The Most Dwanderful Real Estate Podcast Ever!

The Intricacies of Land Investment Unveiled by Logan Swanson

• Dwan Bent-Twyford and Logan Swanson • Season 3 • Episode 340

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Have you ever wondered what it takes to become a successful land investor? Meet Logan Swanson, a man who has successfully navigated the twists and turns of the real estate industry all the way from Dallas, Texas. This episode brings Logan's journey to your ears - all the way from his childhood entrepreneurial spirit to his current real estate ventures. We get to peek into his family life too, as he shares about his kin following him to Texas and his collection of intriguing Texas Gun Collection Association memorabilia. 

Land investment might sound like a dry topic, but when Logan walks you through the complexities, it's anything but boring. He breaks down the process of buying and subdividing land, the engineering and surveying angles, and strategies to add value to land sans vertical development. Tune in to hear about the diverse communities he has developed, his exit strategies, and the growing trend of rural living amongst millennials. 

And it's not all real-estate talk! Logan takes us on a nostalgic journey as he shares about his love for the band, Styx, and the joy of experiencing live music in the 70s. He also shares his fondness for various music genres and a memorable moment of discovering a delicious dish called niyoki during a trip to Italy. Beyond industry insights, this episode is infused with personal anecdotes and experiences, painting a holistic picture of Logan's journey, reflecting how music, food, and memories are interwoven into our lives. So, sit back and join us for a delightful blend of business and pleasure with Logan Swanson.

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Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Hey everybody, welcome to the most wonderful real estate podcast ever. I'm your host, Dwan Bent-Twyford and I'm America's most sought after real estate investor and I am so excited that you are here with us today. As you can see, I have awesome man with me today, so this would be our wicked smart man of the week. So Logan's going to share some great tips and ideas and you're going to love him and you're going to like him and follow him and you're going to get involved in his business as well. Our motto at Dwanderful is people before profits. So if that resonates with you, you're at the right place. You're at the right time. I'm your girl, and if you will go to Dwanderful d-w-a-n-d-e-r-f-u-l. Dwanderful. com and opt in, I have a free e-book Flip your way to a fortune. For those of you that are new, I took my name Dwan and the word wonderful, and I made dwanderful, so that's how we became so awesome over here at Mayan. So, Logan, welcome to the show, honey.

Logan Swanson:

Hey, thanks for having me.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I'm excited that you're on today.

Logan Swanson:

I'm excited to be here.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So before we started recording the call, Logan and I were sharing makeup tips. He's like no, don't tell anybody that. So we'd like to start off with we were talking about my lipstick, or lack of, because this is my filter. They say, oh, now I use filter. Everybody that watches me knows We'd like to start off. We have drinks with Dwan and I'm having cranberry juice, so I think we're both healthy today because you're having an approaching shake.

Logan Swanson:

So, cheers. Cheers.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And you guys get your drink, have your toast Everybody. Take a deep breath. Get rid of all your negativity, whatever's on your mind, shake it off and focus in right here with the two of us today, and let's hang out for the next 45 minutes or so. Have some fun. I'm pretty sure we'll both make you laugh and we're going to have some fun. So, logan, welcome to the show. I'm super excited to have you on today.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

See your Texas thing in the background. Are you in Texas?

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, Dallas.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So Texas Gun Collection Association, is that it?

Logan Swanson:

Yep Texas Gun Collector Association. I'm not in it, but we saw it at a state sale and I was like that's pretty cool piece of memorabilia that's coming with me.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Right next to the CasaBlanca too. That's some pretty cool memorabilia you got behind you.

Logan Swanson:

That's right. And then surveys behind me. Oh, there you go.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's my kind of guy right there. I always tell people like if I could be a state, I would be Texas.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, not Florida.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

You've got all the weather. You've got your own power, your own water, you got all your own stuff. You got everything. Texas can succeed from the rest of the rest of us crazy people. I would be Texas. That's the state I would be if I was going to be a state.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, it's a place for big egos, that's for sure.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Maybe that's why that fits in there. My husband lived out there, I think, for about 15 years and he's from Iowa, and so his brothers and sisters, they all moved to Texas. So basically my husband's entire family brothers, sisters, like I don't know, 15 nieces and nephews. They all live over in the Houston area.

Logan Swanson:

Okay, cool yeah, I love Texas.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's like Texas is awesome.

Logan Swanson:

I'm from Wisconsin originally, and when I moved down here, some of my family started following too. So I get it I'm an anchor.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah. So Bill got his family and then, after living there for a while, he's like I want to live in the mountains of Colorado. So he moved and he's like nobody's following me to the mountains.

Logan Swanson:

It's my mountain.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

My mountain, so our family's in like Iowa and Ohio, and now we're in Colorado Like y'all can come visit. Nobody's moving here. We want to. This is our slice of the world right here.

Logan Swanson:

So that's right.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So what I like to do? So you are today's Wicked Smart man and this session we just like to kind of pick your brain and just find out really more about who you are, what you do, obviously, and who you are and you know, just kind of expose people to you that may not know. You on my end and you know. Then at the end of the, at the end of the day, I hopefully they go. Hey, that local guy was really great. I'm going to follow him on social media and I'm going to get involved with what he's doing and he's amazing. So it's more just kind of that's where we start with the drink. It's like we're hanging out, we're at a restaurant, we're both having some wine or beer or whiskey or something, and someone would be sitting around going. Those two have the most interesting conversations. So that's what we're doing today.

Logan Swanson:

Perfect, yeah, most interesting conversation Check.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's it. So whatever comes up is what we talk about. So, so I'm going to throw you straight into the world. So the first thing I'd like you to do is obviously tell us your name, how we get in touch with you and, very short, this is what I do, and then we're going to just talk about how you got to where you're at today.

Logan Swanson:

Perfect yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

What's your DEAL?

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, so I'm Logan Swanson, coming to you, live from Dallas, texas, and so I'm in the land investing industry. I have a few different companies that kind of operate here and there around buying and selling land. Right now I'm kind of reaching out to the general real estate community to just be an advocate for this aspect of real estate investing. So I've put together a little bit of like free education material around it that people can check out if they want to learn more. It's at www. thelandfixer. com and you can email me at thelandfixer@ gmail. com. That's the easiest way to get in contact with me. If I like you enough from there, you can get my number. Maybe We'll see.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Are you single?

Logan Swanson:

No, very married.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Very married. Okay, I was going to say that girls, if he's single, I'll give you his phone number Because you know, on our, on our, I met my husband at a real estate event. It's like, hey, not only is it where I do my business, that was my dating pool.

Logan Swanson:

There you go.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And we've been married almost 25 years, I was like, hey, worked out fine for me.

Logan Swanson:

I got money.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So that turned out great. I was teasing about being married and I'm happy that you're married. How old are you?

Logan Swanson:

I'm 33 years old.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Oh, my son, that's four kids. Do you have kids yet?

Logan Swanson:

Three.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Well, so we have two girls and a boy and you know, bill and I get married later. So you know, we became a blended family and so the girls are. So they're 33, 35 and 37, getting my son 33. And he has four kids and the girls have no children. So like, listen, until you kids are girls having some kids. He is the favorite child, he is the golden child because he possesses all of the grandchildren. Unless your girls step up, you are not on the golden child list anymore. So, and my, actually two of my grandsons are here right now. They're riding a little. We bought them a little go cart and a little tiny four wheeler, cause only four. They're outside riding right now.

Logan Swanson:

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah yeah, I have two boys and a girl. My youngest is a girl.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Nice, I think this one.

Logan Swanson:

She's six.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Those little girls, man, they keep their daddies.

Logan Swanson:

Oh my God. Yeah, it's brutal. Yeah, it's all my wife and I talk about. She is at this phase where she thinks she has complete ownership of the house.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I mean, I'm 64 years old and I'm thankful my dad's still alive. I'm telling you, I'm still daddy's girl.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Like 64 years old daddy. What are you doing, daddy? It's like I never grew up.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, I see a similar fate for my daughter.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I cherish that because at the end of the day, when she's older, you want her to still be daddy's girl.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, 100% yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, now I do. My dad goes. You still call your dad daddy, it's like, because he is, and at my age a lot of us don't have parents anymore, so I'm super grateful that I have my mom and my dad, you know.

Logan Swanson:

So okay, that's awesome.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Let's, before we go off on some crazy things, get back to land investing, and a lot of that is very simple. Thelandfixer. com. Fixer, I mean you can't make that much easier so tell me about land investing. So what is it that you specifically do in the land and that you're buying just land?

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, let me give you a.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Like thrilling. What are y'all doing out there?

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, so we have a few different entities. That one of them. We just flip land right. We go straight to landowners, we negotiate discounted rates, we buy it, we bring it to market very simple transactions. It's a lot of fun, but it's a more competitive industry than it was a few years back. So we've kind of evolved over the years. Now what we're more focused on is buying and subdividing land. So you go buy a couple hundred acres, you split it up into 10 acre lots, five acre lots, things like that, bring those smaller parcels and market, sell those off. We're into entitlements and development projects, so rezoning, maybe planning communities, really anything we can do as far as a forced appreciation strategy to take a basic piece of land and add value to it without ever going vertical.

Logan Swanson:

That's our goal? Yeah, and ideally it's paperwork. Only, You're almost never picking up shovels unless you're putting a road in.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, and I see you have a survey there behind you.

Logan Swanson:

Yep.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And do you do the survey work yourself?

Logan Swanson:

Oh, no, I wish. It's terrible getting a hold of surveyors and everything like that, but no that's. You have to have a lot of schooling to be a surveyor. It's a lot of work, it's an engineering job.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It is an engineering job. My husband has some crazy math mind and we have developed a few pieces of land and he'll draw it out, do it all and do it all to scale in this architect that we have. He's like did you do this? And he's stamped it for us and I was like I wanna know how he did that without going to school for it. But he has this super crazy math mind for that kind of stuff. He can draw it out, plan it out, everything to every single thing to scale. And the first few times we used this architect, he went through the plans and he's like who did you have do this? And I was like, no, seriously, I did that. I said I'm sit at the table at night and that's what I do.

Logan Swanson:

I'm so sorry, yeah, that's wild. I don't have that level of patience. Not a chance.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I don't have that level of trying to map it. No me either. So you guys are buying vacant land. So then when you say you wanna parcel it out, are you then looking for, like a developer, like hey, here's a hundred acres, it's all parceled out, and whatever five acre plots we want you to build something here. Are you trying to sell each individual's place?

Logan Swanson:

So it really depends on the type of community we're developing at that point. If you're building something within the city limits that has full utility sewer water, all that, chances are you're either gonna work with one or two or three builders and you're gonna try to sell out that entire inventory, and oftentimes you're trying to get that under contract before you even do the work. You wanna have your exit planned out. More of what we do is rural, so we're usually operating one to two hours outside of a major city center. We're subdividing lots and we're selling them directly to the retail buyer that's going to plan to build on them someday, use it for recreational purposes, whatever you might have, and that's typically where we get the highest bank per buck in the sales transaction.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And then that person might buy it and put it in like their own septic or whatever they need to do, and you don't have to do any of that. So they do all that. You know a lot of people really. I mean, we live in Colorado, up here in the mountains.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I'm telling you, if you wanna see a bunch of really strange, odd people that wanna live off the grid where no one knows they're alive, you just need to come and drive my neighborhood. We've got like people like us with massive multimillion dollar houses and we've got people with little A-frames and they're 100% off the grid. There are nothing there and but you know, a lot of people really want to more kind of live like more out and more away from the crazy cities and have like thrown more patch of land.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, and it's a big push because of remote work and things like that. You know, I think I think my generation is really kind of looking back at something. That's a yesteryear sort of thing. You know growing your own food, raising chickens, homesteading multiple homes. You know having your parents live with you in your backyard, stuff like that, and when you move out to the country it just gives you way more flexibility with that stuff. You know your average city doesn't want you to have a mother-in-law house in your backyard or anything like that.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Wow, and they definitely don't have chickens.

Logan Swanson:

You know, we've found the rural areas to just be more conducive for families.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

They are.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, exactly.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It's like you can't have chickens there. My brother-in-law lives in St Louis and he lives in a very old subdivision. He actually lives in the house that he was raised in. So when his parents got really old they say, hey, do you want to buy the house? So he moved back into his childhood home. Now this is right in like right in St Louis, right in the subdivision, and in the backyard he's got chickens.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

You can't have chickens in a subdivision and my house was behind that house and you had chickens. I would be either scooping those chickens up at night and, like I don't know, eating them, or calling the city all the time for the clucking and the noise, if the chickens may, it's like. I don't understand what you have in chickens.

Logan Swanson:

Here in Texas, our neighbors to the back they have chickens and yeah, it's pretty wild. We live in just a small residential community, you know, so it's more common here, that's for sure.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That is. But what you say is true because all three of my kids are millennials and you know they grew up between Florida and Colorado and in Florida we're in a gated community. Zero lot line is very different. Colorado, we're all out everywhere and they don't know we're gonna live in the city. But now that they're all in their 30s they all want to buy land, they all want to get like tiny houses and they're like we want to have. They all want to have like a baby goat and like a little lamb. I was like who raised you children? Why does it? You want all this stuff and they want to have like little gardens and little farms. And I'm like I am definitely not the mother here. I don't know why you all want to have all that, but I was raised up like that. So I think you're raised that way.

Logan Swanson:

Then, like you skip it because it was too much work and your kids were like but it's so much fun, yeah yeah, and I think there's also just this thing with you know us growing up, with more time on screens and things like that, you get to a point where you just crave reality again, you know, and not staring at a laptop. Go touch some grass, go touch, you know, raise an animal, go do something. That's more hands on and natural, because you know our at least in my experience, my life was really separated from a lot of that stuff. You know, if you're spending time in cities, you're always on laptops. It's just like. You know it's really a killer experience to go from a city to the country, even if it's just a little ways, you know.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So it's fun, though I like that, so are those like the type of buyers. So when you're trying to say you buy a hundred of the acres and you plot it out and you sell it out, you're selling each individual one.

Logan Swanson:

Yep.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And do you buy them all around the country?

Logan Swanson:

No, I mean we usually we work in the Sunbelt States. You know we work in areas where the laws are friendly for us, right? So Texas is definitely our mainstay. In Texas the subdivision process for properties for 10 acres or greater is almost non-existent, right yeah, you call the county, you say, hey, I want to cut this 100 acres into 10-acre lots, and they say, okay, just send us the plot when you're done. So there's just so much flexibility in leeway that allows for you to really full cycle a multimillion-dollar deal very quickly without having to put a lot of effort into it. So you know that we like Tennessee a lot. Georgia, you know those sorts of areas do really well.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, I've got a bunch of cousins like we're going to move back to Chill Out. We never. All of us lived in Tennessee by our grandparents and they're all retiring. We're going to move to Tennessee and get a little acre and have a little tiny farm and I'm like okay, but those are our childhood memories. Like have you ever actually done those things? Like but it sounds so nice. I'm like it does sound nice, but you're right, like that Georgia area in Tennessee, especially Texas, like those are all such great areas and the land Tennessee is so beautiful. I love Tennessee, the land is so beautiful there.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, we just started another subdivision in Tennessee. Right now it's 320 acres and we're cutting it up into like 20 to 25 acre lots and it's beautiful. Yeah, I mean it really is the coolest way to add value and one of my goals is to just make real estate more accessible to people. So land is a great way to do that, because buying even the most affordable home right now is a multi-hundred thousand dollar purchase. Because you can still get a decent chunk of land for a hundred thousand dollars, you know something very reasonable and accessible. So it's kind of it scratches a lot of itches for me when you get into subdivision.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, I like that. We've only done I've actually only done one. We bought some land up here in the mountains that somebody had bought like back in the forties. So we did a bunch of research and apparently the family, the grandpa, whoever it was, I guess, I don't know great grandfather or grandfather I got into war and I don't know what happened. But this giant piece of land that sat here for decades and decades and decades and decades like decades. So we, finally, we see it and it's not far from us and it's a pretty big hunk of land Well, I can't always look into that. So we go look at it and we drive over to the city and we call him the map guy. He's the guy that works in that department, with like piles of maps hanging all over the place and from every little parcel that's ever been done in the entire county.

Logan Swanson:

Everything in zoning.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, oh my gosh. And this guy, I mean I tell you it's like walking in an office of like Indiana Jones, all the stuff he's got, and when he finds his old I mean I don't even know from the forties, this land was already platted out and all this stuff was already done. I was like, hey, we've not done that before. Let's like, let's do that out. So that's what we're doing. So I'm actually doing my first actual land deal straight land dividing and plating.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And it's really fun because I've never done it. I always buy them or fix them off or rehab them, and this is like from scratch. I'm doing my very first one right now and it's so fun.

Logan Swanson:

What county is it?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

We've done a lot of work in Colorado, just flipping Park.

Logan Swanson:

County Park.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

County. Oh yeah, yeah, I've done a lot of work in Park County.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

There was one little cabin that was built and this is a cabin from the old days. There's electricity, it's got an outhouse. It's just like this little tiny thing and so I thought you know that'd be fun, like we could go there on the weekends. I'm like, yeah, you know what we don't need to. I live in Park County. I'll pass on the outhouse Too much, like a child, but that tiny little cabin, we'll just throw that little piece off because it's ready. I cannot believe how much money the people paid for that. It's like it's got nothing.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It was like this open was $300,000. It has nothing. It's got no plumbing, it's got no water. They go. Oh my God, this is a great summer cabin and I was like what? So now I'm like, okay, we're plotting this up now and we're building one house on it and then making some others and we're putting a rest. We're doing a few things, but it's fun.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, yeah. And what we like to do, too, is we like to own our finance on the sales side, and that creates this really, you know, extended, predictable passive income for you. It's really really a lot better than most other investment strategies that I'm familiar with. Now, at the end of the day, you're selling it, so you lose the property and you got to move on to the next one, but it's highly profitable. It's relatively simple and it's a lot of fun.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And you are. Though if you're owning financing it, you know you're becoming the bank, so you're getting the payment and all the ride off the bank guys without having that. People can't go on my toilet. That's called 100%, that's nice too. I love to be the bank.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, and the standard interest rates that folks are charging in the land industry are like 12 to 15%.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Seriously.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, it's. People don't bat their eye at it. It's wild.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, okay, that's a good tip for me to know. With my little tiny project I was only like 50 acres, but still I'm working on it. I was like I did not know that it's that kind of interest rate in the land deals. Now, how did you so you're 33. So when you were like 13, 14, 15, what was that? What was that logo? What was that kid doing?

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, I always had this entrepreneurial itch, for sure. I mean even earlier than that. As soon as I realized I could go to my neighbor's yard mow it and make some money, I effectively had one scheme after another to try to drum up some money. I came from a mobile home park in rural Wisconsin, so you know I didn't grow up with much and at times it was like if I needed clothes I had to go buy them. So I just got in that mindset really early of self-sufficiency and I really enjoyed it. You know, I launched my first little business type thing when I was 14.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, What'd you do?

Logan Swanson:

I was working in a nursing home at the time just washing dishes, and I got to know some of the residents there and I found out like they all have these old scrapbooks of photos that are just falling apart. So I decided, well, I'm going to go buy one of those scanners, like the nice three-in-one printer scanner sort of things, and you know, very modestly priced it, but I'd go through and just scan and digitize their photos and put them on CDs and make multiple copies for their family members and stuff like that, maybe do a little bit of touch-ups on photos. And you know, a few years later a big company launched that did the same thing, just digitizing old photos, and I was like, damn it, I should have done that, you know, or I should have made it bigger than it was. But yeah, I've kind of always been like that. If there was a way for me to hustle in one form or fashion, I've always been in hot pursuit.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I love that, and you know what, at 14 years old, though, that's like a pretty big idea.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I'm going to take these old photos because I think at 14, I think most 14-year-olds don't realize how precious a picture is to someone that's 80. Yeah, because you're young. And when you're 14, people that are 30 are like, oh my God, how are they still alive? They're so old. And to like know and think, like, hey, I could do this and help these families and help them with their pictures, that's a really cool thing to even think, to do.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, and it was really cool because it, you know, reinforced a lot of the reasons I like to be in business. It's like relationships, helping people, creating value and, of course, like that, instilled in me the idea of just self being self employed. You know that that was the hardest thing. My wife's my business partner currently. She and I both kind of ran through that struggle of being in the nine to five for a long time. Yeah, man, there's nothing like coming out the other side and having a little bit of freedom in your life.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So much, so much. So when did you enter into the real estate side of things? Because you know 14, you're doing photos, which is so sweet. And then where along the way, do you like you know what I think real estate sounds like fun? Where, where, how old do you? When that transit, transition, transition I'm sorry, something out my words that transition took place.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, so in 20, I think 2018, probably 2017 is when I really started getting a little bit of interest and exposure. I was a project manager for a construction company. We had two kids, my wife was pregnant with our third and my kind of team leader whatever you call them in the construction world he was just learning about real estate and he took me to a couple like Dallas Fort Worth is just lousy with wholesalers and things like that and there was some guy who you know had a little meetup in a dingy hotel and talked about wholesaling and how to wholesale single family homes and I had my first exposure to just the fact that you can do creative things to make money in real estate and, at the same time, in construction project management. I was working on commission and I closed a couple jobs and I had received my first $10,000 check and it just kind of dawned on me. It was like, yeah, it was like insane. I was. You know, I'd worked in restaurants my whole life and you made good, consistent money, but never like a lump sum or something that would really change anything. And that $10,000, along with that, a little bit of education in real estate, just kind of it, made me realize there's got to be something better than working for somebody else, and I'm going to try this real estate thing Now.

Logan Swanson:

I was broke. You know my wife I mean she's I think she was the breadwinner at this time I was working construction project management it was commission only. I had good months and terrible months, and then at night I was waiting tables at a fine dining steakhouse here in Dallas and we just didn't have any time between us. We had no savings. Our kids were more expensive than the amount of money we could make. It was just really a hectic time for us. Everything was month to month, you know, sitting down deciding what bills we were going to pay this month, which ones we were going to try to push the next month.

Logan Swanson:

And I, the more I learned about real estate, the more I was like there's no way I'm going to have money to go buy a house, right, I was like I didn't have anything to scrape together. So then I kind of got down this rabbit hole, learning about land and flipping land and how much money people were able to make with effectively no startup capital, and I said, all right, that seems viable for me. So I went to a family friend, kind of a mentor, who has a bunch of rental homes and things like that, and I had a couple of lunches with him. I pitched him what I wanted to do and he asked me how much money would you need to get started? And I was like I need $2,000. And I didn't have it. So he loaned me $2,000 with 0% interest for one year and that was our seed money to get started.

Logan Swanson:

We got a little bit of education, we started sending mailers and we were operating in what we in the industry called Desert Squares, a five acre pieces of desert, you know, in West Texas and Nevada and in New Mexico, arizona, places like that. And it was crazy, it worked. You know we're buying properties for $100 an acre and we're selling them for $400, $500 an acre. We started owner financing. All of a sudden we're getting a little bit of passive income from these notes. And then just one thing after another. You know that desire to grow and move on to the next thing never went away. So we just kept progressing through the industry to where we're at now, and that's been about five years now.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And I know you love when, like because I started off rehabbing and I didn't know what I was doing. I thought fixing up a house and actually decorating like physically.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And I bought it off with the intention of decorating in the 90s. I'm going to put it in blind. And then I realized okay, fixing up means rehabbing, which I did not know how to do, but I enjoyed doing it and I started learning one Home Depot and just like that, just kind of grew. I see, you know I'm making so much money. It's like wow, why is it other people don't do this? Well, you know, I don't know, there's a whole world out there yet because the internet's not that big yet and turns out a lot of people do it. So I love to hear a story like that. And you know I'm borrowing 2000 at a time. We don't have it. That seems like so much money, yeah, but when you have it you're like it's only two grand, like what's the big deal?

Logan Swanson:

Yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And you know. But you know, when you're young I was like that's $2,000. That's so much money. But then to go out and to make it work and to do the deals and to finance it in just the way that that grew, like that is so cool, like that is a business that you were just meant to be in.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, it feels like that sometimes. Sometimes it just feels like if you have enough tenacity, ambition, you know I think you'll be able to survive and do well in most industries. But yeah, I mean it was. It was a wild couple of years getting started. You know my like. I said my wife is working an office job. She was waking up at 4am scrubbing lists before we got kids ready and we both went our separate ways and I was working all night. You know I'd be waiting tables at the spine dining restaurant and I'd feel my phone buzzing. You know somebody's trying to sell me land or responding and I just walk away from the table in the middle of taking an order and hiding the bathroom and start talking to sellers. And you know in retrospect it's like how hard we worked at that time is pretty wild considered to what we do now. I think we have a little bit of that. You know, laziness setting in from some successes. Maybe we need to reorient here.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And then it's not laziness, I think once you get a role it's like you just feel more organized, so it doesn't quite as much work as it did in the beginning. Because you know in the beginning is all about that. I mean, everyone I've ever met in the real estate messing industry. The first four or five or six years we worked. You know I could join an hour's a week. But then once you get it you're like, oh, okay, and then you know it starts to flow like that. So I love that story that has really great story and your wife and so you both are full time in this now.

Logan Swanson:

Yes, yep.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Nice. So nobody's got to get to work with your kids. You're still doing your stuff. That's so fun. And how much land do you live on? Do you live on some land?

Logan Swanson:

No, yeah, people always ask us that they're like you buy and sell land all the time. How much do you keep? And it's like I mean every, every piece of land just ends up looking like a deal to us. You know, and since we're in the business of flipping, it starts, you know, if we ran a grocery store, they're Kansas soup. You know, it's just a regular neighborhood here in Texas, quarter acre lot, and in fact we were kind of thinking the opposite. We've been considering recently seeing about going to another country, maybe somewhere in Europe, and just having living out of the country. I don't know.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Oh, that'd be so great. Well, do it while you're yelling, kind of, because once you get older, older, older, older, older, and then your kids have kids and you're like you don't want to tear yourself away as hard, so now? So let's just jump a couple of topics here. So what's your favorite band of all time?

Logan Swanson:

Oh, that's tough, I think I would have to say. This is a really small artist. People might not know him. He's called the Tallest Man on Earth. I think he's Norwegian, a folk singer, though he sings English, but he just has this incredible guitar style and a very unique voice that you either love or hate.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

But he's probably my favorite. I'm not going to Google, I'm going to watch that on YouTube, because I very rarely get something on music. I've been listening to music for as long as I've been alive and I have not heard of the tallest man on earth.

Logan Swanson:

I'll text you a couple of songs. You'll like them.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I'll listen. Yeah, there's been a handful of times Someone named a band I really never heard of ever, like wow, ok, and I listened and I have found some of my favorite music has been stuff like that. They were just listening to something. I was like, oh my God, that is so amazing. Yeah, absolutely.

Logan Swanson:

That's so crazy. What's your favorite band?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Well, so you know, I was in high school in the 70s, so I still have. My favorite band of all time is Styx.

Logan Swanson:

Nice, yeah, I don't know if you know Styx. Oh yeah, of course my dad used to blast Styx for sure.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I loved it and it was funny because I lived in Dayton Ohio, so there was an arena called Hara Arena. That's where all the concerts came to and I started going to concerts as soon as I could drive. I started going to concerts and I would Stix was always opening. I was like God, they were so talented, they should be the band. And I saw them open like six or seven times where you could like get up and talk to people and you know it was the 70s, like you could get up close. And then one day they came and they were the band. I was like, oh my God, my band is the band.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And then they got to be huge and I'm still more like an Aerosmith, queen, styx, but Deep Down is Styx, because that was like the first band that I fell in love with the sound of the music, because it was more orchestra and it was like so hard. And so I don't know to this day if Styx comes anywhere with them anywhere. My husband and I have gone all over the place. I'm like I don't know, I'm like a groupie or something. So it's Styx. That's still my favorite band. But I love all. I really like all genres and, weirdly enough my parents were very happy into bluegrass. I love bluegrass but my deep, my deep like music, is like Stevie Ray Vaughan blues, oh my God. I love me some things. I love blues and I like country and I think at heart I'm still kind of a pop girl, like at the end of the day from listening to music.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

But I still love all the bands in the 70s, all of them Nice.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I made for my little grandkids. I'll teach them about Pat Benatar. I don't know. You know Pat Benatar from the 80s. I just took my little grandkids to a Pat Benatar concert. Now she's 70. She's still doing concerts. She's got grandkids. I think my grandkids are their first concert. To Pat Benatar People were like your grandkids. I said no, they don't know. Mimi taught them. I'm teaching them about Michael Jackson, teaching them about the Beatles. I love Tom Patty Teaching these kids to me. I'm going to listen to the Tallest Man on Earth. What's your favorite food?

Logan Swanson:

Niyoki.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Niyoki oh, I love Niyoki. You know, most people don't think know what that is. That's just what they see right the rice with their little seaweed.

Logan Swanson:

No, Niyoki is like this little potato pasta that they make in Italy. Oh, niyoki, yes, yes, oh my God, you put a bowl of homemade Niyoki in front of me with, like, some meat sauce I'm going to eat until I can't breathe.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I do know what that is. There's something else in the Japanese that's very similar sounding and my kids eat it Some kind of rice that's got seaweed around it and something in it and it's like, oh, it's so good, it's like that. No, it's something. Yeah, I know, niyoki, that is good I like that too. It's funny how much different kinds of food. I think, being in Texas, you'd be like barbecue or something.

Logan Swanson:

You know, it becomes commonplace. It's like a burger, you know. I mean it's amazing, I do. I'm smoking a brisket now and again. I got some of my freezer right now. But when I was in high school I went with the University of Dallas to Italy, to the Rome campus, to take a class. We went and ate at one of these tiny little towns outside of Rome, this little restaurant, and it was the first time I ever had Niyoki. I still remember. You know, you have those moments where it's like the camera spins around you. It's incredible. It's like one of those dishes I got to go back and find it needed in Italy again.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Wow, that sounds good. Yeah, no, I totally. I know that I love moments like that, or like that bite or that song or that food takes you to a really great memory. That's why I love music and food and stuff like that. Because and so many people don't really listen to music, I don't understand. Like every song I know just about takes you to a memory like food, like eating Niyokis, like that's a memory that we'll live on. You'll be eating and you can still picture everything about it.

Logan Swanson:

That's right. Yeah, it's so cool how the human brain works like that. You hear something, you feel something. We were just talking about deja vu yesterday. We were trying to explain deja vu to our kids and they're like what are you talking about?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I know, but I know I guess sometimes you're like have I actually been here? Did this happen? Did I dream this? I don't know what's going on right now, because it feels so real. What's your favorite time of the day?

Logan Swanson:

Man, I'm a night owl. Honestly, I feel like I put so much myself into every day. I get these moments at the end, when the kids are all in bed and my wife hasn't fallen asleep yet, where we're just either watching something and being together or just talking a little bit, reviewing our day, planning for the next day. It feels so calm and complete. I have my phone set to do not disturb and everything's just right, yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It's running 99.5% of the people. I'm a morning person. I get up before I work out and all this stuff. I'm a night person. My husband and I we raised three teenagers together. Now we got these grandkids Every single solitary night. We've been married 23 years or something. Every night six o'clock we shut all the phones off, maybe watch a movie, cook some dinner and we just talk. We hang out, we light a fire. No one's bothering us. It's like I don't understand how people don't find this to be the best part of their day 100%, 100%, no kids.

Logan Swanson:

All these people are like.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I can have a five o'clock and I run and do this and that I was like, oh my God, that sounds like a horrible life to me.

Logan Swanson:

Yeah, no, the mornings are drudgery for me. My wife always jokes about it. I'm one of those people where I'm just like nonverbal for the first 30 minutes, while I'm drinking my coffee and staring at people like I hate them.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah. But you know, after our kids moved out, we said you know what, let's keep this little evening thing, because you're older, you don't have kids living at home. That's easy to like, being in separate rooms watching different things. It gets easy to do that Right now. We've been doing this for the decade that the kids lived here and so for the decade they've been out, we still do that. Every night we sit down, that's our time. We talk, sometimes you watch a homework movie or just whatever, have a glass of wine.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It's gonna October's is gonna start snowing, we'll light a fire and even now we're just like, oh, it's the end of the day, like we can't wait to. And even though we work out of the same house, we sometimes don't see each other once all day. It's like we can come together and we can hang and you know what we still like to do that To keep that. That is a nice thing to keep, because I know so many couples as they get older and the kids are out, they're so different doing things. It's like you know, but at one point that was the best part of your day, it sure is right now.

Logan Swanson:

I'm gonna try to keep it that way, okay.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And then you're 40, and you're 50, you're 60, you'll be like, oh man, this is so great still, because it really is so great, you just have to make it stay great, Okay, so now the last thing, and I love that answer. So when everybody meets, when it says the night time, I'm like, oh right, there, that's my person. Because, everyone gets up and gives me these routines and they start at five and I'm like the sun is still asleep, Like what's the sun's sleep?

Logan Swanson:

Why are we on that? Five and then they're just Waking up is a necessary evil. It is not ideal.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I don't remember every single. Five in the morning was when I used the club and I was coming home. Then I saw the sunrise so, but yeah, I hardly anyone Like. You're one of maybe 10 people, Just like what does-.

Logan Swanson:

Oh really.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Am I like the only soul on earth that loves the night time?

Logan Swanson:

Oh God, it's the best.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So great, all right, so I love that too. So again, so people get ahold of you at thelandfixer. com or thelandfixer. com at Gmail. If you like them, you might email them back. And then you do land investing. When you were a teenager you were making money being entrepreneurial. You started doing scrapbooks for people at your senior living place, which is so sweet. Then you got into real estate bar $2,000 for some seed money, started doing land and grew it and grew it and grew it. Now you're doing big land and big projects and financing them and subdividing all kinds of cool things and you like the toll span on earth and Nioke and the night time.

Logan Swanson:

That's right, is that a little bit?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

about Logan.

Logan Swanson:

That's a great review. Yeah, it's absolutely accurate.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So I like to kind of do a quick review Because you know I find out that you can talk all day long about exactly what you do, but people really work with you because they like you. At the end of the day, we're working with the people that we like. So I always like to try to just do my interviews a little different and just talk and chat about the things that you like, I like, and you know that was the base for a friendship and, you know, support each other that way, because people that listen are gonna like he's so adorable, I love him, I wanna do land. I'm gonna follow him Like the lawn's only done at one time, so don't be coming to me for land advice. That's where you gotta go.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So my last thing is. So, first of all, before the last thing so everybody watching, if you had fun today, you laughed, if you anything is mild. I want you to subscribe to The Most Dwanderful Real Estate Podcast ever. I want you to leave me a five star review and tell me how amazing and how awesome my guess was. Also, go to thelandfixer. com and get in, get on his mailing list, opt into dwanderful. com and follow me on Instagram and TikTok and Twitter or X and all the places. I'm, all the places. Okay, last thing of the day, I want you to give us a word of wisdom, but just only one word. A word.

Logan Swanson:

A single word.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

A parting word of wisdom, a single word.

Logan Swanson:

Meditate Ooh.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I like it. I have to write that down. So everyone that listens to me, we all know that meditate is now our word of the week. So, with that said, what does that mean to you?

Logan Swanson:

For me, meditation is quieting your mind to listen to the thoughts that are being given to you. In a lot of my life I thought that if I just thought things a lot over in my head, just turned it, picked up a thought and turned it over in my head, enough that I would somehow come to this epiphany. And I found that the more I pick up an object in my brain and turn it around, the less clarity I have, Whereas if I have, say, a big business dealing or a sticky situation I find myself in or whatever else, I'll either actively meditate and seclude myself somewhere quiet, turn that on, or I'll just take that one little thing I'm thinking about and just let it be in my head for a while and wait for an intuitive thought to guide my actions.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay, so there you guys go. Meditate is your word. That's what meditation means to Logan. So I always like to ask people a single word, because I don't tell anybody ahead of time, because then I don't want you to sit through the whole show thinking like what should be my word, what should be with the thing? What's my word? So there we go. I was like I got blurry for a second, so it's more fun just to throw it at you, but then I do like to know what it means, because different words mean different things to different people, so I'm always curious what that means. So, folks, that's it. Your word of the week is meditation and, logan, again, thank you so much for being. I've truly enjoyed getting to know you. I appreciate you taking your time and time away from your wife and kids and stuff to be with me today. I appreciate it. And everybody will be back next week. Same bat time, same bat channel. And remember that the truth is in the red letters. Okay, everybody, ciao. Thank you, logan. See you guys next week.

Logan Swanson:

Thanks, Juan.