The Keith Andrews Podcast

From Army Officer to Land Investor | Brent Bowers E28

• Keith Andrews • Season 1 • Episode 28

Share episode

In this episode, Keith sits down with Brent Bowers, a former Army officer turned real estate investor, to discuss how he built financial freedom through land investing. Brent shares his journey from military service to entrepreneurship, the challenges he faced, and the strategies he used to acquire and sell land profitably. He breaks down seller financing, direct-to-owner marketing, and the importance of taking action to create passive income. Brent also reveals how real estate has allowed him to prioritize family while building long-term wealth. Whether you're a new or seasoned investor, this episode is packed with insights on land investing and financial independence.

Connect with Brent:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brentbowers
Website: https://thelandsharks.com
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@brentlbowers

Find Motivated Sellers with PropStream
Perfect for wholesalers, investors, agents. Find sellers, get contact info, more. Try for free!

Find Motivated Sellers
Perfect for wholesalers, investors, agents. Find sellers, get contact info, more. Try for free!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Connect with Keith:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamkeithandrews
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamkeithandrews
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@iamkeithandrews

Interested in the Colorado Springs Real Estate Market?
Explore Alpha Zulu Realty—Colorado Springs' #1 Investor-Focused Realty. From A to Z, we've got you covered in acquisitions, sales, and property management. Visit https://www.AlphaZuluRealty.com today.

I just needed to make like $4,500, just call it 5,000 month so I can leave the army. That was the goal. And I kept searching for podcasts after podcast, listening to the four hour work week every time I was driving to and from base. And I heard a guy talking on a podcast just like this. He was like doubling his money overnight, buying and selling land. like this, no one's talking about this. If half of what he says is true, this is what I'm going to do to get out of the military. I've got dreams, I've got dreams you All right, Brent, I'm so happy to have you on my show. I can't wait to hear and share with the listeners here your story of how you went from being an army officer to falling in love with real estate and having enough passive income coming in that you were able to say, you know what? I'm gonna quit my job. I'm gonna leave the army to spend more time with my family. And so I wanna hear your story. How you got into real estate in the first place? Was it a book? Was it a podcast like what lit the flame? I've been reading Donald Trump the art of the deal books since I was in middle school So don't know where the flame came from I grew up in a 900 square foot house me my sister my mom dad three bedroom one bath and I knew I wanted to do great things one day my parents were both hardworking but I was like I hardly ever saw them. They were always working. Yeah. So my kids get to see me every morning and every night. And, you know, they just had literally, geez, three weeks off from school and we were together the entire time. Now, sometimes I got on my nerves. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes you can be home too much, but that was really it. I was never home in the military. So I was going down my parents path, maybe making a little better money. But, know, military, we don't make it. Fortune so it's a comfortable life, but you are told where to be what to wear and Sometimes you don't see your family for a year and half people like all just a one-year deployment No, what about the six months you're in the field preparing for that deployment? Yeah You know and now they don't do one-year deployments anymore. Thank God, but you're always gone You know if you're down the deployment unit, you're always training And the military wants you to be the best. mean, that's why we afford the freedoms we have in this country. thank God I was born in the United States, but, I wanted something different and I was going on, I was preparing for my third combat deployment in the army. I was a second lieutenant at this time. the army had just sent me from, enlisted to be an officer, all that. Yeah. Green to gold active duty, green to gold. Um, so I completed all that training, but, there was something more. wanted something more. I wanted more time at home and I had gotten my license in 2007. I got my real estate license, bought that first rental property. Um, and that's kind of where it started. kind of quit. quit back there. I didn't kind of quit. I did quit in 2009 because I was like, shoot me and I got to go back to school. I'm watching brokers and everyone get out of this business. And I got it between my two ears that if they can't succeed, what makes me think I'm going to. Terry took a little break until about 2013 when I went to college to be an officer and I bought the house right next to the school and I rented out all the rooms and I was making like $500 a month just to live there. I was like, this is crazy. So I took, I refinanced that property, took out $55,000 cash and bought another property and I just kept doing it and doing it. And I bought a triplex as soon as I got to Colorado Springs and I bought my house right next to the Cheyenne Mountain Resort. You're familiar with that area. I am. And then I started Airbnb in that house because the army sent me on a five month TDY trip to Fort Knox, Kentucky. And I'm just like making money hand over fist. And I had a problem though. Something was always breaking on my rental property. So I wasn't really able to like quit my job. But I was like, there's got to be a better, easier way. I just needed to make like $4,500, just call it 5,000 a month so I can leave the army. That was the goal. And I kept searching for podcasts after podcast, listening to the four hour work week, every time I was driving to and from base. And I heard a guy talking on a podcast just like this. He was like doubling his money overnight, buying and selling land. I'm like this, no one's talking about this. This, if half of what he says is true, this is what I'm going to do to get out of the military. so I took a, I took action immediately. I had always heard you can't make money with vacant land. There's nothing to rent out. There's nothing to fix and flip. But yeah, I started mailing the county held tax lien list in El Paso County. And then I would send it to my virtual assistant. She would scrub the list, put the schedule numbers in the El Paso Spatialist website, the assessor's website, and then give me the mailing address and the people's name. Most of time there's no address on the land. And I would send them a postcard and the postcard was simple. It was like, hey, my name is Brent. I'd to buy your land. in El Paso County, Colorado. If you're interested in the all cash, fair price offer, call me or text me. God bless. hold on. And these are people that you already know are have defaulted on their taxes. So, yeah. OK. Yeah. And it was a small list. Don't get me wrong. It's like 618 letters that were sent. And I did a couple of deals. That was what gave me my start. And I made a ton of mistakes. Don't get me wrong. But these people were willing to sell me land at cheap. cheap prices because most of time it wasn't buildable or it was landlocked or not accessible. And everyone listens to my, well, how the heck do you make money? Well, I was selling it most of the time on seller financing and people want to own. They want a piece of America, something to go like my dad sold. My dad does this. He's like 65 years old. He sold a piece of land, the pastor of his church, just to have a place to go and read his Bible and meditate. That was it. Like this land is not even buildable. Not even buildable because it was too far away from the whatever. I don't even know why it wasn't buildable. that's it. I'm gonna pause for a second because I just blocked. just dumped a lot. No, I mean, I shared with you before we started recording this podcast on the only land deal that I've ever done. You know, I picked up at a tax auction, found out it was pretty much unbuildable unless you wanted to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so I thought, man, I made a big mistake. spent $10,000 for this piece of crap, piece of land. And then I uncovered what you just said. Like people just want to own a part of America. There's a lot of people they might be renting the house that they live in, but to have a piece of land that they can say is theirs means the world to them and they're willing to pay for it. So I found people like that. And I did exactly what you said as I sell or finance it. And it was probably one of the most successful real estate transactions I've ever done. Even to this day, I get a check every single month in the mail from this guy that bought it. I don't know what he's doing with the land. I don't know if he just like parks his car and you know, looks out the window or if he puts up a tent there, who knows, but it's his and he was willing to pay, you know, basically almost five times what I paid for it. And it's seller finance. So I'm making money every month off the interest payment. So I wish I would have like went a little deeper in there, but I didn't because life got in the way. But you're kind of making me think, man, I should probably revisit that. So let's talk more about the seller financing aspect of it, because I think that's what you're doing more than anything. Right? far as to get that passive income coming in. Yeah, it doesn't always happen that way. Sometimes they pay all cash. Sometimes they pay it off quickly. But yeah, I copy the banks. There's a reason why the banks are the biggest prettiest buildings in every city in every state is because they charge interest. So they borrow from the Federal Reserve. Let's just sometimes they get the money at 0 % and loan it out to us. Poor jokers for whatever 8%. But you know, I borrow money from others at less, you know, let's just call it 8 or 9 % interest. And guys, if you've got some money sitting on the sidelines, you want to secure it with real estate. Reach out. I've got more land deals coming across my table than what I can ever do by myself. So reach out. But for instance, my mother-in-law, she lent me money at 40,000 at 9 % interest. We bought a piece of land with it. This is in Florissant, Colorado. We sold the land for $95,000. And the guy gave us a $5,000 down payment. So I didn't send it to my mother-in-law. I kept that. My mother-in-law will be paid off in five years. So it's a 60 month amortization schedule, which is a five year amortization schedule. So I'm paying her $800 a month. Then I charge my buyer 12 % interest on 90,000. So he's paying me like $9.72 a month, give or take some change. Don't hold me directly to it. I've got to look at the note. But he's going be paid off in like 13 and a half years. Call it 14 years. So my mother-in-law's paid off in five. I still have almost nine years of payments I'm gonna keep. I'm gonna make over a hundred and something thousand dollars on that one deal. I have none of my own money in two. Yeah, that's beautiful. is that basically on the majority of them that you're doing is that you're leveraging other people's money to initially pick it up? sometimes the seller will finance me the land. I don't always need mother-in-law. Sometimes I'll just use my own cash. Sometimes I don't have the money. I run out of money to Warren Buffett has a budget. I definitely have a budget. So I'll sometimes just assign my contract where I'll get it under contract. Like I did 44 acres next to Shrever Air Force Base from a bank on that first baler. Guys, if anybody's listening to this wants a copy of my postcard, just go to the land sharks.com forward slash postcard and you can get a copy of my postcard and start using it today. Take action like. This is a podcast. can get gold on here. I'm sure every episode Keith does is pure gold, but, write this stuff down and take the action steps. That's, this is all like, doesn't matter if it goes out in one year and you forget it tomorrow. cause you will, so time block this stuff right now while you're listening to, you're driving down the road, Hey, Siri, making a, making an appointment for tomorrow at 9pm to, reach out to landowners and mail the postcard. little things like that. That's how I get stuff done. I time block it or I stop and do it right there. But, Shrever Air Force Base got it under contract with the banker. They were in the process of losing it basically because no one paid the taxes. was crazy situation. So I made a stupid offer for like 20 grand. I think the land was worth a little over a hundred K back then. 44 acres of extra Shrever Air Force Base. I don't even want to know what it's worth now. It's like Bitcoin, like where I messed up and I should have taken Bitcoin from my one of my tenants in 2013 for a year and a half. So I didn't have 20 grand, but I made the offer for 20 and they said 25. And if you can't pay that, then don't ever call us again. This was on a Friday afternoon. I signed it. I didn't sleep that night because I was freaking out because I didn't have money like that. This, was just getting started. This is 2016. I'm a poor second lieutenant with a brand new baby at home. So I was like, heck, I'm going to go out on Saturday and put signs up everywhere. Land for sale, must sell, phone number. I put out 30 of those signs and I had two phone calls. One was cussing me out for putting the sign on their land. I was like, I'm just throwing it away. Two guy from Texas just sold his ranch out there in Texas said, where are you at? I'm looking for land right now. Me and my wife been driving around for two weeks. It was honestly a blessing from God. So we literally shook hands on the side of the road. I sold it to him for 38,000. So do the math 25 to 38 was that 14 grand assignment fee? just sold my contract and After that I was getting higher offers which hurt me. I was like, oh, I even called the Texan I said, hey, I know we had a deal. I know we agreed on it What do you what if I pay you seven thousand dollars? Just to walk away from this deal and he goes absolutely not I want the land cuz I was yeah I was getting offers like 30 grand over 15 grand over I was gonna split it with them Yeah. And so I sold them the land, but little things like that. I didn't know what the land was worth back then. Had no clue. No clue. Now it's way easier to figure it out because, you know, I look on Redfin. I see what similar sized parcels are selling for in the area, or I call a land sales specialist real estate agent, one that sold land in the area. Colorado is easy, but there are states like Texas and Wisconsin, non-disposer states. Yeah. All a good realtor that's selling the land out there. They're going to know what it's going for by the square foot and by the acre. it's just you got to be you don't need to know all the answers. You just got to be resourceful about, you know, there's never been anything in real estate that I couldn't figure out by calling five, five people, five experts. Now, I don't call just anybody. So so real quick back on the land, you are going after land that's not on the market, right? They're reaching out to you because you're sending the postcards. Yeah. I send out what I call LOL's land offer letters every single day and it is an offer amount. is a hard piece of mail that you send out. Okay. I call it a LOL because every time I get one back I laugh out loud because it's a smoking hot deal. Or land offer letter. And guys, anybody listen to this, I'll give you this for free. Go to the landsharks.com. land offer letter or laugh out loud because if you start sending these out to landowners, you're not going always be right on the price. I'm never dead on. And sometimes there's a renegotiation. Sometimes I pay more because I realize I really made a mistake, but they sign them and send them back. Most people are not going to accept my offer though. Most people won't. But there's a right person at the right time that needs to hear my message and they sell me their land. Like I've done so many of these that were, I've done a handful now at this point where I haven't even talked to the seller. It's all been over email. Wow. And so you're, are you still going after like the, going through the tax assessor to get these? No, that's much work. That's, mean, you should still get deals. You can still get deals that way, but that's a lot of work. There's way easier ways now. So I'll go to Redfin. Well, no, let me back up. I'll figure out where demand is happening. I'll see where the land's selling. Yeah. Or the states that we call the inbound states. And I'll go like, what are the inbound states? Idaho, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Florida. Well, actually Texas is supposedly an outbound state, but I don't believe it. I'm still doing pretty well out there. Then I'll find little pockets, little hot pockets where land's selling out there. And I don't care if it's four or five parcels I've sold in the last 12 months. That's enough for me. I can get comps on that. Once I figure that out, I'll price it out. I'll figure out what the land's worth by the acre, what it's selling for, or by the square foot if it's in buildable infill lots. And then I'll send out land offer letters. I'm getting my list through a website called PropStream. anybody wants to get it. PropStream is actually an advertiser on this show. if you want to sign up with PropStream, go check it out. The link should be with this podcast to get a special deal from PropStream. Heck yeah. Yeah, go take action on that. Download my land offer letter or even make it easier on yourself. Get the postcard and go to the link below on the prop stream. Use that free trial with that link and then mail those bad boys and get that phone ringing. Like that's it. You're just taking the next step. You don't need to know. Like there's a reason why our headlights are only 300 feet in front of us. We don't need to see 900 feet. We only need to see the first 300 and then tomorrow's answers will come tomorrow. That's awesome. Let's say you get a landowner that's interested in selling the parcel to you. And you said in some cases that they'd even be willing to sell or finance it to you. Right? Most of time they have no clue what that even is. You just gotta educate them on it. Well, how... Let's educate the listeners right now that may be like, huh, seller financing for land. How does that work? Maybe you can talk about that because you did talk about in the beginning that that one of the first pieces that you bought, you borrowed the money from your mom, you set up payments with her and then... You sold it to somebody for a higher price and a higher interest. And so basically now you're bringing in more money than you're paying your mom and that's where the cash flow is for you. So is there something special? Do I need a license for this? Maybe you can educate our listeners on that. How do you go about this? I don't need a lender license because I buying it in my LLC and I'm selling it out of my LLC and I'm collecting the payments into my LLCs or my LLC. Uh, IRS does like for you to charge interest for a while there. was doing 0 % loans. Cause I was like, huh, who am I to charge someone interest when I'm literally buying it for 500 bucks and selling it for 5,000 or some of these I was buying for a couple hundred bucks and selling it for, bought fountain Colorado. One of the last. Lots left in a, in a mobile home, uh, area where they're putting double-wide mobile homes. Wasn't a mobile home park. Um, I bought it for like 250 bucks. And I sold it for $9,000 with Land Title. Land Title Guarantee Company was my title insurance company. And I had the buyer ready to go. He was going to put another double wide on it. And come to find out. It wasn't in my name yet. They were going to record it for me and then basically simultaneously sell it or double close it, whatever you call it. But I'd already gotten a quick claim deed from the seller. I didn't do any title searches dumb on my part. I don't recommend I recommend I now only buy through title insurance companies Yeah, I would walk in these people's houses or meet them at the bank and I would hand them cash or certified checks and I get a quick claim be Stupid don't do yeah. Yeah, don't do that. I made a lot of mistakes and I was very Honestly, like God bless my path. That's for sure that he definitely protected me and shielded me I bought stupid hole. I holes in the ground. I bought Treasures deeds which that's a whole nother podcast explain all that but I dug myself out of those holes by giving people seller financing I never lost money on a single piece of land yet. Thank God. I've made a lot of mistakes though but the seller financing it got me out of those holes and Basically like that going back to that Fountain Colorado lot Turns out there's a hundred and fifty seven thousand dollar IRS tax lien on it And I was like, good Lord. Thank God I didn't. Cause I was in my beginning stages. If I would've had $157,000 lien on me, I would have probably lost everything at that point. Cause I was very beginning. So I was like, don't, don't record it. So I put it on my, I still got the filing cabinet in front of me. I was put it in the filing cabinet or maybe it was on top of it. This poor lady kept calling me every month and emailing me. I ignored her cause I was scared. I didn't know what to do. She's like, get this thing out of my name. because her husband died. He was the developer of that mobile home community. And I just ignored her and I hired a coach and he goes, Brent, try and do it again. Sometimes these IRS leads fall off. I went to Heritage Title. so here, let me back up. I was like, who is the best investor friendly title agent in Colorado Springs? So I called the top three home buyers. did sell my house fast, Colorado Springs. And I found the top three home buyers. One was like Adam Ray, the Colin McCormick, these old real estate investors in this area. So I called all of them and I said, hey, I'm doing land. And who is your best investor friendly title agent that could like work through any title issue? And two of them said, Tammy Thomas. Now she lives in Montana, unfortunately. So I called Tammy. said, can you please help me with this? I want to sell this property. Can you get it in my name? I didn't tell her about the lien. So she get it all figured out. Turned out there's like 3000 owed to Fountain Colorado. So we got it all paid, all taken care of. But simultaneously I'm marketing for a buyer on Craigslist and Facebook and putting signs out. I sold this thing for 35 grand and it was a few years of interest. They just finally paid me off like six years later.$557 a month. I can't even tell you how much money I made in interest, but I bought this thing for like, I was into it for like $3,500 bucks. So that's kind of the seller financing stuff. Sometimes it was my own cash. Sometimes it's the seller financing. The seller would seller finance me. Sometimes I got to call lenders. I get lenders all the time. There's one secret to getting lenders. I've used a lot of hard money lenders, but the biggest secret is I share with everyone what I'm doing. I tell them how I do it step by step by step. and I secure their money with real estate. I never touch their money. I get a lender's title insurance policy for them and I pay them on time. That's why my lenders keep lending. They make money with me and I'm making money with it. And God forbid the market crashes. I'm buying this stuff at such deep discounts where can at least pay my lender back. Yeah. What do you do with the seller or what if you do with the buyer that seller financing doesn't pay you though? Like, it happens all the time. I keep paying my lender and I foreclose on it or I do a cancellation of contract for deed. So I sell some via mortgage and deed of trust or promissory note and deed of trust where I am just the bank where I transfer the land out of my name and some where I don't get a high enough down payment. Anything under five grand, I just do a land contract or contract for deed. And sometimes that happens. Sometimes people die. Sometimes people go to jail. Sometimes people no longer want the land. Okay, and how long does it take though, where you can legally resell it if someone defaults like that? My contract for deed says, if there are 60 days behind, I can take it back. you know, if they wanted to go to court and fight me over it and take longer, probably, but most of the time, like, like I've, I've modified people's loans. Like I'm going to work with you. I can get another piece of land tomorrow. I've got land in inventory. I don't need to take your land from you. So 60 days. So I'll remarket it while we're working it out. I've never had to foreclose on anybody where I've actually transferred the deed because I usually collect a pretty darn good down payment. know, one guy I'm helping him sell his land. I've helped a couple people sell it so they don't lose the money that they got into it. But sometimes people are just like, yeah, just take it back. And I've even paid people to take land back from them. And it's funny, one of the guys that paid, he bought another parcel from me. Wow. Let's talk a little bit about where people that are interested in this can find you. did mention Landsharks.com? Yeah, the Landsharks.com. you're offering coaching programs too? Yeah, so I'll coach a few people a month. I can't take on a ton of people. But yeah, I pretty much offer my entire land business. We have support calls, which I have one in about eight minutes. that we jump on. have an assistant coach. He's a rock star. But yeah, I love working with veterans, active duty military, other real estate investors. It's great time. You know, I fund a lot of land deals. I lend on land deals myself. So nice. Nice. Well, I definitely encourage people to go check them out. Definitely a unique strategy, one that you don't have to worry about toilets and roofs and all the other. late rent payments and everything that you deal with in the the landlording world so that's awesome. Before I let you go I always like to ask this just a few questions. First off what's your favorite real estate book you've ever read? the Wealthy Gardener. The Wealthy Gardener who's that by? haven't read that one. man I don't know I can't think of his name. Okay, well Google it Google it the wealthy gardener. It's okay and listen to an audible too, by the way It's just such a beautiful story What's the best piece of advice you've ever received? I don't know. So much. There's been so many people that have helped me along the way. I don't know, my wife gives me good advice all the time. You know, it's whether I'm willing to accept it or not. You know, she tells me when I'm being a jerk and when my ego gets in the way. So I'll leave it at that. Okay, well that's important. You gotta have that. That's what makes a good relationship is when your spouse, partner can tell you, hey, you're going a little too far. Yeah, I'm not saying I like it or I'm always nice when she gives it to me, but... Yeah, yeah, okay, what about do you have a favorite quote? You know For God so loved the the world that he gave is only we got in son. I'll leave them right there I think that's a great one. That's a great one doesn't matter if you're real estate whatever you're in It's applicable to everything and it's all about love It's all about love and you did this in the very beginning. You said you did this spend more time with your family, right? This is this is what got you into real estate And, you know, I'm sure it could be hard because I've done it too. I did the same thing. I said I can quit my nine to five and spend more time with family. That was my why. And then all of a sudden I started working more in real estate than I did in my nine to five. And I had to kind of like recalibrate. So it's important to do that. It's important to have that in front of you. But hey, Brent, it was great. hearing about your success in the land business and your story. I know that our listeners will get a lot of value out of this. I appreciate you for being here. So everyone, God bless and I'll see you on the next episode.