Today at RealEstateAudios, we're meeting Seth Williams of RETipster.com. Seth is a big land guy and is going to give us the low down on everything from his early days in land to his biggest deals. His expertise isn't just about land and he's also going to tell us about balancing investment and family life, as well as the dilemmas we face when starting a business. He's going to walk us through different aspects of a land deal, from dealing with sellers, to attracting buyers and putting the ink on the paperwork. He's all about quality rather than quantity, and makes his investments work well for him with only 6-12 deals yearly with minimal hassle. Listen in for tips and tricks from this seasoned land investor.
Topics discussed in this episode:
How Seth got his start
Where he got his early inspiration
Why Seth chose land as his first niche
The flexibility of land investment
The risks and rewards of seller financed deals
Balancing entrepreneur dreams and family time
The importance of a diverse income
The value of letting sellers come to you
Seth's average turnover times and his longest hold
The value of fewer, higher-margin deals
Seth's crazy first year
The importance of paperwork when it comes to seller financing
Dilemmas in the land business
How Seth's biggest deal fell into his lap
How due diligence, zoning and permits figure into your land deal
Getting your marketing and paperwork to tie up during a sale
Where you can learn more tips and tricks from Seth
How Seth got his start
My story started back in I think it was 2006ish, somewhere in that range.
Where he got his early inspiration
In Rich Dad, Poor Dad he talks about real estate as an option, but he doesn’t really give a whole lot of specifics of how, like what specifically he did.
Why Seth chose land as his first niche
how you’re able to buy properties for pennies on the dollar and find highly motivated sellers...they’re actually not that hard to find for vacant land compared to other types of properties
The flexibility of land investment
I could really scale it as much as I wanted to. I could make it my life, or I could just do it on the side as a hobby.
The risks and rewards of seller financed deals
So it’s a very real thing, but what I realized was a lot of people, unless you’re actually doing credit checks and really investigating your borrower ahead of time, a lot of people can and will stop paying you.
Balancing entrepreneur dreams and family time
It’s just spending your time better and not chasing after every single motivated seller who calls you. It’s more being selective about, nope, that’s probably not going to pay out so well so I’m not going to mess with that, but this one over here looks really good so I am going to spend my time on that.
The importance of a diverse income
That’s where the real meat was. But if there was a month where nothing was happening in land, there were other sources of income I had to draw on as well.
The value of letting sellers come to you
A lot of the deals that I find these days actually come in through my buying website. People will just find me and submit their property information and make an offer that way.
Seth's average turnover times and his longest hold
I think the longest I’ve ever held a property is 15 months.
The value of fewer, higher-margin deals
They mentioned that you only probably do less than a handful of deals a year because you want to focus in on bigger margins and less work. Is that t
