Wall Street Needs Houses, You Sell Them Dirt

We break down how to turn raw land into builder-ready communities while reducing risk by securing the buyer first. Brandon shares the three-phase model, the biggest mistakes to avoid, and why the right city partners and civil engineer change everything.

• buyer-led land targeting and concept planning
• securing city buy-in before heavy spend
• locking a national builder during due diligence
• three phases: entitlement, horizontal, exit
• multiple exits to fit the market cycle
• designing lots to match builder product lines
• choosing developer-friendly states and cities
• costly pitfalls from poor engineering and approvals
• investor options: passive capital or mastermind coaching
• community impact: rooftops, retail, tax base

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Transcript

Milestone Wins And Guest Intro

Dwan Bent-Twyford 1:15

Hey everybody, welcome to the most Dwanderful real estate podcast ever. I am so excited to have you here with us today. I don't know if you saw the statistics I put out uh just a week or two ago. We had almost 700,000 downloads last year. And I'm so excited and I thank you guys so much. And we're this close to cracking two million. So I need you to keep liking and listening and sharing because it's gonna be a big day when we when we crack two million. So we're we're right on the cusp. So thanks to all of you for doing that. And just remember, you can find me at Dwanderful. I took Dwan and Wonderful, made a new word, Dwanderful.com Easy to find. I'm everywhere. And today I'm super excited about uh my guest today. I have a Brandon Cobb with me. And if you remember, we interviewed, I don't even know exactly how long ago, maybe two, two and a half years ago. He's got some new exciting stuff that you are definitely gonna want to hear about it because I want to hear about it. So, Brandon, welcome to the show, honey.

Brandon Cobb 2:18

Hey, it's great to be back, and it's good to see you again.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 2:21

Yeah, you look great. You look the same. I think you didn't age a day since I saw you.

Brandon Cobb 2:28

Uh hey, you know, it must be all of you know, I'm on into the whole biohacking thing. And I and my wife's in aesthetics, so she's like, you need to do this, this, this, and this. And so, like, I can thank my wife for keeping me looking young.

Brandon’s Model And Buyer-First Strategy

Dwan Bent-Twyford 2:40

That's it. That's it. Hey, listen, all those little facials and massages and all the little things, they certainly don't hurt anything. So, just real quick, uh, tell everybody what you do. I just like, you know, to kind of like throw you to the wolves for a second. Two or three sentences about what you do, how to find you on all your socials, like everything at the top of you know, the show notes because people don't always read all the show notes all the way down. So, just real quick, socials, what you do, and then we're gonna jump into this new thing that you have going on.

Brandon Cobb 3:11

Uh, yeah, so Brandon Cobb, I like to say, you know, Cobb like Forum Cobb, that's kind of an easy way to find me. Our company is the land development accelerator uh in HBG Capital. So uh we turn land into new housing communities. So we get to invent new communities. We work with like Lenard, D.R. Horton, all those big national home builders, and uh we help create communities.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 3:32

And they find you on social media.

Brandon Cobb 3:36

Yeah, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, I'm on LinkedIn. Like I said, you know, Brandon Cobb, like Corn on the Cobb. You know, if like you Google Google me and put in HBG, that's Harry Bob Gary uh capital, uh, you'll find me. I'm on there, I'm on all the channels.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 3:51

Yeah, I actually follow you on socials. So I see all the fun stuff that you're doing. And yeah, once I uh interview someone, I always follow them and I try to see what everybody's doing. So I've seen some new stuff. So I'm gonna talk about so last time we talked, you were telling me to remind me, what were you doing last time?

Brandon Cobb 4:09

So the last time I was on a show, we were doing a capital raising tour. So, you know, we had a bunch of projects that we're raising capital for. So we had a need to go out, raise capital from credited investors, get the word out, and uh, and you know, that's gone really well. And so this time around, yeah, it's a little bit different. We we launched our land development uh mastermind, and it's been a huge success.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 4:29

So it's called Element Mastermind. Is that correct? Element Mastermind. So I do want to hear about this land development. So tell me, because I I my husband and I bought um 26 acres up in the mountains, and we want to put something on it. So we're this would be my first time developing land actually from scratch. And so we've got 26 acres in the mountains. And we're like, should we put a bunch of little tiny homes, little camping areas, should we build some houses? Like, we've got this land we're sitting on, and we just we don't know what to do with it exactly. I know that's not a lot of land, but 26 acres on the side of a mountain would make some great views for somebody and you know, something. And all the roads, it was already platted. So when we bought it at an auction, it had been platted like back in the 40s, so it's got the roads, it's got like all the stuff done. And we're like, oh, we need to do something. So I know it's not as big deals as what you're doing, but let's talk about your land development. Like, what are y'all doing? How's it work?

Three Phases: Entitle, Develop, Exit

Brandon Cobb 5:32

So, what we do, and by the way, we've got a free course that covers a lot of this stuff. You can grab it at learnlanddevelopment.com. But what we do is very simple. I like to take complex things and make them very easy for people to understand because they they see these big projects and they think, oh my gosh, I'll never be able to do that. Literally, this is what we do. We build our target land list because we know what we're going after. And that is based on what our buyers want. Who are our buyers? National home builders. And everything I'm about to tell you works for any type of real estate. We work with the big national home builders, but you can do this with self-storage, you can do it with multifamily, you can do it with commercial, anything. The process to take a piece of land and get it approved for a community or a commercial building or whatever, it's all the same. So we go get the land under contract, we get what's called a concept plan done. Yeah. Take that concept plan to the city and we go, hey, look at what we got. Like, is this something that the council will support? And you want to meet with the planning director or the council person. There's, you know, just depending on how big your city is and who it is, like, meet and go figure out, you know, who that liaison is. For us, it's usually the planning director or a council person. And they go, Yes, we want this. Like, yeah, absolutely. Because the city has a vision for the community and they need developers to help make that vision a reality. After we have buy-in, we take that concept plan to our list of buyers, in this case, national home builders, and we go, Hey, do you want this? And they go, Yes. They send us a contract, they put the deposit down, and that is our permission to take this through and start the entitlement process. So we lock our end buyer up before we ever start spending tons of money on this project, and we do that during our due diligence period. So our earnest money and all that's not at risk.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 7:20

Yeah. So, what are you developing? Like, how much land are you buying? Are you buying hundreds and hundreds of acres? Like, just give me an example of one project you're working on right now. Because I love this idea. I'm just like, I'm all in. I want to learn more about this.

Brandon Cobb 7:37

Yeah. So we we do there's three phases of development, and we do all three, right? We got into this business because we were building lots of houses and we wanted to scale the number of houses we were doing. But as we started acquiring this land and getting approved to build houses, we start getting knocks on the door from these big, deep pocket Wall Street funded, uh big names, you know, DR, Lenar, Poulty, Ryan Holmes, all those guys. And we just started getting bought out of all of our land. And we're like, yeah, we'll just sell it to you. This is great. So that first phase is the entitlement process. So we do a lot of this. This is where we take a piece of farmland and we get it approved for a new housing community. We're working on land as small as four acres and as big as gosh, probably a hundred acres. It's probably probably the biggest that we're working on. Um, and it just it just depends. The most important thing is not the acreage, it's the number of units. Yeah, we typically won't go after something if it's not at least 50 units because our buyers don't want anything that's less than 50 units. You know, the big guys want big projects. So that that's the first phase. And what I love about it is we're putting the land under contract contingent on getting the outcome we want. If we don't get the outcome that we want, like we don't buy it or you know, we don't sell it. So it helps reduce a lot of the risk. Phase two is when we actually do the development. So we're grading it out, we're putting the roads, the utilities, the infrastructure. We have a contract with a builder to buy it once it's done. Yep, all the horizontal work, not the houses. And then we sell those lots once those are complete. So I like is that each phase, you're adding more and more value to the property, you're force-appreciating it, which is kind of rare. A lot of real estate niches and transactions are kind of you're you're pigeonholed into one exit strategy. You have multiple exit strategies, which is what I like about this. And so a project that we're doing right now, we we finished developing 74 lots uh for a national home builder. And you know, we're in the process of selling those lots off to them.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 9:43

Nice. So when you because the subdivision I live, I'm in my house in Florida right now. So in this subdivision, um, it's on a lake, Lake Ida in Palm Beach County. And this was like the last vacant land on the entire lake. So they decided to put some houses here. So I was like, oh, I've never had a house built for myself. I'm always, you know, living in the rehabs and the foreclosures and the things like that that I do. So I came, I saw the model homes, I moved in, and I was only the third person to live in this subdivision. So I watched over the course of two years as they built house by house and all of the things that they did. And it was really interesting because I had never like actually witnessed that before. And I was like, huh, this is pretty cool. And they built two houses here and two there, and then you know, they sell them off. You know, they want to sell all the ones on the lake first because then you know people are stuck by the ones that are inland and you know, they open up little areas and sections. So it's pretty fun to watch the whole thing. But I ended up right on the water. I was like, no, I'm I'm gonna wait till there's a space on the water. I'll take the first one. I want to be on the water. That's what was a deal breaker for me. So uh it was a big, I don't even remember who they're called, it was giant um Bose housing or somebody that does a lot of stuff in Florida. So then are the so it's a company like that coming in and buying the land, or are they having someone like develop the land and then they come in and put the houses on it? Or because you're not building the actual houses.

Why Sell To Nationals Instead Of Building

Brandon Cobb 11:12

Not in these transactions. Like we will, like, we're not building houses right now on our development just because the market's kind of crappy and it just makes sense to do this. Because these these Wall Street funded publicly traded companies, they have to buy the land. Yeah, because they have to make the stock price go up. There's only one way to make stock price go up, build more houses. So, like bad economy, we need to build more houses, good economy, we need to build more houses. So we can sell them the paper once it's approved, and they may develop it and build the houses, or we could develop it for them and they'll pay a premium for those finished, ready-to-build home sites. So they do both of those, right? Of course, the more work you do, the more money you're gonna make. So you can kind of cherry-pick and choose which exit strategy is best for you and what you want to do. But they do both, they'll buy the land from you and they'll do all the development. You don't have to stick a shovel in the ground, or you can contract with them to do the development, they can buy it from you once it's complete. So we do both.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 12:11

I like that. Now that is the interesting niche because there's not a lot of people that I talk to that do what you're doing. So I always get, I mean, I've done almost 500 episodes and just like that close to 500 episodes and that close to 2 million downloads. And so when I talk to someone that's doing something that I don't hear a lot about, it's always super interesting for me because you know, no matter how long you invest, you still don't know everything. So, what made you decide, you know what, we're gonna do land? Like, because you were raising capital before and then you switched here. So, what was the pivoting point for you that hey, this seemed like this is gonna be a great thing for us?

Brandon Cobb 12:49

So we never stopped raising capital. We were building houses and growing that company. It was going really well. And in order to grow the number of homes we were building, we had to start going after land that could build more houses because we were doing these infill projects where you know you might go in, you find a vacant lot and you go to the owner and you buy it, and you're kind of spread out all over the place, like you're in existing neighborhoods. Maybe it's a house that needs to be torn down and a new one built in its place. Like we were doing those onesie twosie new construction projects, doing like 30 houses a year, and we're like, man, we really need to grow and scale this thing. And hush, wouldn't it be easier if we were building them all in the same place, you know, the same cookie-cutter homes, the same materials, the same plan? Like it just made sense to do. So that's what we sought to do was to build more houses. But when we were getting some of the projects approved and ready to go vertical, and we were just getting knocks on the door from these big guys that were paying us outrageous amounts of money for the land. And we said, Why are we building the houses?

Dwan Bent-Twyford 13:52

It just makes sense to go ahead and sell them the land.

Brandon Cobb 13:56

So, you know, again, it goes it goes back to being on the side of the table that Wall Street is cutting checks to rather than competing with them. Yeah, and we we like we like being on this side of the table. Doesn't mean that we won't ever build any houses again. I'm sure we will when you know the market gets a little bit better. But you know, from what I've heard from all my builder friends, you know, it's it's kind of a tough market right now. Their houses are sitting, it's really tough. And meanwhile, these big builders, again, they have to buy, they don't have any plan. Plan A is build more houses. Plan B is build more houses. Plan C is build more houses.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 14:32

So And if they have to buy, like why not be the person that's the provider for them? Then they can keep coming back to you and saying, Hey, Brandon, we need more, we need this, we need that, and you can go find it for them and then you know provide it and sell it, and and it makes it easier for them if they can keep coming back to you for more stuff. Yeah, so it's kind of like wholesaling on a giant scale. Right?

Brandon Cobb 14:58

It's a very similar process. You have your buyer's list, yeah. You know, it is not as quick of a transaction and and not as as simple. Uh, you know, there's some sophistication with the entitlement process and you know, identifying the right land, but it's the same. Like you reduce the risk by going after what your end buyer wants and bringing it to them, right? When when you bring them a project that is when you say, Hey, look, I got a piece of land, I'll sell it to you once it's entitled and approved. You want it? And they're like, You're gonna do all the work to entitle it and you found it. Heck yeah, we'll buy that from you, right? These sales reps are your best friend. You don't compete with them. These sales reps, they're working for a giant bureaucracy. They just want the commission, they're on your team, they just want to get paid, get a commission. So, like you work with their sales reps, they're on you're on the same team to try to make the deal happen. So it's pretty cool.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 15:50

It is pretty cool. Now, where are you buying? Are you set in any one location? Are you just anything across the country?

Brandon Cobb 15:58

Most of our stuff is in Nashville, Tennessee. You know, we've got some other projects that are outside of that, but the bulk of what we do uh is within Nashville, Tennessee. Now, you know, with the right partners in the right areas, you know, we've done some stuff that's outside there, but you know, we really want to focus in business-friendly states that are developer-friendly counties or developer-friendly municipalities, like we stay away from California, you know. So we we want to be in business-friendly states and business-friendly municipalities that are developer-friendly.

Markets That Welcome Development

Dwan Bent-Twyford 16:27

Yeah, I know they are. I think I told you before, my sister used to live in a town called Pleasant View that was about 30 minutes outside of Nashville. And I I freaking love Nashville. I we used to go there when my niece was little, and we did that, went to the CMA thing down in Nashville, like every year, and got our thing signed by all the famous people and the music and all the stuff. I'm like, Nashville, it's like one of those places. Like, if I had to live somewhere, Nashville would be a place I could totally see myself living in. It's just, it's so up and coming. And you're right, everyone all these big companies like Musk and all these people, they're moving to Tennessee. They're moving to Nashville, but they're moving out of California because you know, Smith, California sucks for you know business people, and they're moving to places like that. So that's a really um, I mean, that's just that's a great town. So I'm assuming you live there too then.

Brandon Cobb 17:54

Oh yeah, I've been here for gosh, over 10 years now. I don't know, 11, 12 years, something like that.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 18:00

I love Nashville. Nashville's so much fun. It is so much fun. So now the people that you so I'm let's say I'm hearing about this, I'm listening to the podcast, I don't know anything about this. I'm like, hey, I want to be a part of this. What would I have to do to come to you and say, Brandon, how do I do this? How do I work with you?

Getting Started: Mastermind And Free Course

Brandon Cobb 18:20

Yeah, though, there's a few different ways somebody can get started in in this type of business. You know, like we we've got the Mastermind and Coaching program, you know, and that's great. You know, if you're on the fence about it or you just want to learn more, you can go to learnlanddevelopment.com. There's a there's a free course that, you know, like we we give it away. Like it really shows you how to kind of get started in this business. And then for those who are more serious that want to take it to the next level and be a part of a community of other people that are doing it and get, you know, weekly coaching and access to people that can handhold them through like a deal. Uh, you know, again, you you can go to the website, you know, there's a way to book a call and see. But it's it's a really good fit for entrepreneurs who already have some type of real estate business, right? Like this, this is not like we don't accept first-time real estate people into the program. We're very particular about you know who gets accepted. You've got to have a certain level of sophistication. This is not a no money down, do your first real estate line. No, no. This is for people who have a real estate business already and they're wanting to get into development, but they don't want to inherit the risks of figuring it out themselves. And Dwan, the whole reason we started uh this mastermind and coaching program is because we were looking for one. You know, like I've been a part of masterminds for years, I've always seen the value, and I've got coaches and mentors, I see the value in it. We could not find someone out there uh to like coach us through this. And as a result, we made a lot of mistakes. Like, oh yeah, you know, one of the biggest mistakes we make was buying the land and thinking, okay, cool, it's approved for 36 units, great. And then we come to find out that the lots are only uh like 20 feet wide, and nobody has a product that's that wide. We're like, oh crap. So we had to go and get it amended and we lost some units, you know. We so we didn't design it with the end buyer in mind. And I had a guy who brought me something that uh he was so excited about, he had spent a lot of money uh getting it approved and a lot of time. And I look at it and they're 11-foot-wide town homes, and I'm like, who has an 11-foot-wide townhome product? Who's gonna do that? And so he again sell it, and he had to go get amended. Yeah, so like, but again, that's one of the biggest mistakes we see is they they new developers don't design it with the end buyer in mind. Like the national home builders have products that product has to fit on the land, and if it doesn't, they don't want it. So that's one of the biggest mistakes we made. You know, another one was buying the land before we got the approvals. The city told us they were excited about it, they wanted it. We're like, well, they're gonna approve it. Great, let's go ahead and buy it and do it. And then we didn't get the approvals in place, and we lost money, a lot of money on that deal. So I don't, I don't, I we we figured it out, and we've got the whips and bruises and and uh injuries from the mustard gas and all the mistakes, and we just we didn't want to see other people making that. So uh for that reason, that's why we started the community in the first place.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 21:19

Now tell me the um the website where the coaching and stuff you said, land what's it called?

Brandon Cobb 21:26

Uh it's learnlanddevelopment.com is the website.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 21:30

Learn land development. Yeah, I'm gonna go on there. Yeah, see, I am uh such a believer in that. I tell people all the time, because you know I coach and mentor people too, and I say, listen, you're gonna learn through mistakes or mentors, and mentors are cheaper. If someone wants to charge you 50 grand to teach you and you want to do this forever, it's worth paying the money because I learned by the seat of my pants, like you guys did. And I can't even, I could write a book on the mistakes I made, a whole book on just mistakes, because I didn't have anyone to teach me. And, you know, and with a lot of people, one or two mistakes, and they've lost all their money and they're completely out of business because they didn't have enough knowledge and they tried to wing it, or they listen to a webinar here and a webinar there, and they listen here and there, and they try to, you know, reinvent, make their own wheel. Next thing you know, they're completely out of business because they don't know what they're doing. So the fact that someone has done it by the seat of the pants, made the mistakes, done the stuff. I tell people all the time there's no reason not to have a mentor because it's hard. All the things you guys went through, that could have ended up bankrupting all of you and you were out of it before you even got into it.

Brandon Cobb 22:45

Oh, yeah. You know, and we started with smaller projects, thank goodness. But yeah, you just don't know what you don't know. And I am kind of curious. So, like, what are the plans that you have with the like the views? You said you bought something at an auction. There's some views, like what are you planning on like building some Airbnbs or cabins or something like that?

Costly Mistakes New Developers Make

Dwan Bent-Twyford 23:02

Well, you know, it's funny. We um we found a piece of land, it's actually right in the mountains near our house, and it was 17 acres. I had been sitting there vacant for decades, and somehow we ended up buying it for I don't even know, cheap, 20, 30, 50 grand, something just like land. And as we started going to the developer, the um like the guy that does the plats, he says, Oh no, listen, this actually has 26 acres. So we were like, Oh, we have 26 acres now, and so, and then back in like the 40s or something, somebody taken the time to plat the whole thing out with streets and telephone pole, like all the stuff that you need to have done to do that. And we're like, okay, so what do we do? So our idea is like, well, we could build like four or five big, nice mountain homes. And then I'm like, you know, which would be a learning curve for us. I said we could put like a bunch of cabins and make it like a camping kind of a thing. We could put a bunch of tiny houses on it in the mountains. So we just, I don't know, Bill and I, we've we've been sitting on it for like two years. We just go and drive through there all the time and talk about it. We haven't like made a hard decision because um, I don't know. We just we're just like, you know, and things are always changing. And I'm like, I don't know. I said, I feel like if we've put in some small cabins, they would sell well because people want to live in the mountains, but like in our neighborhood, our subdivision, the houses are like $900,000. Well, people can't live in a six or seven thousand square foot house, but they want to live in the mountains. So if we had like little 1,200 feet cabins or put some cabins around it and did that, then people could live in the mountains, have the view, and not have to, you know, spend so much money, and then we're like, we could Airb, be it, and then we're like, we could just sell it. We had three or four people making offers to us to buy the land. We're like, no, we just don't know yet. We just don't want to sell it yet because we haven't made a decision on what we want to do with it. So I don't know. I'm gonna have maybe talking to you will give me give me some ideas. But it did have a cabin on it. It had a little cabin that was just like a little half an acre that was uh like platted out or something. We sold the cabin for like 120,000, which was all profit back and it made the land free and clear. So there was a little cabin, and I thought, well, that little, and this was a cabin someone built as a summer cabin because it doesn't have running water, it has an outhouse, like it's a cabin cabin. And then the person that bought it, we drove bite the other day and they did a little addition, put a bathroom on it, and did all the little cute things. I was like, okay, so now we got the land free and clear. What do we do with it now? So I don't know. I don't know. We keep changing around like tiny houses, cabins, four or five like super luxury houses would be fun to do. And then we're like, you know, we could find someone like someone like you that's a buyer and we could just sell the whole thing because the the plaiding and all that kind of stuff is done. All that stuff's done. We went and got it reapproved, made sure everything is good. So we have all that part done. So we just don't know. I don't know.

Brandon Cobb 26:14

I kind of want to make like a So yeah, depending on wow. Yeah, depend depending on what you get it approved for, right? Obviously, the more the number of, you know, the higher number of units, you know, the better, or maybe it's a better fit for you know some luxury lots. But if you do get it approved and platted for, you know, I don't know, however many homes, all of a sudden it's worth a lot more money.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 26:37

Yeah, right.

Brandon Cobb 26:38

And you can use that equity to tap into whatever you need to construct or build, or you could just sell the paper afterwards, or you could develop, put in the roads and sell the lots to a builder. So, like you have multiple exit strategies with that piece of land once you do that.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 26:51

We have so many. And when we found those uh extra acres, because we we bought it at 17. And the guy uh at the I tell you, the guy, the I can't, I guess he'd be like the building guy. We walked into his office. It looked like walking into an office of like Indiana Jones. He's got maps and just rolls and maps highs, stacked high all over of all these properties all over the county. Because there's just a lot of properties out there that are just, you know, people buy them and make little gold mines, all kinds of little things like that. And this guy took him about a week to dig through and find everything. He's like, Oh, yeah, this has been done. It's got this and this and this and this and this. It's all stamped and certified. And we're like, ooh, okay, we did not know that. So that was like an extra bonus press. So I don't know, I'll let you know when we decide. I just I can't decide. We just can't decide if like it should be big. I feel like something smaller would be better because more people could live in there, you could communicate, create like a little community, and people could afford to live in the mountains at like you know a reasonable price.

Options For Mountain Land And Glamping

Brandon Cobb 27:49

Well, check this out. There's something called the Bolt, I think it's called Bolt Cabins or Bolt Farm, something like that. It's Chattanooga. Uh, they did an awesome job of creating these own, these little mini luxury kind of getaways with these spheres, they have these mirror cabins that are really cool. You know, COVID really pioneered like an entirely new space, which is like that that glamping type of industry, and that's really, really hot. And man, if you look at what they're renting these things out for, it's more than a luxury hotel sometimes. And it like, I'm like, dude, it had to have paid for itself in the first year. But uh go check out like the bolt cabins or bolt farms, something like that. It is really cool what they're doing, and it's kind of similar. You might, you might, uh, you might be able to do something similar and um check it out.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 28:39

Yeah, no, I will. I am so we're just kind of excited, just because you know, we're working on that town right now, so we're busy on that, and we're just letting that sit there. But yeah, probably two or three times a year in the summer. We just drive up there and we'll have a picnic and we sit there and talk about it. We're like, I don't know, we just don't know. But whatever it is, once we start it, it's gonna be a project. So while I'm doing the town, I'm like, do we really want to start another project? Like, let's let's just like wrap up one project at a time.

Brandon Cobb 29:07

One at a time. Well, here's here's a little bit of advice that I wish I'd known when I first started. So one the probably the most important party that you're going to have to deal with is the civil engineer when they're designing this thing. Go to the city and see who they recommend. The city knows who's doing a good job, whose developments are bad. Like go speak to the planning director or the council person, whoever the liaison is for the developers, and see who they recommend. Because you, you know, I had a site where we didn't do that. We hired a civil engineer. He was off by about six inches on five acres. So we had to remove an extra six inches of dirt on six acres. It's a lot of dirt, and the entire sewer and water system had to get pushed down further, and we hit rock. So it was like a $300,000 mistake that that civil engineer cost me. So um oh man, just keep that in your back pocket.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 30:06

Oh, yeah. I will. I think before I do anything, I'll call you and see what you think about it. So for people that that want to do this, so are we able to invest and and put money in, or can people from the outside become a part of this? Or is this just what you guys are doing?

Brandon Cobb 30:25

I mean, so there's two there's two parties that that we serve. You know, one is the people that are investors, right? These are usually business owners that uh just want to passively invest in real estate and they like the idea of investing in an asset class that has equity when they buy it, um, that has a buyer that's a national home builder, right? They just want to diversify in private equity land, right? So we serve those people. You can go to hbgcapital.net, uh, grab our free ebook, you know, 100 questions business owners ask before investing. If you want to watch our investment thesis, like our whole strategy, and you want a video, you can go to hbgcapital.net forward slash wait list. If you're wanting to learn how to do this, that's our mastermind and our coaching program, right? And that's you know, learnlanddevelopment.com. And uh, like I said, that that free course that we have, it's like six hours of content. Like we have interviews with civil engineers, interviews with national home builders. We've got three hours of like capital raising content. So like I don't want to hear, oh, I don't have the money. Like, you know, we've raised over $15 million from investors and we teach how to do that too. So you know that that comes with it. There's there's no reason why you can't do this.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 31:36

Yeah, see, I love that. I feel like this is, and I'm sure there are a lot of people that dummy that the hedge funds are they're buying land, they're doing things all the time. But I feel like, you know, as far as like investors across the country that I know, there's not really anybody like you said, that's like teaching people how to do this. And I always like when there's something, you know, it's like you it's like everything in real estate that's ever gonna be has ever been done, like it's all just, you know, a different phase, a different thing. You know, it's something old brought back or something, whatever. But like stuff like this, I think that very few people are aware there's opportunities to do things like this. And I feel like this is like an exciting thing to do. I I love the idea of developing land, especially since I started working on my building. I'm like, oh, this would be fun. Now we can get more ideas about what to do with land because it feels like it's a fun thing.

Critical Tip: Choose The Right Civil Engineer

Brandon Cobb 32:27

It's really cool watching a new community come to life, right? That's probably my favorite part is being able to drive it like once it's actually finished, be like, wow, you know, and it's cool because so many people benefit from it. So we are able to pay the landowner a lot more money than their land is worth because you know that's our value proposition. We're not spraying and praying that we're gonna find a motivated seller and you know, lowball them, right? We're we're having it's a sniper approach. Like we know the land we want to go after, we're contacting the land over going, hey, uh, how much do you want for your land? Okay, well, if we could pay you more for it, hundreds of thousands of dollars, would you be interested? And I'm like, well, yeah, how are you gonna do that? And we say, okay, we're gonna pay you more for it, but we need to go under contract, and I can only pay you once I get your land approved for a new community.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 33:14

Exactly.

Brandon Cobb 33:14

So we help the landowner out. That's number one, they benefit. Number two is when you have a new development in the area and the roads are being updated and you got new sewer and water and you got new homes, it increases the value of the area, right? Businesses, commercial property needs rooftops. So when you want the Chick-fil-A's and the Chipotle's and the Whataburgers and the Costco's and all that, you know, to come, you need the rooftop. So more houses attracts more businesses that can help invest back into the community, be a more desirable place to live. So the community benefits, when the houses are built, it creates forever tax revenue for the city so they can invest that fund uh back into the community, back into the people, and get forever tax revenue. And then, you know, of course, you know, we benefit and our investors benefit. So, like, there's very few types of deals out there that like so many parties win from.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 34:08

Yeah, you just create a complete total win-win. Because you're right, like the little town that we're rehabbing is Clinton, Iowa. So Clinton has like um a Burger King, a Wendy's, like just fast food. But like it's not big enough like for Chick-fil-A to come in. It's not enough population. There's a Walmart, but there's like not a Target, not enough population for a Target, but you know, there's a Walmart everywhere. And and you know, there's a couple, two chains, like nothing like big, big, big, because the city's just not big enough for stuff like that. So yeah, when you're developing and you're adding roofs, and then you know, the bigger companies like, hey, we could come in here, we could put a little molly, we could do this, we can do that, but they need to have enough people, population to make it worth it for those things to come. So I'm waiting, I'm waiting for our town to get a Chick-fil-A. It's like, come on, man. Chick-fil-A, but it's only 25,000 people, so I guess that's too small. It's like, you know, and I'm not a big fast food eater anyway, but that I do love that. And like even in Denver, we just finally got in and out burgers. And I'm telling you, when you go there, lines are around the building, and every single one since the day they open, because we're all so excited that you know, In N Out came to Colorado. So yeah, so the roots do help. It helps people open small businesses. I mean, it just helps everything.

Brandon Cobb 35:32

By the way, In N Out just moved from California to Nashville.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 35:36

Did they? I did not know that.

Investor Paths: Passive Capital Or Coaching

Brandon Cobb 35:39

So now you're gonna have to come to Nashville.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 35:41

Oof. I love it. It's just I love it. Yeah, well, I don't blame them. I know they closed a couple out there, and I was like, you know, that's too bad. It's too bad.

Brandon Cobb 35:51

By regulation states, that's what happens. Go and do business in business-friendly states. I'll tell you, COVID was one of the best things that happened to Tennessee. We've gotten so much business from California, New York, New Jersey. All those institutions that, I mean, literally billions and billions of dollars of capital, realize, oh my gosh, they're gonna do rent controls or you know, not enforced people paying my rents. Uh, they're gonna make it hard for me to get permits and they're gonna tax me to death. I'm gonna move my money to Tennessee, Florida, and Texas. Like those have been the three states that have probably benefited the most from the whole COVID thing.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 36:24

Oh, yeah, they have. No, I know. It's like, you know, but I mean, things like that, they do it, they shake up the economy, and then you know, the chips fall someplace else. So now at some point, Tennessee will be so, so, so hot. All the prices will be crazy there, too. But hopefully not for a while. I I I love Tennessee, it's so fun there. So uh, I think we talked about this last time. I always like to ask a couple personal questions. Um, what's your favorite band of all time?

Brandon Cobb 36:54

Oh god, that's a hard one because my taste has changed so much over the last gosh, let's let's think about this for a second. This is a really fun question. Like when I was 16, I got all of my dad's uh old CDs. Like, so that was like my indoctrination to music. Of course, you know, you're in your your first car and I got all the CDs. So uh I grew up listening to Creed Stained, Rob Zombie, uh Nirvana, yeah, um, all those alternative rock bands, Chevelle, uh Nine Inch Nails. Like that's probably my roots. I don't listen to that as much anymore, and it's kind of transitioned a little bit. I'll tell you what, I listen to a lot now. I I really enjoy EDM music. So there's a lot of bands that I really enjoy. Griffin is one I've listened to a whole lot. I've listened to, I like a lot of EDM uh remixes, those are really good. And then I'm trying to think of uh Elenium. Elenium's a really good band that I listen to a whole lot. So that's a good question. I haven't been asked that in a while. So my tastes have kind of changed a little bit.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 38:01

Yeah, it's funny how your tastes do change. I don't know. Lately, I have been like on some kind of a blues kick. I just listen to blues all the time, like day and night. It's like I don't know where where that is, but I am switched off from rock to pop to I'm into blues right now. So yeah, so I'm listening to old, like Stevie Riavan, like old stuff, even old Z Z Top, they start out blues. It's like I did not know that. So it is good how it changes over time, but I think it's still in my heart. I still always love the 70s because that's when I was in high school, and you know, the 70s were great. It was a great time to go to high school, so so I like that. I love that. Yeah, it is it's fun to see how you'll change. How old are you right now?

Brandon Cobb 38:43

35.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 38:44

Yeah, see, you're just a baby, you're the same age as my son.

Brandon Cobb 38:48

I'm just getting started.

Community Impact And Win-Win Economics

Dwan Bent-Twyford 38:49

I know you are, I know, and that's really exciting. You have so much knowledge, like my son's 35. No, it's 34, it's 34. Um, you have so much knowledge at your age, like my son does. And so, with that kind of knowledge, by the time you're like 50, 55, 60, you will have just built an empire, and you'll have so much to show for everything you've done because you are young and you're learning a lot already. I mean, you know so much more about this than I do, and I've been investing for 35 years. So I think it's great. I'm excited to kind of watch your career grow over the years.

Brandon Cobb 39:25

You know, it's crazy. I got started in 2017, I think it was. So it's been nine years, I guess, going. This is the ninth year. And you know, I look back and it is just wild. It's been one crazy fun adventure. One of the things I like to think about is when deciding what to do, is what would make the most epic story? You know, I try to look at my life like a story, like a movie. And it's like, you know, you're watching the movie, you know, you're watching the characters, and like you want the characters to do a certain thing or make a certain decision. It's like, so what would make the most epic story? That's how I try to make my decisions.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 39:57

I feel like you're on a good path to an epic story. What's your favorite food?

Brandon Cobb 40:03

Oh man, that's another really good question. You know, I am obsessed with Wagyu steak. Probably four years ago, I discovered all this whole realm of really nice high-end steak. And I didn't know anything really outside of restaurants and you know, Kroger or Costco, but there's a whole realm of Denver steak and pecania, um, and just oh my gosh, and there's different beef marbleization scores, and you can import the the Australian Wagyu and the Japanese Wagyu, and there's A1 through five scores in Japan and uh BMS one through 12 scores on Australia. I just went ham. And so I really enjoy making uh a really good steak. I've got like a sous vide system, so I like sous vieing it. Uh, I also have Kamato Joe's smoked steak is probably one of my favorites. I'm a big reverse sear uh fan, and I'll experience with uh experiment with different methods where I might uh souvet it, uh put it in the fridge, get it cold, then smoke it afterwards. So like I get the best, the best of both worlds. So uh I am a steak enthusiast.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 41:08

I love to hear that. I do not know that much about steak either, so that sounds amazing. That is amazing. So before we um end our time together, I always like the guests to give us a word of wisdom, but I want you to give me just one single word, and then just give me the word. Don't tell me what it means to you yet. Just tell me a word. Give us a word of wisdom we can take with us going forward. Okay. So now you're gonna have to make me ask you, what does that mean?

Brandon Cobb 41:52

So Taoism is something that is new that I've been practicing and learning about. Uh Tao is something that can't be described, it can't be touched, right? When you feel like you've got your finger on it, you lose it. It is when you go through life and when you stop fighting things or you stop pulling things, it's like a grandfather clock. That pendulum will swing back and forth from one extreme to the other, right? If you eat too much, for example, that's gluttony, that's really bad. But fasting's also really good. But if you don't eat enough, that's not healthy. You know, to be in a relationship with somebody, it's not that great to be with them 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and follow them around and do all that stuff. But on the other side of that, it's not good to be just lonesome and by yourself and have dinners by yourself. You've got to find that happy medium in life. So most people go through life like this pendulum that swings back and left. And if I were to try to run several miles and we're on this journey, we're all on this journey called life and we're running. If I were to run in a zigzag, that takes so much wasted energy, so much wasted time and effort because I'm running in that zigzag. And that's what most people are doing with their life. Uh Dow is when you find that centeredness, when you surrender and you stop fighting things and you stop pulling so hard. And what you notice is that life starts to unfold in front of you. You start to see that life starts happening for you and not to you.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 43:18

Yeah, I really like that. So, and when you said that word, I was like, Dow, I am not familiar with that word, which surprises me because no one's ever given me a word of wisdom. I didn't know what it meant. So I'm gonna Google it and look it up, Chase. I love that too. Learn something new from you as well. So I always tell everyone uh we take a sticky note, we write the word of week, the word of wisdom. We gotta tell people put it on your mirror, you're brushing your teeth, read the word Dow, say it, learn it, know what it is, and incorporate that into your vocabulary. So that is probably the most interesting word of the week I've ever had in all eight years of podcasting.

Personal Favorites: Music And Food

Brandon Cobb 43:54

Ding ding ding. I won. I like it. I'm very competitive and I like winning. I have never heard of it. Thank you for the award, I'll take it.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 44:02

And when you said it, I was like, oh, and when you explained it, it's like I could not agree with you more. So thank you. You have at this point, you are number one of the word of the week in eight entire years of podcasting. So you're a winner, honey.

Brandon Cobb 44:17

All right, I'm gonna get the award framed.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 44:20

That's awesome. All right, well, so I want to thank you for being on today. I love what you're doing. I wish you all the luck in the world. And once again, for people that are listening, how do they find you?

Brandon Cobb 44:34

So you can go to learnlanddevelopment.com and uh grab our free Land Development 101 course.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 44:40

All right, guys, there you have it. Well, Brandon, it's been a pleasure having you, all of you. You know, I always ask you to do me a favor at the end of every show if you enjoyed it, if you learned something. I learned a lot, so I know y'all learned a lot too. Uh give us a five-star review, write something nice, uh, subscribe, follow, all of the things because podcasts, you know, we do these for you to help you learn, educate, and help you become a better real estate investor. I know that what you heard today, if you take action and move towards it, I know you'll have success. So we'll be back next week. Same bat time, same bat channel. And remember that the truth is in the red letters. All right, everybody, thank you. And Brandon, thank you. And I'm looking forward to looking up the word Dow.

Brandon Cobb 45:25

Thanks for having me on.

Dwan Bent-Twyford 45:27

Bye, everybody.