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In this episode of the Hive With Us Podcast, host Daniel Martinez and co-host Kyle Thompson sit down with young and successful land investor, Clay Hepler. They discuss Clay's journey into land investing, his strategies for success, and insights into the land market. Clay shares his transition from house and multi-family investing to land, emphasizing the unique advantages and challenges of land deals.
Chapter 1: Introduction and Clay’s Background (0:00 - 3:05)
Daniel Martinez introduces Clay Hepler, highlighting his rapid success in land investing since starting in 2022. Clay shares his background, including his initial experiences with apartment buildings and how necessity pushed him into land investing after his wife lost her job.
Chapter 2: Transition to Land Investing (3:06 - 10:04)
Clay explains his journey from wholesaling and house flipping to land investing. He discusses the inefficiencies and challenges of managing multiple small multi-family properties and how land investing offered a simpler, more scalable alternative.
Chapter 3: Land Market Strategies and Challenges (10:05 - 17:13)
Clay and the hosts dive into the specifics of land investing, including market research, sell-through rates, and the liquidity of land. They emphasize the importance of understanding the local market and targeting areas with high demand to ensure quick sales and profitability.
Chapter 4: Acquisition and Disposition Tactics (17:14 - 29:59)
Clay shares his approach to acquiring and disposing of land deals, highlighting the importance of brokers and creative financing. He discusses his experience with extended escrow periods and marketing strategies to ensure successful transactions.
Chapter 5: Building a Land Investing Business (30:00 - End)
Clay outlines his team structure and day-to-day operations. He talks about his upcoming educational course, the Landman Accelerator, aimed at teaching others his successful mid-market land strategy. The episode concludes with Clay sharing his contact information and encouraging listeners to reach out.
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Transcript
hello welcome to the hive with us podcast I'm your host Daniel Martinez today I have co-host Kyle Thompson but I
have a special guest a land investor a young land investor at that who started in 2022 but he's got a lot of deals
under his belt we're going to have a good land conversation hopefully Mak some people that invest in houses so if
you like that stay tuned for today's episode with Clay Hepper
let's Hive baby let's Hive let's go so you started in
2022 you're very young new investor so let's talk about it what got you into
land specifically because a lot of people kind of fall into it and I think you're going to have a creative story
for this answer so for sure yeah I got in land because of necessity my wife
called me the day before Thanksgiving in 2022 and was hysterically crying and
told me that she got laid off and that her company's gone under she's not
getting paid for the entire n month of November oh her company was a developer developer and they thought that they
were going to get a big round of investment Capital to float the company because it's was kind of like a developer tech company okay and it just
went under and so at that point I was buying apartment buildings and uh
selling some of them now actually I can go into my my uh not not a big fan of
apartment buildings at this point especially the Vintage that I bought them at but you know you buy apartment buildings and you get sold this really
awesome dream of Hey passive income you know you buy these apartment buildings High cash flow no problems no issues
bigger pocket stream right and the the reality is when you buy apartment buildings that are 150 years old and
there's capb backs there's expenses uh and you have a cast iron sewer line or a terracotta sewer line
that cost $50,000 to excavate and replace um that
cash flow that you thought you were going to have it gets extinguished and so I owned a ton of these smaller multif
Family Properties Triplex six unit duplex um didn't own enough that it was
a critical mass right I at that point I think I had like 85 90 units okay like
that's not enough to have an own in-house Property Management Company yeah and it was all scattered sight so
it wasn't really like efficient like everyone talks about all the multif family guys talk about you know Under One Roof or in his same general area but
we had a ton of smaller properties and so it was super inefficient to manage and expensive to manage and so my wife
gets loses her job and we have a wedding to pay for that we paid for ourselves because our parents didn't have enough
money we had to pay for our life we had an Airbnb in Colorado that thank God I sold last year um that was a five figure
mortgage and and I had to make money and so I had experience in the wholesaling house flipping world you know before
that uh I went and work with the reason why I got into real estate I went and work with like a local guy mama pop guy
Chapter 2: Transition to Land Investing.)
like yourself successful guy have younger guys working for you right that are that are interested in learning the
business right and so you're people like that are just magnets so I I got attracted to this guy said I'd love to
come work for you I went and work for him we built that wholesaling and house flipping business we were pretty successful at it too but the reason why
go back into that was because I thought that I was going to move to that Airbnb that I talked about to Colorado that I
was going to move back and I was like I don't think I can do this remote business and so I was like I want to
kind of do something that was more land specific or um that was more like real estate specific excuse me and but and I
already had the skill set of like sales and marketing I like knew how to build sales teams I understood how to find properties I understood that whole
process in land was like this blue ocean like you go down to Ria or a local
Meetup you got multif family guys down there you got uh industrial guys maybe
you have self storage Bros you have house wholesalers and flippers but they're like no land investors and so I
said I must be the smartest guy in the world because no one's doing this um and
so I went and took a couple of courses and and I got into land investing and
hadn't looked back since then you're very young how old are you by the chance uh 27
27 okay so you got you have a lot of experience when did you start that initial working for the wholesale
company when you were younger well I you know to be fair I dropped out of college so you know you slacker yeah right I
know you know it's it's weird you sit you're sitting in class and you're you're listening to this person talk
about polit like economic relationships between the United States and Costa Rica
or wherever you're like this person's never been in a diplomatic meaning in their life how can they teach me
anything right so long story short dropped out of college when I was a junior junior uh spring and so that's
that's kind of why I have a little bit more time in the professional world because I didn't finish up my degree how
how did your parents take that you know my my dad is like very highly educated
but my mother never graduated college like she dropped out too and so my parents were like super accepting it was
my father-in-law that was you know kind of a you know jerk about it so but I
mean he he loves me now so it's all good it's all good you you you you've come back as the prodical son as as the
winner I've come back as a winner he's from Midland Texas man okay so you know
he's he's from Ranch Country that's why my you know that was the inspiration behind the whole my my brand my podcast
brand the my a land letter you know my my newsletter the accelerator it's all
land man and and you know being a Texas guy that it's all those land men are out there and that was the inspiration
behind it yeah it's a it's a fun business I kind I kind of I kind of want to Pivot to uh making fun of House
people and multif family people a little bit because I think everybody thinks they're right till they invest in
land no comment come on man well well well I I thought you were going to keep going to be fair to be fair I thought
going to keep rolling I didn't I didn't think it was going to be a oneliner you just kind of dropped that oneliner and just kept going I'm like this guy's
going to go on he's about to tea off like here's a deal that I I I you people ask me all the time like you know what's
the difference between wholesaling in in flipping houses and land I mean you know from a from a like
operational perspective you know land is way easier you know the type of land
deals that you do are are a little different than you know my type of land deal the big Ranch division stuff like
that like that's like candy from a baby um you know in terms of like way bigger
margins way bigger numbers and then you know the owner financing portfolio like that's really that's really awesome but
I think as a general rule like any business has its benefits and drawbacks yep like houseold like I I analogize
like land flipping and house wholesaling like they're very similar but it's like skiing and snowboarding right house
wholesaling is like skiing it's much easier to um learn like it's much easier
to get into but it's harder to master right it's harder to get to real scale like critical mass like making like
multiple seven figures and with with uh land investing it's kind of harder to
kind of understand you're like ah what areas am I going to Target like what's like what's a sewer line you know some
of these more technical terms that are just like a house is kind of a house right um and there's so many more people
talking about houses but once you get into land investing like you know you
and I are at and Kyle I'm not sure where you are but the Mastery of it is so much
easier right because you have the core fundamentals and the ability to scale is so much easier because it's like it's
just a bigger acreage piece of dirt and so I always use that analogy even though we like to [ __ ] on the house people um
and I'm happy to do that it's kind of like it's kind of like that you know no it's a good it's a good analogy I I like
I like the I like the diverseness and I think people listening to this
you have a lot of you have a lot of experience in diversity from doing sing houses and the multif family and now
land you you I I can't I've been doing land my whole life I have no experience with this this is why I have whenever
the guests come on I have the opportunity to interrogate somebody I want I want them to say it not
not yeah and you know to be fair like there's a lot of things like that I was just and talking about like with with
apartment buildings or houses or like in general like there's just so many things that can go wrong absolutely and so
that's like I think that's the biggest thing which is why it's like harder to like harder to scale and harder to master like as soon as you get to a
certain level managing the contractors understanding sort of if it's a winter like Northern State which is where I
live right I don't live in Texas you know cold snaps things like that can pipes can explode older buildings
there's so many more things that are really just more difficult to manage not that it's impossible I mean there are
plenty of people that have really successful multi7 figure eight figure businesses but I think the path to scale
is just clear in land no definitely I think the easiest transition was moving from houses to
land I think I Think Like Houses is such a like once once you're once you start doing some deals with single family
wholesaling and flipping number one you get a little bored I don't know why you just get a little bored but number two
when you move from from houses to land it just it it feels so much more simple you don't got to leave the house very
often it's easier to get boots on the ground because you don't have to like try to get access to a house or like
Chapter 3: Land Market Strategies and Challenges.)
break [ __ ] down and stuff so I I think yeah like you said land is a lot easier to scale it it just it becomes um it's a
lot easier to put your foot in the door with houses because number one everyone's talking about it the information you can consume it's out
there there's there's so much information you consume on housing but when you hear about land it's like you
don't really know know what to consume yet because it's not blue ocean so that's kind of where we step in right
right and and one other thing with land that that you know I'm I'm obviously a land fan right like I think it's way you
know way better than houses and multi family but one thing about land is it
can be very liquid so if you pick the wrong Market you're you know you you it's really a
liquid I mean when I talk about liquid I'm talking about decades yeah some people buy these pieces of land and they
have them for decades because they can't get rid of them they bought the wrong piece of land and and so that's one
thing that's sort of the disclaimer now if you do the right research you do the right market research you understand
your markets then that's on an issue right but that's something that we you we were all talking about at the
beginning of this call right we were talking about the sellr rate of houses like in DFW I know DFW is getting hit
hard Florida's getting crushed and we see that the market the national Market some of these hotter markets are getting
really hurt um but I'm seeing also in my land I'm in a couple of different states
I'm seeing some of my land Holdings take a little bit longer to sell and others I'm seeing them sell really quickly and
it's not a price point thing right it's you know it's it's really a function of the market and that's one thing you know
with land that we're talking about the harder to master component of it well if you don't know your Market you don't
know the PE the products that people are actually looking for right because in one market
outside of DFW you could say hey I know people love the 10 acre they love these 10 acre plots and and maybe they might
like a 20 acre um more than 10 and the 20 acres go for 30% more price per acre
and they sell 40% faster um that's one thing that you really have to understand in in land or your land will be sitting
uh I know you have a lot to to say there D Daniel but I mean that's that's been my EXP experience hey I hey if you say
it I agree because I I I already know I already know these things so when somebody else says it solidifies and
confirms my bias and I'm I'm I'm with it man CL what are you doing right now for
for marketing on dispositions and let me use a two-prong question so what are you doing right now for your marketing on
dispositions and what what are you seeing works well when things are slow
like what do you need to do to ramp things up yeah so I mean I would actually pose that question for you guys
I can tell you what I've done but you know our marketing is very different than you know D Daniel and I were on a
call a couple weeks ago and chatting about a little bit more about his strategy and and you know we rely on
Brokers so our marketing constraint and the success of our marketing is
completely reliable or relied on our broker partners and so you get a good broker they move that [ __ ] quickly and
if you do not you got to try a new broker but we're not like cross marketing through Facebook or any of
these other platforms at this point because historically the Brokers have really helped us Market these things
well who knows where that'll be in the future and I'm always open to learning more but at this point that's really the
the the main strategy for us okay it works I I think it works I
think it works if you work it right we're kind of unorthodox on that part and we use a lot of tertiary channels to
push it and that's kind of what we do so it is what it is but let's talk about markets are are you in multiple States
because I know dealing that in multiple states can get a little difficult what states do you like investing in and what
are your favorites yeah I I would say that I'm in many states and I don't have a
preference of states that I like I really focus more on counties okay so you know because the Coreal part of our
business is the buy for 80 sell for 160 Buy for 100 sell for
200 that's the core part of our business it's really us moving into these markets
that are more County specific like I can hit Michigan I can hit Minnesota I can hit Wisconsin and and what we're looking
for is that sell through rate like the healthiness of the market is really where we're going because of the amount
of mail that we're doing and marketing that we're doing outbound every month we we are constantly shifting
different markets now we're rehit markets about four times per year but still the the the quantity of markets
that we're used you know we're South Carolina I mean every Big Market I've done some stuff in Alabama we've touched
we've touched them but really what we're looking for is we're zoning in on that sell through rate to see about the the
health the speed of the market no I I I love this okay so this is the conversation I have there's so
many land investors that teach like oh just pick just pick somewhere random and do do pick a lat size and come have to
go after that I hate that that that that and education that push my analog is
more toward yours where it leans where I want to buy and Target where people want to buy it and and that's the whole speed
of the marketplace because like you said earlier land is very liquid you don't want to be stuck holding the bag in your
timelines or due diligence or cash if you put cash into the deal you don't want to be stuck holding the land
because it's very liquid so my synopsis is you want to buy or who want to buy and that's just the bottom line yeah and
I love that that philosophy I mean in order to be really successful in this business you kind of need to focus on
two core things right you need to focus on where you're buying right because there has to be demand and the demand
sells itself so if you buy a good track in the middle of Dallas like you're
gonna sell that [ __ ] I mean period it doesn't matter what the market conditions are if you find a good track
and you buy it for an under market value and you sell it for a market value you are going to make money and and that's
that's like 80% of the battle after that it's really about building a good sales
process right as competition inherently increases in any business competition over time go goes up it doesn't matter
if you're in land it doesn't matter if you're multif family doesn't matter if you're in self you know a service business or Tech business competition
increases over time and the differentiator is really sales so if you have a good sales team a good sales
process a good understanding of sales in your local market those are the two core levers that you can pull and that's the
820 if you find the right markets and you when when leads calls in you can
convert those leads you're in a really good position in order to be successful everything else is sort of like
secondary third tertiary to that to those two
Chapter 4: Acquisition and Disposition Tactics.)
things so County specific wide what's what's your buy box as far as like property values because I know that's a
other big different differentiator with land guys is they kind of go some people do they have their sweet spot of maybe
six figures to 250 or 650 or six figures to half a million what is your like buyb sweet spot and what do you
avoid yeah so at this point we're crystallizing our criteria but we're
we're looking for anything that we can make more 25 gs on at this point that's sort of the minimum that we're going to
look for but there's no sort there's no buy box criteria at this point I I we will
eventually graduate into hey we're only going to look at x amount of deals but for the time being we want to build the
wraps in the market the the internal marketing intelligence to hit all these different lower price properties medium
pric properties so that we can get a lot of reps in there because I'm building a lot of my team a lot of my process to
scale into those larger those larger deals the Hepler land Holdings of three years in the future is going to be very
different like where we're going is very different with where we are today but this Middle Market strategy is reliable
it's predictable it is consistent and it produces real cash quickly and so I
don't want to give up on that strategy at this point because that's going to enable us to recycle our cash in order
to scale into those bigger properties because you know as soon as you go from a lower Market strategy you know
flipping desert squares to Middle Market there's a time there's a time delay of success right when you're learning that
that market and so if you're going from Middle Market to higher Market you can't just say I'm going to replicate this
exact thing here it's a different type of seller it's a different type of buyer it's a different type of process and so
I I don't want to give up on my process my core process as I'm transitioning into his larger properties I'm really
glad you said this because this is this is a thing we did we did that we did that transition from Middle Market to
larger larger market and we had no deals we had not that we had no deals but we had like three to five deals for like
six months it was like it was like stale that's right because we had that
transition period you know and that transition it it hurt during that transition period oh man it was crazy
but now now that we've been in that we kind of transition smoothly stuff's just closing and it's all big stuff because
it's all stuff we kind of built up that timeline and it kind of rolled into its thing but that that that transition
period was rough it was extremely rough it's very exactly it's very rough because you don't know what it takes to
build the consist consistent reliable predictable results and but now
obviously you do and so now it's like okay I wish I would have started here five years ago but you have to gradually
get there instead of just going right in there or it's going to be feast or famine you're gonna be like a developer
that you know developers are like I have one deal a year I might make $7 million on this one deal but if it doesn't close
I'm screwed and I never want to put my family in that position and so that's why we're still crushing the Middle
Market yeah are you raising money right now clay For What specifically to place raising
money to place for deal on in deals yes in deals yep yep so we raise we ra I
mean I'm constantly raising money it's like the biggest one of you right like it's one of these constraints in our
business right money and Deals right and so I'm always raising money um it's
always a push pull deals money deals money it's a push PLL always you can't
you can't like lean towards One Direction rather than the other cuz like well well actually I would say when you
have the deals you kind of control you can you can kind of control the game a little bit when you have the deals especially if you have deals and the
terms you have deals and terms and I don't know are you using creative Finance right now in your business no no
no I'm not using creative finance and that's something that I really want to add to my repertoire we're buying
everything pretty much cash we're doing some double closing so if you consider that to be creative yeah I think that is
you know creative enough but right we're not using any creative financing but
like I know that that those that can be use creative financing and over the next
couple years I think are really going to be the differentiators right you know is the the market matures being able to do
that and and make that Delta between I'm buying it for x amount and getting the
interest rate here and then selling it for six seven eight points higher in a
higher price that's a beautiful that's a beautiful situ there well we also when
you're making all those offers with agents and sellers and every everything and then you start to teach people about creative Finance you start to Prime
Sellers and agents to hear that and it's like a little bug in their ear and then they start to be open to it over time
and that's how I think creative finance and especially with land is going to start to really open up because I mean I
I never really I only use cash unless it's already sitting at a good price on the market but really even if it's
sitting at a good price I'm exhausting creative Finance like just because I I want I want it I want to hold hold the
bag for I want them to hold the bag for me so you're saying you're buying all your deals on the market for the most
part for the most part we pick stuff off the market here and there wholesalers and maybe sometimes direct the seller
from other stuff but I mean most deals are on the market for us so are you are
you D do I mean this I don't know if this appropriate dad's going to podcast but you guys work together he's my he's
my Acquisitions oh that's what I I was like you yeah like that I've never
bought a deal off the market we had a really good deal we just did and we bought it in May for 485 we sold it was
180 Acres we sold 66 of it three weeks later for
315 and what I didn't post on social media was is that we got it for 40K
down that's incredible man that's incredible sometimes
me and Anthony call it we have to reverse our Roi because it sounds
implausible it s it sounds unbelievable and implausible and people think we're crazy and like no this is this is I got
the Huds like I don't know what to tell you that's incredible man so are you financing that is that but what did you
buy that creative Finance I bought it creative Finance it was a 30-day due diligence with 40K down so we already
marketing it during the 30 days we closed on it we found a buyer pretty quickly that closed really quick again
so on that deal all the buyer one proceeds went straight to the seller so we put 40K down listed it on the MLS
somebody came in 66 Acres bought it for 385 we only need to sell one more lot to knock out the seller and then we're
pretty much in this deal with like 10 grand and we'll have we probably make like three to 400 Grand on it how will
you make three to 400 Grand because we sold a third of the lot a third of the
180 Acres Oh I thought you said 100 I I'm sorry I I totally messed that up I thought it was 66 of 100 no 66 of 180 so
we sold a third of it for almost the full purchase price that's some cheap dirt some cheap dirt Texas you know that
there's some seriously cheap dirt some of the markets that I work in there it's just there's a lot more I don't know if
it's competition maybe it's a limiting of belief but you know picking the deals off the market you know it's really the
price is it's like 100 acres for a million bucks um or 100 acres for two million bucks
and sell is not willing to do the financing a lot of what we do is just ask for extended escrow that's the
that's the easiest hack 10 20,000 an acre generally everything we're buying is 20,000 an acre or less mostly
everything we have some deals that break that but generally it's 20,000 an acre less so what our thesis on this is that
when you get to a higher price point it's harder to move uh larger properties so if we stay under that 20 20,000 or
less Market we can exit at a at a variable 250 to 400 Grand exit on a 10
acre trap which is a good price point in your in your areas yeah in general anyway yeah some of the areas that that
that I work in that would not that would not that would not sell yeah well typically anything over
250 starts to move a little bit slower okay is what we're seeing yeah so even
in of hot areas it's like even if you have some comps at like you know 30 30
an acre for a 10 acre lot like we still underwrite it no more than 25 an acre because we want it to stay liquid yep we
want to undercut the market so like if if the Market's calling for 20 an acre we want to sell it for like you know 15
to 18 an acre or something we want to undercut that market so your goal is to basically sell it at 20% of market value
yeah just we gota we want to move the inventory 20 20 20% % below market value
yeah yeah I would say 20% below market value or what the market calls for just so we can try to move the inventory
quick because speed is the game yeah and that's why we get extended escros is if
we're selling stuff like if we're picking stuff up you know 4050 cents on the dollar and then we have six months
to market the property then a lot of times we just double close and then you know we don't have to raise the full
amount of money so but it also tells us like let's say we have six months to close it tells
us where the market's at too like because we're we get marketable title so if we get marketable title and you know
they're not really they're not the markets and the Market's not moving and and our marketing it's just it's just
not doing well we have Drone footage everything's looking good on our marketing end but we're just not getting
any traction on it then it kind of tells us where the market's at like hey this probably we need a cheaper or or it's just not moving right now so what you do
60 days of escrow of du depends on the deal I mean like for
example we locked 38 acres up for four and a half months and it's only three pieces of inventory so we did a 60-day
option for like two grand and then we have like four and a half months to close so we have four and a half months to basically Market the property before
we know if it's like a killer deal but this is on the market this one
was right off the market yeah so how is a broker going to be okay with you marketing on the
market you asked for it you asked for and they ask why and I say well we're land investors and we create inventory
so we need to kind of scream to the world what we're doing hey we're creating ranchetts we're creating
affordable housing you know we're creating the dream we're basically we're basically selling the agent a dream
which is true because you know people it's unrestricted ranchetts that we can kind of sell the dream to so that's why
it works so well and and the cool agents are good agents they understand the game a lot of the times it does kind of
overlap if we do it on MLS but we can mark it everywhere else I mean if let's say it's if it's not on land.com we can
put it on land.com or on all these other websites so then you know we're cross marketing it everywhere we can without
trying to overlap and cause confusion okay it sounds unbelievable but I mean I
know you guys do you see what I'm saying it's unbelievable okay like I have to I
have to reverse it sometimes even you you're like it's unbelievable yeah cuz I you know I'm in this business and you
know it's it's pretty crazy that you guys do that right that that Brokers are okay with that you know there's so many
people that push back against wholesaling or option contracts like people hate it yeah absolutely I think
it's funny but let's jump a little bit into what price per acre are you normally buying stuff in general because
I think like we might have that sweet spot like for us it's like 20,000 or less you might be at whatever I don't know I don't know what your numbers are
I'm just curious yeah I would say probably like between five and a half and eight okay that's usually where
we're at with things five and a half to eight no dude anything where we're buying that's where we're buying you
know okay and you're exiting at that 10 to 16 yeah yeah yeah 10 10 to 10 to 14
10 to 16 no that's that's a really great price point it's a really great price point there's a lot of inventory at that
that you can still find great deals there's a lot of inventory like that you can still find great deals
yep so you said you did 100 deals in two years what's your team look like Acquisitions
Chapter 5: Building a Land Investing Business.End)
dispositions yeah so we got eight people on the team four team in acquis for in Acquisitions right as of now okay and
then we have a data data analyst data scrubber a SDR sales development rep and
then kind of another person in our marketing department so total of eight plus me so that's a team size and we
might skinny it out a little bit might might skinny it down to six six people six seven people something like that but
for the time being that's sort of the the structure okay eight people are they all us-based or virtual or two US based
and the rest are virtual okay you got a very uh virtual team you got a virtual
team you know yep yep yep a lot of you know a lot of the stuff that the closers
are the us-based right closers us-based and I find that I I tried to do the vas
for the closing MH and the difference between a VA and a us-based closer
that's really good like what my closer one of my closers is in Austin Texas
he's a freaking Beast he's a ex solar guy and he is just really good solar guy
was a door knocker for Vivant I mean he's an animal and he's like so
much better than the V it's not even it's not even funny and he's way more
expensive expensive in terms of the the commission structure yeah of the of the vas but it's worth it it it's not it's
so worth it it's so worth it yeah absolutely yeah the the the the kill
killers on Acquisitions and negotiations they're they're very hard to find when you find them you hold on to them and
you try and incentivize them to stay and you try and keep them around as much as you can because they they change the
dynamic of your business when you don't have to are you still doing active Acquisitions yourself since you're still
not not really I mean I will jump in like IO I locked up a deal this past
week I love the deals you know I love getting in and lock deal up I mean it's just I love it so much I I honestly I
would I could do that all day yeah I could do it all day it it's so I will go
in for more complicated deals like this deal was an 85 acre deal that the seller wanted 4,800 and we're like we could
probably sell it for 9 but the seller was giving us a lot of issues in terms of like qualification issues and like
roadblocks and my closer couldn't handle it and so I had to jump in and give it
the old owner treatment and close a deal so that thing up so you're the you still
jump in whenever we needed but what what does your normal day-to-day stuff look like because I know I know what I do I
still I still I still like the action sometimes even though oh man I love the action I love the action so at this
point like the last like two or 3 weeks my dayto day has been pretty different than what it is what it will be but I I
know you know this I'm launching the landman accelerator which is a a land course that's specifically tailored to
my mid-market strategy and how to succeed in that way how to build a scalable business in that way and so a
lot of it's been putting the groundwork out to build the content around that build the community around that and and
all the content around the funnels and bringing people in and qualification and
all that stuff building another sales process marketing process for that whole business which is exciting but it's like
really timec consuming and so I'm going to be done with that here probably the next week or so and then then I'll go
back to I do a lot of stuff with content it helps me get investors so I do a lot of you know morning morning work with
content or Building Systems looking over kpis and talking with investors and then
I will be coming spending more time then at that point um finding other acquisition routes for our team and
leveling us up into a larger larger cap strategy that that'll be over the next
two three months as we transition that that's going to be my core kind of
day-to-day what what it would look like plus being a dad to a 10 week
old congratulations how about you what's your day-to-day like it is it's been crazy lately it's been
crazier than normal I I spend three to five hours a week doing
this this stuff this is fun I enjoy I really enjoy this I enjoy conversations with my guest and it's it's been an
interesting thing I try and uh I have my mornings with my with my kids and family and then I try and work afternoon to
evening but lately it's been getting crazy we we've gotten a lot into more development projects so we've been
talking to lenders and city like we had a city meeting this morning on a project where was that this morning or yesterday
Kyle I don't remember that was yesterday okay that was yesterday
see oh man it's it's it's been crazy the last seven days I'm telling you and even
today today was pretty insane I I've had like I probably like two three days a week like five six hours of meetings
back toback which is very unnormal for me because usually it's not that crazy but man it's been it's been crazy the
last couple weeks more than I like to but it's good crazy and I'm okay with it but we're getting more help and one of
my this is my little tip for you my best recent hire and I don't even know if who listen to this but I hired VA to do
Graphics that has been one of my best hires I've made lately he helped me out with uh I make a graphic for every deal
that I do now buy sell clothes so if you guys watching social media I'm be posting every da we clothes big or small
so I I kind of implemented that recently but it's been helping raise money easier
okay because you're more organized and you you act like a legit company here I
feel like I'm a legit company we got we got uh de deal decks and money decks and Roi decks and all this different stuff
and you have all the graphics behind it and it all goes everywhere and you get
more credibility that way but I must been interesting yeah right so the the the social media thing you I know you
guys are pumping that out as well so that's a that's a a significant part of my week in order to create that content
I write a lot on Twitter and Linkedin and and other things like that and that's been an excellent way for me to
meet investors and potentially people that are interested in landman accelerator tell me about your uh newsletter I didn't know you did a
newsletter this is news to me yeah yeah yeah yeah it's the it's called the landl and it's every Friday morning sent out 9
uh 700 a.m. and man it's been a really great success I mean we're growing really fast and and I just kind of break
down a deal every week uh i t i just talked about like just general land stuff couple of tips longer
paragraph form tips talking about how to build and scale a land business go through a quote every week kind of a
quote that's on top of mine and then other land industry specific stuff and people really like
it are do you like writing by by by trade or just I think that I I I I think
I'm I've grown to like writing okay but I'm better just like talking to people
okay yeah I I uh I did not like talking to people at first and I after doing this for so long I really enjoy it but I
hate writing yeah I mean and you don't really need to right like it's just sort of for me it's been it's been a way a way to
crystallize my thoughts yeah and and but
you have so much content out there that's like not required but you know yeah I gota what is a quote that is
yours or somebody else's that you resonate with he's going to pull he's going to pull up the newsletter give him a second no I mean I can pull up the
newsletter I can tell you the one I did this week but I one of the quotes is is and this is paraphrasing it but this is
by a a author of The 8020 principle Richard kooch the majority of our
results in our life are achieved through
focusing on the the the important few versus the tri
many so the most important things that you you can do in your land business are as we talked about finding the right
markets training the right sales team there's so many other things that you can focus on those things are so
important and so if I focus on those I will be successful I know I'll be successful everything else that could be
a a cluster in my back end but I can still make money and be successful if I just focus on those two
things that's dope man I want to say congratulations being a father fatherhood changed my life have you seen
a transition from your fatherhood experience recently over and I know
you've been a father for the last year but have you seen uh urgency recently urgency is interesting I've
seen a a greater responsibility oh okay I've seen just being like it's I have a
greater responsibility to be the type of man that my son would be proud of and
that is so important to me to raise him properly he needs an example he doesn't need to be disciplined through words of
course I will do that but he needs to be raised with an example of this is what a
good man is and he's my father and and look having him look up to me and and be
proud of the man that I am and and and him create a an image of himself through
me not not in a narcissistic way but like in a very healthy having a really healthy relationship with his father
emotionally healthy psychologically healthy physically healthy I take all those things really seriously and so
it's just caused me to prioritize those things a little more it's amazing shout out to fatherhood for all the fathers
out there shout out to fatherhood it changed my life it sounds like it changed Clay's life KY needs to have a
baby next get busy Cal get
busy we'll see we'll see I'll think I didn't mean to put him on the spot but hey father fatherhood I think
is is a such a great it's an amazing experience that it really changes your your thought pattern and
your um recognition of the things around you and how you want to influence that
around you as well and it's a really cool thing for everybody here where can we find you where can find your your
your your education coming out I have helper land helper Holdings helper land Holdings um better place is land hyphen
.io heer land Holdings if you want to sell any land I'm here you can SP a form on that website uh but Landy man. is my
website which you can get more information on the landman accelerator which is going to be an absolutely
incredible premium course for that mid Market strategy right if you want big Market land ranches you you know the guy
guy right here he can help you out with that but if you want to build a cash generating machine very quickly the
mid-market strategy is an incredible way to do that and then on Twitter Instagram LinkedIn clay heer those are the social
medias that I engage in there you go I love Twitter Twitter's
a dope place I appreciate you creating and producing content in general through all your forms and format so I want to
say thank you for that because being a Creator is what separates the creators from the consumers and that's a little
two cents for you clay for being a Creator if everybody here go like share subscribe you know what to do we'll see
you on the next episode thanks guys hey if you have have any deals you'd like to submit to The Hive mine and our team go
to Hive bc. it's actually The Hive Buyers Club submit your deals and we can hopefully dispo your deal for you have a
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Daniel Esteban Martinez
Host/ Ceo/ Speaker
I have been an entrepreneur since 2018. I come from a regular home just like most people. My dad worked on the roads in the Chicago area for over 30 years. He always taught me to work with my brain, instead of my body. Your body can only take so much abuse. I learned so much from my father. He always pushed me to work smarter and not harder.
I have owned and operated a trucking business for 2 years. I started learning real estate in 2019. Fell into the Data & Skiptracing business in 2020. My partner Anthony & I started Hivemind in 2021.
I have done a ton of different jobs coming up from painting, to door-to-door sales, telemarketing, truck driving, and loading trailers. What I learned most is that I want to stay in the digital business space. The leverage you can have delivering digital products to the marketplace can yield limitless possibilites.
I started The List Guys in 2020. It is a data and skiptracing service. We provide seller and buyers list nationwide. My clients have been getting great results and I am proud to help people killing it.
I started the Hive in 2021 with my partner Anthony Gaona. It is a real estate and business mastermind. It also comes with a all in one CRM, that can host unlimited websites and users.
Starting the Hivemind has been an amazing journey so far. Seeing one of our users make his 6 figure month in June 2021 leveraging our software, I know there will be plenty more to come!
Anthony Gaona
Host/ Ceo/ Speaker
Hi! I am Anthony Gaona.
I’ve been in digital marketing for almost 15 years.I grew up in construction working for my dad when I was only 12 years old. Normally we had a ton of work or no work at all so a lot of my free time was spent learning how to generate leads.
It didn’t take very long for me to master online marketing because I became absolutely obsessed with it. For the last 15 years I’ve been generating construction based leads. At first I was running the projects myself. This led to sub-contracting all of the excess projects and eventually wholesaling the leads off to other construction companies.
One day I was preparing to build a single family residence for myself. In mid December, 2018, a simple YouTube search led me to the term wholesaling and the rest is history. The plan was to use my construction background to start flipping houses. By January 1st of 2019 I launched several marketing campaigns both on and offline for real estate seller leads.
Within about 4-5 weeks I had my first real estate contract locked up. It didn’t take long for me get a land lead where I made almost a full year’s pay on a single transaction. This came from a land lead and that forever changed my life.
I ran low volume larger land deals for the first two years of my real estate career. Like anyone who has been in real estate investing for an extended period of time, I started thinking about scaling my business.
Instead of deciding to vertically integrated and start hiring I imagined a model where I would teach my real estate investing method… Read More
Clayton Hepler
Land Investor
Clay Hepler is a seven figure land investor with over a hundred transactions completed. His company buys, sells and develops rural recreational land across the US. He is the founder of Landman, a leading podcast and newsletter in the land investment world. He is also the founder of the Landman Accelerator, the top course and community on how to build a six figure land investing business.
He became a land investor out of necessity. This was never a side hustle for him. In 2022 his wife’s company went under the day before Thanksgiving - a company that paid the bills as he was building a multifamily real estate portfolio in Pittsburgh. And as he approached one of the most important years of our lives - having to pay for our wedding, his honeymoon, a new house, our daily lives and a newly purchased vacation rental property with a huge overhead staring us in the face, he had to make lots of money, very fast.
Through land investing he was able to “build the plane on the way down,” as he and wife were plummeting toward what seemed like inevitable bankruptcy. He was able to pay for my life, and more - and set his family up for financial stability. Realizing financial stability and ultimately - financial freedom, is possible through land investing.