Welcome to the March 2023 Income Report. This report is where I document our statistics and progress with our land flipping and development business.
I’m a big fan of the land flipping model of real estate investing. As you’ll see, it can be very lucrative and also rewarding.
We resold our first property using this model in March of 2021, and we’ve been on an accelerating path ever since.
We’re passionate about real estate investing in general. Land flipping is just one of the many business models you can pursue as a real estate investor. We dive deep into this model and many others in our real estate investing podcast called Turning Profit. You can find us on Youtube and all the other major podcast platforms.
Before we get into the report, I invite you to join our new free community.
This is not your typical “group.” It’s an actual community of people interested in land flipping. We’ve got brand new investors as well as investors generating $1 Million plus per year.
In the coming weeks, I’m releasing a top-notch training program to share exactly how we run our land flipping business so you can do the same. It will be absolutely FREE.
March 2023 Income Report – Total Revenue: $674,265.45
I do my best to make these reports insightful.
Your time is valuable, so I want you to get as much out of this as possible.
So why in the world would I publish a report like this for the whole world to see?
I’ve got three big reasons for doing this:
#1 – Motivate ourselves to improve our business (nothing like putting it out there to the public to drive progress).
#2 – Motivate you! You’ll see what’s possible and learn valuable lessons (at my expense) which will allow you to become a better real estate investor yourself.
#3 – Gain exposure for our new Land Flipping Community
We also like connecting with other investors or lenders with similar goals. You can find us on social media on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, or by email.
Before we get into the numbers, I will lay out a simplified explanation of how this business works. This will give you a little bit of context into these numbers in this report.
Here’s how the business works:
- We send letters (actual offers) to landowners.
- Some landowners respond and are interested in selling.
- We come to an agreement on the price and work towards closing the deal.
- In the meantime, we research the property in depth by sending out a photographer, calling the county/city, getting an opinion from a local broker, and many other little things on our checklist.
- Assuming all looks good, we complete the purchase with our own cash through a reputable attorney/title/escrow company.
- After closing, we will sometimes make some minor improvements to the property, such as brush clearing, perk test, surveying, or other things.
- We list the property using a local broker that will market it in the MLS, to their buyer’s list, and to neighboring landowners.
- We negotiate a deal when a buyer steps forward.
- We complete the sale at the negotiated time.
- Rinse and repeat!
A couple of other notes:
- We buy these properties all over the country and rarely see them in person
- Purchase prices on the properties range from $4k to $360k (in 2022)
That’s about it… It’s really just buying and selling land.
The main thing that makes this business work is that we buy for an aggressive price so we can resell it for an attractive price to buyers. That allows us to sell quickly. We can negotiate good purchase prices because we pay cash and will close quickly.
Now that you know the basics, let’s dig into the numbers.
Here are the March 2023 statistics:
March was a pretty good month!
We didn’t top our record-setting January, but we weren’t too far off with $674,265 in revenue for March.
This is the exact amount of revenue that was wired to our bank account in March.
If we multiplied that out for the year, that would be $8,091,185. That’s good, but a little short of my $10 Million goal for 2023. I’ve got some work to do!
The gross profit for March was $275,156, which I’m pretty happy with!
Gross profit does not include our regular business expenses such as mail, staff, software, and many other things necessary to run our business. At this point, I’ve got a whole team that works together on this business, and it’s well beyond what I can do on my own.
We sold ten properties in March. To hit my goal for this year, we’re going to need to increase the number of deals and the size of the deals.
The average profit per deal was $27,515, a good step from the norm. Last year we averaged about $22,000 profit per deal, so I’m happy with this increase.
Our average days in inventory were 138 days which was way too high. I’m always shooting for 60 days, so this number isn’t too great. The reason is that we sold a few properties this month that were in our inventory for a long time for various reasons. I’m putting in some processes to avoid those longer hold times in the future.
This month we sent out over 93,345 letters. We just decided to double our mail output, so for the foreseeable future, we will be sending out about 100,000 per month.
We’re also putting a lot of effort into refining our lists. So, I’m hoping the combination of increased mail output and better lists will really improve our results.
With this increased mail, we won’t see an impact on our bottom line for 60-90 days, but we’re already seeing more leads coming in.
Deal by Deal Breakdown:
In this section, I break down each deal. The goal of this is to show you how deals vary in their profitability and what is possible.
These are all the deals that sold in March 2023. We purchased these properties in a previous month and then resold the property to a new buyer in March.
*** Details of the properties have not been shared to protect the anonymity of the parties to these transactions.
Purchase Price: The amount we paid for a property, including closing costs
Revenue: This is the amount we received after paying commissions and closing costs
Gross Profit = Revenue – Purchase Price – Property Specific Expenses
Days in Inventory = number of days we owned the property
Return on Investment = Gross Profit /Purchase Price X 100
Deal #1 notes:
We made a 57% Return on this 10.5-acre land flip in 23 days!
We bought this rural 10.5-acre parcel in January. The property was unimproved woodland with a small amount of frontage on the road.
There was nothing special about it and also nothing really negative about it either.
We bought this land for $21,017, including all closing costs. As soon as we closed, we put it back on the market and listed it for $39,900.
Almost right away, we got an offer for just under the list price for cash with a quick closing. After a little negotiation, we got signed a contract.
The closing process was smooth on this deal, and closed on time without any drama.
After the dust settled, we made $12,138 in gross profit on this land flip. We only owned the property for 23 days.
That means it was a 57.76% return on investment. I’d love to get that return every 23 days!
Deal #2 notes:
This 22.5-acre land flip made us $23,166 in 115 days. Here’s the story of how we made this happen.
This property is located in a rural and somewhat mountainous area. This street had some nice homes, and overall the area was pretty nice. We found this deal like we find all of our deals. We sent a letter to a landowner and bought this property directly and off-market for $47,156.
As soon as we closed the purchase, we listed it on the flat fee MLS service since I couldn’t find a quality agent to work within this area. That’s not how I want to do things, but I felt like I had to in this situation.
Because of this, I was fielding calls from buyers and agents myself. In hindsight, I didn’t have the time to focus on this as I should have. This likely caused our hold time of 115 days which is way longer than I like. I know good agents/brokers exist in this area. I should have just put more effort into finding one.
After a few months, another agent sent us an offer we could work with. There was a little back-and-forth negotiation, but we got the deal under contract and proceeded toward closing.
Closing went just as planned, and we got a wire for $71,073 at closing. This meant a gross profit of $23,166 after all selling expenses.
The return on investment was still a respectable 49.13%. This would have been a great deal if it wasn’t for the lengthy hold time. It wasn’t bad by any means, just not a home run!
Deal #3 notes:
Here’s a land flip that we did that didn’t go so great.
We didn’t lose on this deal but didn’t make much either. Here’s what happened:
This was a 16+ acre property that shared a border with an established subdivision. It had road frontage and is a big parcel for this area.
In hindsight, this wasn’t the most quality piece of land. There were many rocky outcroppings, which meant there wasn’t much space to do much with it.
We bought this property for $57,619 with all closing costs. My initial thoughts were that we could get $110k to $120k. So, we listed it for $129,900.
There were some interested parties at first, but the deals would fall apart as soon as they went to the property. That normally means the property has some issues that are tough to handle unless you’re there. And I wasn’t.
We kept reducing this property every 3-4 weeks until we got down to $79,900. At this point, a buyer stepped up, and we got under contract at $73,000. After commissions and closing costs, we received a wire for $64,752.
That left us with a gross profit of $6,382, which isn’t great considering we held the property for 205 days. The return on investment was 11.08% which is still pretty good if you’re investing in the stock market.
The bottom line is that I should have held out for a better price on this property. You can’t win them all!
Deal #4 notes:
This land flip made us 67% in 132 days. Here’s the story:
This 20.5-acre property was located in a rural area in the Southeastern US. It is what we call a “flag lot.” That means there is narrow access to the road, and it opens up after a long driveway. Flag lots are common but usually less desirable than a similar property with a lot of road frontage.
We bought this property for $16,968 directly from the property owner. We sent them a letter, they gave us a call, and then we worked out a deal.
After closing, we put this property on the market with a local land agent for $39,900. We got an offer quickly and went under contract. After a few weeks, this buyer backed out because the neighbor was causing trouble and wouldn’t let the buyers pass to their property.
The neighbors had no right to restrict access. Our agent showed them the survey and let them know they had no idea what they were discussing.
We put it back on the market, and after some time, we had a new buyer at $33,000. This contract went smoothly and closed without any interference from the neighbor. After closing costs, we received a wire for $29,150.
The end result was that we made $11,431 after 132 days of our ownership. The return on investment was a healthy 67.37%.
While I would have liked to have sold the property faster, it’s still a pretty good return on investment. Sometimes deals fall out of contract for various reasons. This means you hold the property longer. It’s just a normal part of the business.
When you get to the point where you don’t NEED the property to close on time, it’s no big deal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always pushing to close these properties as quickly as possible, but if a deal falls through, it’s not the end of the world.
Deal #5 notes:
We flipped this 30 acres of land and made $46,718 in 44 days. Here’s how we did it:
This 30-acre piece of vacant land was fairly neglected by the previous owner. It mainly was woodland, but it also had some cleared areas that were completely overgrown. There were some old oil wells on the property, and the owner was unsure what was happening with those wells. This was pretty common for that area.
We worked out a deal to buy this property for a total of $63,116.93 with all the closing costs. We found this deal by sending an offer in the mail to the previous owner. He called us, and we worked out the deal.
Since there was some confusion about the oil wells on the property, we hired a company that specialized in researching these things. They gave us some clarity and let us know that we did own the oil/gas rights to the property. This meant that the property was more marketable.
We listed the property with a local land broker for $129,900. After just a short time on the market, we got a solid offer and worked out a deal at $126,000.
The closing process went smoothly, and no unexpected issues came up. We closed the sale after a total hold time of just 44 days. The wire we received after commissions and closing costs was $111,585.
After the dust settled, we made $46,718. The return on investment was 74.02%. A great deal for us!
Considering the short hold time and the overall gross profit, this is the type of deal I’d love to do over and over again. This is a classic example of how lucrative land flipping can be if you buy the right properties for the right price.
Deal #6 notes:
This land flip made us $52,266, but I had to get an attorney involved to make it happen. Here’s what happened:
This 30-acre property is located pretty far down a dirt road and is secluded. It’s just a recreational property and wouldn’t make a great homesite due to its remote location.
We bought this property for $52,266 directly from the previous owner, off-market. Like always, we sent him an offer in the mail, he called us, and we worked out a deal. The price for this property was good, but this property had some issues, like the dirt road access and there was a good amount of slope.
As soon as we closed, we listed the property with a local land broker for $149,900. We got a good amount of interest pretty quickly, but no buyers. After some time on the market, we reduced it to $139,900 and then $129,900. A solid cash buyer stepped up, and we got it under contract for $129,900.
This was when the problems started. Our agent got a letter from an attorney representing the neighbor. They basically said that we don’t have legal access. I knew this was incorrect since we verified this before buying the property with title insurance, but finding this baseless claim still cost me time and money. I had to hire an attorney to sort the situation out, contact the other attorney, and write a letter confirming our access.
Luckily the buyer was patient through this process and ultimately closed after we had the confirmation from the attorney we hired. Sometimes stuff like this will come up and throw a wrench in the gears. This deal worked out ok in the end, but it wasn’t a smooth transaction by any means due to the neighbors.
I’d do this deal again anytime, though! That’s because we ended up getting a wire for $115,389 at closing, and we made $61,372 in gross profit. Yes, the holding time of 154 days was pretty long, but we more than doubled our money. The return on investment was 117.42% at the end of the day. Not too bad!
To learn exactly how you can flip land like this, even if you don’t have any of your own money to buy the properties, join our land flipping community here.
Deal #7 notes:
We more than doubled our money on this land flip in 25 days and made $32,380. Here’s how we did it.
We sent an offer to the previous owner in the mail. He called us back, and we negotiated a deal to buy his 25.25-acre property for $25,904. This is a rural area, but the property was fairly well maintained and planted with pine trees as a timber investment.
As soon as we closed the purchase, we immediately listed it for $69,900. We had a cash buyer step up within a couple of days, and we went under contract at $66,000 after some negotiation.
This closing happened without a hitch. After commissions and closing costs, we received a wire for $59,380. That left us with a gross profit of $32,380 after only 25 days of ownership. The return on investment was 125%!
Basically, we more than doubled our money and did it in less than a month. This was an ultra-quick and easy deal, and I loved every part of it. I wish each deal were like this, but they aren’t. This was just a really good one!
Deal #8 notes:
We made a $37,776 profit in 52 days on this 29-acre land flip. Here’s how we did it:
We found this deal by sending an offer letter in the mail directly to the owner. He responded and was interested in selling to us for $42,076 cash. We finalized a deal and closed it as soon as the paperwork with the attorney was done.
Since the survey on file was old, we decided to get it surveyed to increase the property’s marketability. But, all the surveyors in the area were extremely busy and booked months out.
I listed it right away for $99,900 instead of waiting for the survey. After a couple of weeks, we got an offer from a cash buyer, and we negotiated a deal for $90,000.
The closing process went smoothly on this sale, and nothing came up that caused any problems. At closing, we got a wire for $80,603 after owning the property for a total of 52 days. We made $37,776 in gross profit on this deal. The return on investment was 89.78%. We didn’t quite double our money, but it was pretty close.
This was a really good land flip for us…really solid profit, short hold time, and an overall smooth deal.
Deal #9 notes:
This land flip took FOREVER to sell but made us 94.83%. Here’s the story:
We bought this 19-acre property directly from the former owner off the market, as we always do. They received one of our letters, called us up, and we worked out a deal to buy their land for $30,182.
We immediately put this property on the market for $79,900 and listed it with a local land broker. We got an offer right away and went under contract. After a little while, this buyer backed out for some unknown reason.
We went under contract two more times, and those buyers backed out as well for a couple of different reasons. It sat on the market for some time between buyers. During that time, we hired a company to clear some brush and a soil scientist to do a perk test.
Ultimately, a 4th buyer stepped up, and we went under contract for $67,000. This buyer actually went through with the deal, and we received a wire transfer for $59,554 at closing. That left us with a really solid profit of $28,622. The problem was that it took us 346 days to make that happen.
The return on investment was 94.83%, which is great! My goal is always to sell in 60 days. But I really can’t complain about this return, even if it took nearly a year. In hindsight, I would definitely do this deal again.
Some deals cycle through multiple potential buyers. While it’s frustrating, it’s just part of the process.
Deal #10 notes:
This 10-acre property made us $15,165 and a 45.54% return. Here’s how we did it:
This 10-acre land flip was different from a typical deal for us. That’s because it was once part of a larger 75-acre property.
We bought a larger 75-acre property and split it into five separate parcels. This process took a good amount of time, and we had to hire numerous contractors to make it happen.
The contractors we hired were a surveyor, a brush-clearing company, a soil scientist, and a road grading company. These services not only took time, but they added to our costs significantly.
When considering the purchase price of the property of $49,496 and the costs of the improvements of $117,000, we had a cost basis for each parcel of $33,299.35.
This parcel was lot 2 of 5 in total. It was just a short distance from the main road and commanded a higher price per acre than the lots further down the gravel road. We listed it for $59,900, and a buyer stepped forward for full price. This buyer was using a land loan to buy the lot. But, the appraisal from their lender came back lower than the purchase price for some unknown reason. We dropped the price by $5k to keep the deal together.
We brought in $49,215 in revenue after commissions and closing costs on this sale. That meant our gross profit was $15,165. Due to all the work we had done on the property, our hold time was 290 days, which was considerably higher than our average.
Overall, this was a profitable deal for us on this lot and the rest in this minor subdivision project. But, if I had to do it over again, I would have just resold the property as-is with no improvements. It would have sold immediately, and our overall profit would have been very similar.
The big expense of this project was the road which was about $85,000. I learned my lesson that roads, surveys, and brush clearing can be time-consuming and expensive!
Year to Date 2023:
2023 Year to Date (YTD) Statistics
We’re getting really close to the $2 million milestone at the end of the first quarter of 2023.
Overall, we’ve received wire transfers totaling $1,866,562 through the end of March. That is more revenue than we did in 2021 by a lot.
We’re averaging $622,187 in revenue per month in 2023.
Pretty soon, we will surpass our results for all of 2022. One of these months, we will be over $1 million, another great milestone.
So far, we have sold 28 properties this year. That’s an average of 9.33 per month.
The total gross profit for 2023 is now at $692,427.
Our average gross profit per deal is rising and is currently at $24,729. I’m hoping to keep up this trend!
Unfortunately, our average number of days in inventory continues to rise and is now 121.93 days. Some of that is due to clearing out some old inventory, but I’m sure the overall market conditions also have something to do with that.
This means I’ll be more conservative in our purchase prices going forward so we can keep our days in inventory at a minimum.
I’ve got a little catch-up work to do to hit our goal of $10 million in revenue in 2023, but I’m confident I can make this happen.
The returns detailed above are very substantial. That is especially true when considering the hold time and annualizing the Return on Investment.
Let’s use Deal #8 as an example.
The return on investment was 89.78%, which is really good for any asset class. What really makes this special is the fact that we only held this property for 52 days. When you do the math and annualize this return (if you were to keep this money invested for the whole year), the annualized return on investment would be 630.19%!! And this does not even include compounding that would happen.
Where are you going to find returns like that?
In the stock market, you’re crushing it if you’re getting a steady 10% a year.
But if 10% a year is crushing it, what is 630.18% per year called?
How can you do the same thing as an investor and get these returns?
The first thing you’ve got to do is start learning.
It’s not rocket science, but it’s also not as basic as it seems.
Here’s a short list of some of the basics you’ve got to learn to make this land flipping model work:
- How the business model itself works
- How to get the leads coming in
- Where are the best regions to find deals?
- How to evaluate properties. What makes a good property and what makes a property not desirable
- What software and tools to use to give yourself an unfair advantage
- How to talk with property owners that want to sell
- How to navigate the escrow/title process in multiple different states to buy a property
- How to find the best on-the-ground partners in each location
- How to find a buyer for your property in a short amount of time for a good price
- How to negotiate with sellers and buyers.
- How to build a team so you’re not doing everything yourself
- How to put a business system in place to automate processes and keep your business organized
If you want to learn how to flip land as a part-time investment strategy or a full-fledged business, you need to learn all this.
I can help you with that for free! I’ve just launched an amazing land flipping community full of supportive and super-smart people.
I’m working on a complete training program (ready soon) that will be completely free. I do not have anything for sale now, but I may offer a paid mentorship program if you need a higher level of assistance later this year.
You can also find a bunch of free content on our Youtube channel and our podcast about land flipping and real estate investing.
Just as a disclaimer, investing money comes with risk. Research any investments heavily before putting any of your money at risk. Risking more than what you can afford to lose is never a good idea.
You can also check out this page that features other podcasts and outlets where I’ve been interviewed and talk about land flipping. I’ve appeared on over 50 podcasts and am booked for many more in the coming months.
If you have funds you would like a better return on, please fill out this form. I’m looking for private money lenders that want to earn a great return on their money secured by these deeply discounted properties we’re buying.
We know that the figures in this report may seem unattainable at first glance, but this did not just “happen” overnight. Like any business, we made progress and improvements over time to get to our current income level.
That wraps up the March 2023 Income Report. Sign up here to be notified the minute a new report is published.
P.P.S. In case you missed it, here are the links to my past income reports:
- February 2023 Income Report $464,159
- January 2023 Income Report $728,137.29
- 2022 Year in Review Report $3,474,800.60
- December 2022 Income Report $256,473.60
- November 2022 Income Report $440,368.81
- October 2022 Income Report $275,462.13
- September 2022 Income Report $281,160.95
- August 2022 Income Report $322,223.92
- July 2022 Income Report $495,885.83
- June 2022 Income Report $178,831.06
- May 2022 Income Report $208,782.57
- April 2022 Income Report $264,322.07
- March 2022 Income Report $479,193.91
- February 2022 Income Report $67,143.23
- January 2022 Income Report $204,952
- 2021 Year in Review Report
