits. Yeah, but you don't have to do anything. And if you look at how much you actually cost you, if you were to do it yourself, you've got realtor commissions, you got all of the software, you got all the hassle of taking the calls, you got all the time of dealing with all of stuff. And if you hire a disposition team and you hire virtual assistants, like I have a dispositions manager, at the end of the day, I'm not making anywhere close to 100% of the profits. If you were to do it all yourself and you were hiring a realtor or you had VA's helping you with the marketing and you had the title company and the closing costs and all of this and the cost of the capital, you might make 60% 50% of the profits anyway, and so now you can free it's it's the it's the opportunity cost is what I'm trying to say, right? If you can get somebody else that already has the machine to do the marketing to do the research to work with the title company to work with the realtors to work, with the drone photographers to work with any perc tests or surveys or environmental remediation that needs to be done or whatever right like there you could the time that you have been spending on doing that, you could now spend on finding new deals. I tell people all the time, a half of a watermelon is better than 100% of a grape. And that's kind of what you're getting. A 40% of watermelon is a better than a 100% a grape because now, because you have a limited bandwidth, right? That you can only do a few deals here and there. But when you find somebody that you can partner with that can do all of that marketing stuff, instead of doing one or deals a month. You could now be doing three or four deals, five deals a month, by partnering with other people like Liberty Land, right? And so I preach on this all the time because I get it, you know, somebody's new in the business and they want to make as much money as possible, as fast as possible, but they don't realize yet what they don't know what they don't know and they don't realize how much work is involved and how much risk is involved when you use your own money on a deal. I have a big big fan of working with funding companies like Liberty Land. All right. What are some of the things, Elise, that you look for in deals? When somebody submits a deal for you guys, what are you looking for?

Elise:  Yep. Great question. So I would say due diligence is the big thing we're going to look for, right? I've got an acronym called FACTS, F-A-C-T-S, and those are the big components we look for. So number one is going to be floodplain and wetlands. Not necessarily only do they exist because there are plenty of places where they exist and it's not a problem, but there are a plenty of place where they exists and it is a problem. So. Does a floodplain or wetland or arroyo or, you know, what have you, environmental anything exists on that property? And if so, is it going to be problematic for us? Number two is access, legal and physical. Do they both exist? Are they the same? Do we know we can get to the property if it is legally landlocked? Is that something we can fix? Has the realtor factored this into their pricing if either of those two things don't exist? Number three is comps. Do we reasonably expect that we're going to sell it for 2X of what we're buying it for? Number four is topography. Right? How steep is it? Is it some slope is fine? Sometimes you want to be at the top of the hill and have a great view, but is it too steep to put in a septic? Is it too steep too? Put it in a driveway, is that going to drive up someone's building costs so much that by the time the realtor goes out there and looks at it, they say, I can't find you a buyer for this. That's going to be problematic. And slope kind of plays into that slope topography. The other one, the last thing is taxes and HOA fees. So we don't mind paying back taxes. Are they huge? If so, why would somebody let the property, why would they let paying taxes go for so long? Sometimes that's an indicator that there's a problem on the property. If it's valuable, usually people are paying up, paying their property taxes. They're keeping up on their HOA dues. So if those are in bad shape and they've been due for a couple of years and the property is in foreclosure, what's going on there? What are our carrying costs if we have to sit on it for a while? Those are the big things we look for.

Joe:   Is there minimum price ranges that you're looking to fund?

Elise:  I mean, I would say we'll go pretty cheap. If you find something for three, four grand and you think we're there and at least double that, and we can close it pretty inexpensively, we'll do it. It's hard to find those deals these days. Usually, we want to go through a title company just because I know so many horror stories with so many people thought they had a clear title. They did their own due diligence on the title chain. And sure enough, there ended up being an issue either while they owned it or down the line, they sold it and someone came back and said, Hey, we've got a problem here.

Joe:  Just always use title companies and I always get title insurance.

Elise:  Yeah, I would say that was a big lesson learned for us originally. When we started, the school of thought was, well, hey, if you're buying it for a few thousand dollars, it doesn't really matter. I'll tell you, it does matter. It really does matter and it's worth it. I've had to file quite a few title claims and I think all but one of them we've won and it was worth it in every instance.

Joe:  Do you have like a minimum percentage of equity in the deal or like the offer under the price that it's under contract has to be a certain percentage of the value of the property?

Elise:  Yeah, usually if we're under contract for X, we want it to reasonably sell for 2X.

Joe: Yeah, this is a good, good rule of thumb that this is something I've always preached for years and years. Try to offer no more than 40% of what you think you can sell it quickly for in one or two months, right? And so that might mean then you, you negotiate it up at the most 50% as my rule of them. If it's over a hundred grand, I might go to 60% of, what I can conservatively aggressively sell it for in 1 or 2 months. Is that similar? If it's like a $200,000 property, are you okay with getting it maybe 60%, getting it under contract for like that number?

Elise: You know, it really depends on the property. Sometimes we have said yes to that. Sometimes we have no. In theory, there is more margin, but there is also more risk. And there's a lot fewer buyers, your buyer pool for something you're buying at 200 grand expecting the sell for 350 to 400,000. It is a lot smaller and those things can take longer to sell. Sometimes they require financing. You have to make sure that deal is really Sometimes you need to do improvements on those deals or a subdivide or… Know, something that requires a heavier lift. So on a case-by-case basis, we will look at it, but because of the amount of capital involved, usually we try to stay pretty close to that X selling for 2X.

Joe: Do you do any subdivides or entitlements?

Elise: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, we try to stick closer to the minor or exempt subdivides. And what I mean by that is something that's going to have very minimal government oversight or approval requirements. In some counties that could look like, hey, I'm buying a 40 acre parcel and if I divide it into four 10 acre lots and I have 150 feet of road frontage on each of them, all I have to do is survey it and record it and we're good. We will do those all day long, we love those deals. More of the major subdivides, we will do, we have done. We try to steer clear of those just because, especially in some of the smaller counties, you can run into issues where they don't want to improve. They don't wanna approve your subdivide, major subdivide for whatever reason. You're typically looking at a pretty heavy capital infusion there. You've got to put in roads, you've got put in utilities, and it takes a lot of time. So while we can do that, we found that it's quicker and more efficient to more of the exempt or minor subdivides.

Joe: Sometimes a quick nickel's better than a slow dime. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Do you ever do owner financing? Where you buy a deal and sell it on owner financing.

Elise: Oh, we definitely have, especially when we started, and I'm sure we're still carrying some of those notes. I would say we really, we will do it these days. We try to stay away from it. If we are going to do it, I want to make sure we have our capital back in nine months. Whatever those numbers look like, whether it's a higher down payment or a pretty hefty monthly payment, we want to be sure that our risk for owner financing is pretty limited. You know when you're going through a title company they really don't want you to do. A contract for deed, they want you to convey the deed over and so the property's in someone else's name and you still have all this debt that's owed to you. What if they don't keep up on the taxes? What if the default? There's a lot of risk there. So we will do it with certain parameters.

Joe: On your properties, your individual properties that you own that you've sold in the past on owner financing, where you own it, you have the title to it, right? You sell it on owner financing. What's your preferred way to sell deals on owner finance? Do you do a land contract, contract for deed, or what do you do there?

Elise: Yeah, we used to. That's what we did when we started out. But these were a lot smaller properties. Some of them are kind of apples and oranges of what we're working on now. When we were buying stuff, we were buy things for the $5,000 and $10,000, and selling it for $10 and $20,000. And now when we're buying stuff for $50,000 $100,000 $150,000 to $200,000 a year, it's going to be hard to sell it on land contract under that model.

Joe: So is there a sweet spot for you, a sweet spot type of a property price, certain price range that you like?

Elise: It's a good question, but I feel like we've invested all over the place. I mean, we've done deals that buy 50s, sell for 100, buy 40, sell 75. We think it's selling for 85. But hey, we got a quick offer at 75. Great. Fast money is the best money. And if we can get something offloaded quickly, amazing, right? I always tell people, I'm not one for tripping over dollars to pick up pennies. I don't necessarily want to hold out for the top dollar. Let's just sell it quickly. So we found great deals in a whole bunch of pricing ranges.

Joe: What is your philosophy when you sell? Are you trying to sell it as quickly as possible? Are you pricing it high and then lowering the price or are you trying to price it aggressively right from the start?

Elise: Yeah, again, so really great question. Regardless of whether I'm managing or whether the partner's managing, I always try to have them make that call, right? So even if I'm the one managing the deal, I want them to feel good about where we're pricing and what our strategy looks like. So I would say, hey, look at this listing agreement. Do you feel good about starting at $80,000 and then incrementally addressing or do you want to go the market? And hit it quickly and see if we can offload this thing in 30 days. I would love that strategy personally, but I really want the partner to feel like if they get to run the show, even if I'm technically managing it, I want them to feel they have a voice and we're following their strategy. So if they come to me with pricing adjustments and say, hey, Lisa, we've been on the market for three weeks, we're not getting a lot of bytes, I'd like to drop it 10,000, 15,000 whatever it is, say that's great. Whatever you want to do. Especially if they're running the show and they've got eight months to get the property sold, I say, I want you to feel like you have every tool in your toolbox to get this property done and sold and off the books so we can go on to the next one. So I support whatever strategy you have.

Joe: So as a funding company, would you rather make 10 grand in 30 days gross profit? Would you rather make 10-grand gross profit in 30-days or 15-grand in 90-days? Ten in 30. Ten in thirty. Yeah, that's interesting. That would too. Because there's this concept of velocity of capital, The faster you can turn your money, you may be like, well, Joe, I'd rather make $15,000. But you have to wait three more months to get it. And how many deals could you do during that time? And that's it. That's very interesting. Because I want you all listening to this thinking in terms of how quickly can I turn my money? Can you make five grand now? Or can you, you want to make? 10 grand in three months or so that's a really important factor to think about, especially if you're in a more competitive market. I've got a lot of clients now that are targeting the real competitive counties in Florida, and they're doing really well because they're okay with making a quick three, four, $5,000 doing assignments. They're just doing quick flips and you may think, man, that's not a lot of money or. I've seen this mistake happen, Elise, where they're doing quick little assignments, they're making three, four, five grand and it's great, but they're like, I want to do, that's a lot of work for just a little bit of money. I want go after the bigger deals. And so they go after bigger deals and then all of a sudden it takes longer. There's not as many motivated sellers on those higher priced properties. There's as many buyers looking for land in those higher-priced areas. The turn time on those can be a couple of months to get a deal under contract, another couple, three months to sell the deal. And now all of a sudden it's five months, even though you're making bigger profit on each deal, it could be four or five months in between each deal. And I've seen people kind of quit the business because they're running out of cash. When before they were just getting a lot of bass hits, that's. My philosophy.

Elise: Exactly, and that'sthat's why we're happy to fund the smaller deals because profits profit at the end of the day profits profit

Joe: You know, one of the things that, and you're, you're more in a financial mind than I am. Sometimes I'll lend money on a short-term deal that I, you know, I get back my money in a couple of months. But I like to look at it in terms of an annualized return on my money when I'm lending money on the deal. Is that something that you look at as well? You look at, okay, even though the money was only out there for a couple months on an annual basis, you that's a hundred, even thought I might've made it, I don't know if I'm making sense here or not, help me out here. I might have only made 10% of my money. But it was out there for two months. But annualized, that could be 40, 50% annualized. Is that how you look at your money sometimes as well?

Elise: That is one of the metrics we'll look at sometimes. A lot of what I'll look at is, hey, what was our individual return on this deal? And how was our days on market? How long did we own this property? I would say our average, last time I looked across the, you know, 700 deals, our average acquisition to sale date was maybe 144 days. So that's our ones that sold quickly. That's our one that we had for years because we bought something, we had a problem, we didn't realize it, especially at front end. So 144 days, how did that property's life cycle compared to that 144?

Joe: Okay, yeah, that's interesting. That reminds me of another thing, another huge advantage to working with a funding company is if the deal goes bad, we don't want to see this happen, but it's your money that's on the line, isn't it Elise?

Elise: That's it. Yeah. And that's especially with folks who are starting out. Two of the reasons they always give me when they come to me is, hey, either I've sunk a bunch of my money into my outbound mail or text campaign, whatever it is, and I have all these contracts and I don't have enough capital bandwidth to invest in all of them. So that's one of the reasons they approach us. The other one is they don't want to take the risk. You know, they've got a bunch out there Maybe some things are sitting for longer than they thought, maybe they're going to try to double close and the double close didn't work out. And so they're coming to me because they've got 21 days left on their contract with the seller and they haven't sold the property yet. And they're come to me sort of panicked saying, hey, can you step in at the last minute and help me out? Because otherwise I'm going to lose this deal. Like, yeah, sure. That's fine. Happy to help.

Joe: Time do you need in advance?

Elise: Yeah, good question. So typically we say, give us 21 to 30 days. If you already have title commitment, that's a lot easier. And 21 days is usually adequate. But I don't know, sometimes we need a survey, sometimes, we need a per test. And a lot of the things that push out that due diligence timeframe are getting contractors lined up because some county is there in such high demand. That we can't get them out on site for, you know, two, three, four bills, what have you. Sometimes it takes a while to get the title commitment back. Sometimes it take a while to have the county or the municipality call us back. So, if my team will act quickly, they will start on it the day or two days after I give preliminary funding approval. And this is all they do. I've got one gal who's worked for me for years. All she does is due diligence. So out of the 700 deals we've done, she probably due diligence, I don't know, 550 of them. So this is what she does. A lot of the counties she's already talked to, but if it's a new one, or if it is one that's not returning our calls, that's where things get pushed out. And so we ask for that buffer, just so we're making sure we're keeping our commitment to the seller, and we're not going back to the last minute saying, hey, we need another week, or. You know, this, we haven't quite finished everything, because that's ours, the deal with the seller. And we want to make good on our commitment to you, so you can make good on your commitment to the seller, because we understand that's a big deal. Again, we've done that. We understand those conversations are tough.

Joe: Now when somebody submits a deal to you guys to fund, what are some of your requirements? Does it have to be under contract?

Elise: I ask that it is. Sometimes it's not and sometimes the partner comes to me and just says, look, I'm under negotiation. I've got a verbal commitment from the seller. We are there. They are ready to sign. But I just want to make sure that my potential deal funder has looked at the comps or has done a five-minute review. And if there's something I'm missing, I know it now before I'm on their contract. In case I need to renegotiate, I don't have signed paperwork. That I've got to go back on.

Joe: Yeah, but that's rare. Typically, you want it under contract. And that's what I tell everyone, just get it under contract and it's okay. I tell people too, like, it's okay if you make a mistake. It's okay to go back to the seller and renegotiate or cancel the agreement. Get it under contract at the cheapest price that you can, you know, obviously do what I teach in the course, right? And get it on a contract at a good price, but like, send it to Liberty, let them review it and they'll tell you if it's a good deal or not.

Elise: And there are some things you may not be able to know when you get it under contract. There are some thing that you don't know until you see a title commitment. There are some things you don t know until start talking to the county. If you're working in that county, I would get to know the folks in the assessor's office. I would get to the folks and planning and zoning in the environmental health department, get to them, ask them questions early on so that you can anticipate some of these issues that can come up that can be geographically specific. But, you know, some things you just don't know when you're under contract, there's some things we miss. And then our team goes deep into due diligence. And sometimes it's last minute, too. We find out, oh, a transformer is going to be required to get electrical and it's going to another $60,000 and we're going to sell the property for $35,000. Okay, well, couldn't have known that until the electrical company reminds you back. So do the best you can, like you said.

Joe: I want to ask you some questions that in terms of best practices, what are you seeing right now that's working on the disposition side? When you're selling deals, what's working right now?

Elise: I would say I rely pretty heavily on realtors who are specialized in selling vacant land, because that's what we're specialized in. We're not really doing houses, we're not doing structures, we are doing vacant land. So if you have a commercial deal, make sure you're working with a commercial broker who is in that space and they are a listing broker and they know what they're doing. Make sure it is somebody who's land specific, who's not just kind of dipping their toe in the water. We go on Zilla and we Hey, who has sold in this area? I would say For me, it's worth it to pay the realtors their commissions. I'm happy to do it. You know, I know people send out mailer letters and sometimes, or neighbor letters, sometimes those are great. I know, people do Facebook. I know that can be great. We don't do that typically. I haven't seen that work for some of the bigger dollar value properties, so. It is typically the realtors and making sure they're on MLS because I've come to find not all realtors are on the MLS in that geography and they want to list their properties. So it seems like a crazy question you have toask, but ask that question. How many vacant land properties have they sold? How many recently? What's selling? What's sitting? Take the opportunity when you're getting those comps to talk to them about their experience as listing agents.

Joe: And you're taking down the property, right? You're buying it and closing on it before you turn up.

Elise: Absolutely. Yep, absolutely. I know some folks double close and that works for them. For me, I say if it's a good deal, I want my name on title. If we're ready to close, we will close as quickly as we can. It's cash, it's our cash. We don't have a lender behind us. It's our name on the title. We own it free and clear, period.

Joe: Is another huge advantage to working with you guys is because all of these wholesaling regulations that are coming, that have already happened, right? Where, you know, in Illinois, Oklahoma, all these other states that are saying, hey, you can't do any wholesaling here unless you're a licensed realtor, it's illegal, immoral, and fattening, and you're gonna go to jail and get the death penalty if you do it. Like people are freaking out, like I can't do it anymore. And that's actually a good thing. I tell people, oh my gosh, that's great. Because now you have the money behind you, You can close, go ahead and just close on the Desus.

Elise: Close it. Yep. If you're using your own money, if you're using Liberty's money, if you are using a different deal funder's money. If it is a good deal, close on it. Because if it's a good deal, why not have it in your name? If you have good reasonable expectations going to sell it to pass your due diligence, there's no reason not to have it your name because I will tell you things can go south between getting that property under contract and getting it sold. The seller can have cold feet. And yes, there are recourses, but that is tough to do. It takes time, effort and money. There are things that can happen in the market. The market can go south if you let something sit too long and you're just trying to wait out the contract because you have a five-month contract and you want to let it sit on the market, don't double close, don't do any of that. If you can, fine, but I really wouldn't. I've seen too many things go wrong. Get it in your name

Joe: It just makes it so much easier to when you're talking to realtors and you gave a great tip there you go to Zillow You find realtors that have current active listings and sold listings and pending listings. You can really quickly and easily get a list of 10 to 20 realtors and just call them. And I have found sometimes when I'm calling an agent and I tell them I'm a wholesaler, they're like, oh my gosh, they just immediately close me off, right? And they shut me off. But if you're like hey, I'm an investor, I'm looking to buy this piece of property, I wanna buy some land here and then I don't know what I'm gonna do with it yet. I'm going to turn around and resell it. Can I ask you some questions about the area, right. So like the conversation is a whole lot different, right? When they know that I am doing some due diligence on this property to see if I want to buy. And that's, so another question I wanted to ask you, do you, when somebody submits a deal to you, do you require like a realtor's opinion on the property as part of the submission process?

Elise: I don't require it on smaller deals. I certainly do want to see comps, and if someone goes to our website, they will see a space where they can input comps. If it's an area that I don t know very well, I will say, Hey, have you talked to a realtor on this one? If it s a bigger deal, you know, especially a six figure and up. I will say, hey, have you talked to a realtor? Had they been boots on the ground? Because someone giving you a realter's opinion, but it's sight unseen, and they get out there three weeks later and they walk in and the topography is not what you thought it was based on a contour map or something like that. I would say have them go out there. We'll give preliminary approval if they'll give you pricing opinion. And they say, Hey, this is still contingent on me getting out there and I plan to do so before we close the acquisition. That's fine. But I will want someone who understands the market really well to have been out there and will accept me.

Joe: Okay, a couple more questions. I appreciate your time. Let's talk about best practices for finding deals. What are you seeing right now working the best with the people you're working with that are bringing you a lot of deals? What are they doing to get those deals?

Elise: They are themselves pricing the market. They're not outsourcing a pricing strategy. They are not using a whole ton of VAs to go out there and pull market data for them. They are in there. They were in the numbers. They know that county and the pricing strategy and their outbound stuff tends to work better because they understand what the prices need to be. They understand what comps are, both listed and the sole comps. And if I push back, it's funny because sometimes if I pushed back, I'll say, well, I don't know about this comp. It looks a little wonky to me. And they'll say yeah, but it's a different property and here's why. And they show me that they really know the area, they've really done their homework. And those are the ones that typically sell faster. And it's because they are putting in the time. And I would say more than anything, pricing your mailer, I wouldn't outsource it.

Joe: So you're talking mainly about blind offers. What I've always preferred the strategy of sending direct mail a neutral letter or a neutral postcard to get them to call you, talk to them, ask them 10, 20 questions and then send them an offer. What percentage of your investors that you work with are doing the blind offers and what percent are working that you're doing are doing more than neutral?

Elise: Good question. I don't actually know because I don t see their mailers. I only see the contract. So I'm not sure what their strategies are. But I would say kind of regardless if you're doing blind offers or a neutral letter, you need to know your pricing before that seller calls you. You need to have an idea of what it's worth because someone may call you and say, okay, I'm ready to sign a contract today. It's 70,000. And you need to know what that property is worth before you get on the phone.

Joe: One of my clients right now and is doing, he's sending about five to 10 offers a day manually one at a time. So he's not like pulling a bunch of properties in one zip code or one neighborhood and then applying bulk price into all of them. And you might be thinking, what on earth? That takes a lot of time. It takes him a couple hours every day. He's sending five to ten individuals. So he is looking at each individual one. Pricing it based on the comps that he sees in the area. So he kind of zooms out and looks at all the comp. But would you believe it, out of the 100 offers that he sent, he's just been doing this for one or two months now. He's done four deals.

Elise: I believe in it. I believe it. Yeah, because he knows that area and he has done his homework and he is handpicked those deals. No, I think that's brilliant. I absolutely support that. And it takes time. And time is tough, especially if you're doing this as a side gig and this isn't your full-time job and you've got a family and other obligations and things like that. So I get it. But in order to make it work, you do have to put in the time.

Joe: Market trends, what are you seeing now in terms of like, you've been doing this for how many years? Everybody complains though, it's harder now than it used to be, right? But that's funny, because when I got started doing land about five or six years ago, because I was doing houses long before that, I heard people complain back then about the competition, right. And so it's always been people complain, but you've seen trends come and go, investors come and going like, are you half glass half full, glass half empty?

Elise: I'malways glass half full. I mean, I think if it's a seller's market, then, hey, you've got a little bit more cushion on the sell side. If it's the buyer's market. Hey, get your mailers ready, get your outbound campaign, whatever it is, get it ready because it's a great time to buy. I will say there are always investors coming in, but a lot of time I see investors… Cycling out, they're taking a break, they have other obligations, they don't have market confidence like you're talking about. So yes, it is always going to be tight. This is a great business and they're going to people entering the market constantly. They're also going to exiting constantly. So if you know your markets, I would say keep working in those markets. Some markets are easy to start out in like the Castilla Counties, but there's… There's a lot of people in those markets. So do you wanna go there where it's already flooded or do you want to find somewhere else where maybe not everybody's mailing to?

Joe: Do you have any favorite tools that you use for market research, finding comps, things like that?

Elise: Yeah, I would say I know Zillow is an easy one, but I use Zillows a lot, even in the non-disclosure states. If I can't see what it's sold for, I see what was listed for. I look at how many days it was on market. Zillower is not perfect, but, I look it all I can. If, if I can get MLS comps from the Realtor, I'm looking at that. Red Fin. Lans is a little tough because it's self-reported, but i will go there and see what's listed. So, anything that's out there, we'll try to look at and Okay, okay, if there is… What deals are on one site that are on another. But the days on market, I look at, especially if it's a new market for us, when we're putting something live online, I'm tracking those metrics. How many people are looking at it? How many people are saving it? What does that mean about this market? What does that mean about our price relative to our competition?

Joe: At least any final tips or advice specifically for the beginner, somebody who's wanting to get into land and they're a little intimidated. This is not something they've done before. What kind of advice would you give to them?

Elise: I would say, go ahead and send a few letters out. Just get it out of your system. If you haven't done your outbound campaign yet and you're worried about biting off a big chunk or if you're worrying about sending a thousand mailers, don't send a thousand mailers. Send 100, send 50. See how it goes. You can start in baby steps. You don't have to boil the ocean, as they say. You could start with a few simple tools. You don't need a big fancy website. You don't need. All of these huge things. You can start just with a simple letter saying, hey, I'm interested in buying your property. If you have access to internet and you can do the research on your own, you can send a letter out and just get started. There's no reason not to. It's not expensive to send 10 letters. It gets expensive when you ramp up, but you don't have to start out with a thousand. I would say if you're in a new market, don't start out at a thousand, start at a lower number and see what your response rate looks like and then escalate.

Joe: Okay, what do you tell the person getting into this and is like, is interested in like, does it really work? Can I really make five, 10 grand a month flipping land? What do you say to them?

Elise: Yeah, I'm proof of it. I mean, I didn't know anything about this business six, seven years ago. And we started, we started small. We started in some of the easier markets and we started with a few, a few deals and we just grew it organically from there. And everything we've done has been organic and it organica grows. And so, yes, it is absolutely possible. You have to put in the time and you will be frustrated at some point because you will have a mailer that doesn't work out. At some point, if you're doing volume in this business, you will have a mailer that doesn't work out. Don't give up. Try another market. Send another 10, 50, 100 mailers out. People make it work. And I've known a lot of investors who've been around for a while, and they're making it work, and it's not with a fancy gimmick or some huge investment. We start out with a pretty small amount of capital, and we have grown it from there. So you can do it, too. If I can do, you absolutely can do.

Joe: I love it. Start small.

Elise: Yeah, start small. Just start.

Joe: Well, how can people find you? Partner with LibertyCapital.com?

Elise: Absolutely. Go there. You will find a little bit about our company, our models, how we started. And then in the top right corner, if you want to submit a deal, there will be a tab that says, tell us about your deal. And you will find all of the things that we're looking for you to submit. If you have any questions, my phone number and email are on there. Feel free to reach out anytime. I'm happy to help. People helped us out when we started, so happy to pay it forward.

Joe: Partnerwithlibertycapital.com. Capital is C-A-P-I-T-A L, right? That's it. Nice. Cool. Elise, do you have any other websites or any other resources you want to share with somebody? Are you on the socials? Do you have an Instagram?

Elise: I mean, I mean we do, but I'm so, so much of our business is word of mouth that I'm not really out there advertising. All of our realtors are doing their own marketing of the properties. So for me, the word of mouths referrals is what's gotten us where we are today. So if you go to our Libertyland sales, I think Instagram page,it's woefully outdated. So yes, we have it, but… Since I'm not doing a lot of the marketing, we've got realtors doing it. You won't see a whole lot from me on social media. So I reach out. I am on there. I'm just not necessarily actively posting stuff.

Joe: I would be worried if you were. It would mean you're not doing that many land deals. Show me somebody who's really active in social media and I'll show you somebody who is not doing a lot of deals. Elise, thank you so much. Partner with Liberty Capital. Partner with libertycapital.com to bring Elise your deals. We all appreciate you. I appreciate you all. Thank you for listening to the podcast and the show. Have a good one. Take care.