Episode 26: Brent Bowers Takes Us on a Path to Land Investing in Colorado Springs

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Nate Carver
Hey, this is Nate Carver with between two doors. And if you're interested in buying land as an investment, you're kind of the right place. Today, we're talking to Brant Bowers. We're going to ask you a bunch questions.

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Nate Carver
Hey, I'm Nate Carver and welcome to Between Two Doors.

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Nate Carver
Brant. How are you doing, sir?

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Brent Bowers
I'm good. Nathan. Thanks for having me, man.

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Nate Carver
Thank you. All right. Hey, tell us a little bit about your background. I know you and I both served in the Army. I'd love to know some details there. Mostly to see if we have any overlapping, deployments.

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Brent Bowers
Yeah, yeah. So I got in in 2009, did my first Afghanistan deployment from November 2010 to November 2011, then was home for a year in Germany and then back again, for about a four month, this time for my deployment. And then I went to active duty green, the gold, where the Army selected me to become a, active duty officer.

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Brent Bowers
So I went to college for 21 months, and then, back out to Colorado in 2015 and then finally got out in 2018, because I became a land investor and I was making so much more money doing that. And, I really got into land, really, it was to get out of the military because I was tired of being away from home so often.

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Nate Carver
Yeah, yeah, I got my entire list, but time I averaged. I moved every 11 months over 12 years.

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Brent Bowers
So I hear that.

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Nate Carver
Pleading the sandbox. So good for you. Yeah. So land. Where where are you based? And then do you have a geographical area that you service or cater to?

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Brent Bowers
You know, I live in South Florida. And I do quite a few land deals in the southeast of the country right now include, well, Texas as well, and Colorado. So, yeah, I don't go past I don't go west of Colorado lately.

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Nate Carver
Nice. And how long have you been really focused on land? I mean, get some overlap with the military, but yeah.

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Brent Bowers
My first land deal was in 2016. I bought a piece of land for $285 and sold it to a realtor for 5000.

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Nate Carver
Okay, for you.

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Brent Bowers
And she sold it for like 15,000, so she didn't get to on it.

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Nate Carver
Yeah. Wow. So I guess what would be is there an ideal, buyer that you are looking for or like to work with? Is that fair?

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Brent Bowers
Yeah, one with cash. Cash money. Whether it's monthly or. No. I'll tell you why. It's it. They're all over the place. I used to sell a lot of land to truckers, and then I sold land to college students to Latinos. Just, you name it, builders, developers. You know, it's all over the map. I honestly don't care.

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Brent Bowers
As long as they want to buy the land.

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Nate Carver
Any size. I mean, we're talking from a lot to acreage.

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Brent Bowers
Yeah. I when I first started it was like I felt like I did a lot of five and ten acre parcels and then I went to kind of more buildable lot. So it's I've never sold anything over 40 acres, you know. Okay. I've always kind of, worked mostly in the, actually, no, I did 180 acre parcel.

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Brent Bowers
Just one though. Most of them are all under 40 acres. Got a 350 lots.

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Nate Carver
Wow. Let me ask you this on the on the lots or the raw. Is it raw land? It may be the list or may not know exactly what that means. Is is there any kind of development of that land at all when you're making that transaction?

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Brent Bowers
None whatsoever. Most of the time there's not even a culvert. It's just a piece of vacant land. There's not even a driveway on it.

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Nate Carver
Okay, good. And, now I know you were joking. You know, cash buyers. Cash is king. But there's. Do you. These your buyers? They do. They sometimes have financing needs. Or is that an option for you?

00:04:17:01 - 00:04:37:11
Brent Bowers
A lot of times banks don't lend on land, so that opens a huge opportunity. If I can become the bank. And there's a reason why the banks are the biggest, prettiest buildings in every city, in every state. I want to be the bank. I like seller financing the land that I sell because it pays me. I'd rather get paid for 30 years rather than one time.

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Nate Carver
Nice. Mailbox money. Excellent.

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Brent Bowers
Mailbox money. Yep.

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Nate Carver
Yeah. How about someone if they're interested in a piece of property in that land, do you run into zoning issues with that? Is that something that you can help navigate with them? Depending on what they're wanting to do with that piece of property?

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Brent Bowers
Yeah, most of the time, 99% of the time I usually just buy residential vacant land.

00:05:04:19 - 00:05:29:16
Brent Bowers
Oh good. It's already zone residential. Those are the easiest to figure out what they're worth. That's kind of why I stick to that. Now we've done some zoning changes. Not a whole lot. I'm. I'm actually changing a piece of land from residential to agricultural right now, which you don't see that happen ever. Honestly, it's because, the county is, issuing a building permit, but they will allow me to build a massive barn on it if I put my four one acre parcels together.

00:05:29:21 - 00:05:49:21
Brent Bowers
So I'm actually changing it from residential to agriculture so I can sell it. Honestly, it came from where we came from. Came from a mistake, because we bought some land on a dirt road. And 90% of the homes in that county are on dirt roads. But now the county's changed something where they want me to develop the roads, and it's going to cost too much money.

00:05:49:21 - 00:06:08:04
Brent Bowers
So, we did a little test to add, like, what would the sell for if we had a, a barn on it originally was going to build four barns, but the only allowed me to build one with no permits. So. And we had a lot of interest. So sometimes you got to flex, sometimes, you got to when you get lemons, you just got to make some lemonade.

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Nate Carver
Wow. So how are you finding your buyers?

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Brent Bowers
Yeah. So, so many ways. I've sold so much land on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Facebook buy, sell groups. I love using land sales specialist real estate agents, the ones that are actually selling the land deals. How do you find those guys? You find them on Redfin, the ones that are selling the land or land watch? We found them on land watch before, but, I've used signs on the side of the road like bandit signs, handwritten signs that say land for sale.

00:06:41:15 - 00:06:56:14
Brent Bowers
Like the number for, $300 a month. Phone number. Like, because my goal is to stack as many of these monthly payments together as possible. Like I truly want, like rental income, but without the rental.

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Nate Carver
Nice. And, let's see, do your buyers, when they see a piece of property? I think the thing that I would be curious to know if it were me. Do they ever ask you about the development side of, you know, what it's going to cost to put some of the horizontal infrastructure in, like electrical, plumbing, sewer? Yeah, septic.

00:07:24:12 - 00:07:43:23
Nate Carver
Who knows. Is there, is there a, an I know that can be dramatically different from any, any one property to the, to the next, but is there like a estimate, rough estimate of what something like that might they might want to factor in to that purchase.

00:07:44:00 - 00:08:05:17
Brent Bowers
Yeah. It's different in every area. And when the buyers ask me those questions, if I know I'll tell them. But I usually try and direct them to the right, municipality, I think is the word for it. Because it's it's all over the map, you know, every parcel is different. Obviously. I want to know as much as I can about it, but, it varies from from county to county, state to state.

00:08:05:19 - 00:08:18:12
Brent Bowers
It depends on how far the lines are for electric and sometimes. And stuff is just off grid forever, like a lot of the land I sell. And over the years, many of them have been off grid with electric and they just have to drill a well.

00:08:18:14 - 00:08:41:13
Nate Carver
Oh, wow. Yeah. I remember doing a piece of property and I priced out septic and had it all lined up. And then there was a cataclysmic event that we all all went through in life about four years ago. And, when I went back to revisit that with the septic, the price had tripled in a day.

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Brent Bowers
Like, whoa, that's huge.

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Nate Carver
Yeah, that was, a rough. That was that was a unique situation. But yeah, their, demand. Anyway, it tripled. So interesting.

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Brent Bowers
Probably because more people are moving outside of the city. Yeah. Getting away further. So that makes sense. Actually.

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Nate Carver
RV parks, that's what I think did it. I can't prove it, but it seemed like RV parks were popping up everywhere because people were working remotely. Oh, yeah. Or build times on properties. How long does it take? So you got a property, you're listing it, or putting it out there to buyers on a cash purchase. How how long does that process take?

00:09:26:17 - 00:09:30:18
Nate Carver
For that person can claim that as theirs or close. Close on it?

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Brent Bowers
Yeah. From, like the time I find a deal to the time I sell it. Are you saying.

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Nate Carver
Yeah.

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Brent Bowers
Usually I mean, I have sometimes they're. I can do it in 30 days. Some have taken three months. You know, the average is about 2 to 3 months.

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Nate Carver
Okay, good. And then you own some land. Now let's talk about why they would want to buy raw land or undeveloped land.

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Brent Bowers
You know, I'll tell you what. I've never had a piece of land I couldn't sell or never. And I've never lost money on a piece of land. Yeah, I made a bunch of mistakes, but there's a certain. I mean, a lot of people want to own American land. You know, a lot of people want a place. They can just go hunt or just hang out in their camper, or recreate or ride their Folgers or their dirt bike, or shoot their guns on, you know, and another thing, we sell a lot of land to a lot of neighbors.

00:10:24:03 - 00:10:28:16
Brent Bowers
I've never met a landowner that didn't want to own the land next to them.

00:10:28:18 - 00:10:42:13
Nate Carver
That's true. I would love to buy my neighbor's land. Yeah. There. Yeah. That's nice. All right. Is there anything I should have asked you that did. Not that I didn't ask you.

00:10:42:15 - 00:11:02:09
Brent Bowers
You know, I don't know. I mean, this sounds like you can make a pile of money. I think, like, if someone's looking to get started in real estate or they want to own a business, this is probably one of the, I think, one of the best ones, because you own an asset and then you can sell that asset and make monthly payment so you can sell the asset and the monthly payments, you can build literally a sellable, scalable company.

00:11:02:11 - 00:11:27:19
Brent Bowers
It's really easy to scale. But a lot of I say a lot of this is simple, but it's so simple. A lot of people won't take the steps to do it. You know, you got to be willing to get out there and take some action. Get a little uncomfortable, have conversations with people, make offers. I don't want to sit here and preach that this is, like, so easy a caveman can do it, but, you know, it takes an hour or two a day, and it takes some steps.

00:11:27:21 - 00:11:33:10
Brent Bowers
But this is one of the oldest businesses out there, you know, buying and selling land. Really?

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Nate Carver
Yeah. So we have, on the calendar. I'm not exactly sure when this is going to get published, but we have just had a national election, and, market made a shift on election day. So, and then about a week from yesterday, a new administration takes over new policies. Are you seeing any trends? Not necessarily a crystal ball, but, any trends that you're seeing and what you might expect in 2025?

00:12:08:12 - 00:12:27:08
Brent Bowers
I don't know. Yeah. No clue. Man. I, I when Covid hit, I was like, oh my God, we're going to lose everything. But people bought more land than I've ever seen, so I honestly stopped guessing. I don't try and time the market. I want to be on the MVP. I want to be on the field. I want that ball.

00:12:27:12 - 00:12:45:21
Brent Bowers
I'm going to get that ball. There's there's there's several types of people. There's the people that sit on the sidelines and then there's the people that are on the field. They're they're playing, but they don't want the ball. And then there's people that are on the field and they'll kill to get the ball. And then there's the people don't even buy the tickets.

00:12:46:09 - 00:13:01:14
Brent Bowers
And they don't even show up to the arena. So the ones that are going to make money are the ones in the arena play in the game. And that's you know, my only sports reference I've got. But there you go. You know I would, I want to be in the arena.

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Nate Carver
I hear you. Yeah. When's the best time to buy real estate? Today.

00:13:06:04 - 00:13:09:09
Brent Bowers
It just. Or ten years ago, like one or the other.

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Nate Carver
You know. Which one can you do?

00:13:11:09 - 00:13:34:11
Brent Bowers
Like planting a tree. You know, the. There's two good times to plant a tree right now. And 30 years ago, preferably. Right. Your grandpa planted it for you or bought the. But I never had it. And my grandpa and everybody in real estate, my my great grandpa. I'll never buy any real estate. So my children, my grandchildren are going to inherit a ton of real estate.

00:13:34:13 - 00:13:48:23
Brent Bowers
I don't know how I'm going to set that up yet if I even want them to, because I don't want to turn into booger heads. But, you know, there's going to be like I telling my daughter, I was like, you don't even like she's she's, seven years old. I was like, you don't even know how rich you're going to be one day.

00:13:49:00 - 00:14:00:21
Brent Bowers
Like, if like the amount of. So we're taking the land money and buying more real estate with it. It's nuts. We're doing with Dave Ramsey and reverse the snowball effect. Yeah, it's turning it into a snowball.

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Nate Carver
Makes. Wow. How so? You're land investors. Are you seeing or. They have a timeline of how long they're holding on to that piece of property. Or is it. It comes it's a numbers game. It comes down to, hey, this is going to be a profit today. I know we just bought it, but we can flip it today and sell it for more.

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Nate Carver
And we bought it for oh yeah.

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Brent Bowers
I never want to hold on to it more than I want to have a buyer before I buy it. I'm looking for the buyer the whole time I'm under contract, because a lot of people think they can't make money with land. I'm not buying and waiting. I'm getting it today for a discount and then selling it for what it's worth, tomorrow.

00:14:39:00 - 00:14:55:02
Nate Carver
Oh, nice. So that's in, that's in contrast. That's directly opposite of what I've seen others do where they have. Yeah. I bought some land and it sat there for decades.

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Brent Bowers
Yeah.

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Nate Carver
Just I don't know, it's wild land and trees reclaim it or whatever. And, especially here in Florida.

00:15:03:08 - 00:15:07:05
Brent Bowers
That's who I buy land from. Those people are land rich, cash poor.

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Nate Carver
Yeah.

00:15:08:08 - 00:15:26:00
Brent Bowers
I'd rather be both. No. I'm sorry. I'd rather be land rich and cash rich. You know, I want the monthly payments coming in every month. We have a lot. A lot of land that's sitting there, taking it back, or we need to sell it. And I tell my team, I'm like, man, this is it's a liability. You know, we're having to pay taxes on this.

00:15:26:00 - 00:15:35:10
Brent Bowers
No money's coming in like we got to sell this. Even if it's even if it's for $100 a month just to get something coming in to sell it, I don't care.

00:15:35:12 - 00:15:52:15
Nate Carver
Wow. I'm going to shift gears. What? Outside of real estate are you passionate about? Or involved in maybe charity wise or just, you know, with your family mentioned your daughter. What do you love doing outside of real? Yeah.

00:15:52:17 - 00:16:14:19
Brent Bowers
I have so many passions. So I my real estate business is based around my passions. So, yes, charity wise, we support some children in Uganda. I'm a Christ follower. You know, I ask every day, like, Lord, how can I serve you today? And crazy things pop up all the time. But we just got back from a seven day ski trip.

00:16:14:21 - 00:16:36:13
Brent Bowers
All my children are on skis or one. I got one snowboarder. He's crazy. All the kids are on skis. This weekend I had my first four wheel array. So we're camping all week and I'm racing four wheelers. But my land business supports our lifestyle. You know, I luckily, I'm. I'm so fortunate that we own this business that we can go and do all these things in the military.

00:16:36:13 - 00:16:38:10
Brent Bowers
I had to beg for time off.

00:16:38:12 - 00:16:51:13
Nate Carver
Yeah, yeah. When you get out of the military, or how much time did you have to sell back your vacation? Your lead time? You know, it's 60 days there, Max. You maxed it out. Yeah.

00:16:51:15 - 00:17:02:09
Brent Bowers
Yeah, two months I got paid. That was a good chunk. A little money, too. It was almost like $8,000 that I got. Yeah. It's crazy. I wasn't even able to leave my use. My leave days?

00:17:02:11 - 00:17:26:10
Nate Carver
Yeah, the 60 days of accumulated leave over a career in the military. Yeah. I'm. Yeah, I understand that. So good for you. Well, I'm. This was fantastic. So, Brant, how if someone is looking to buy land, what is the best way that they can get Ahold of you?

00:17:26:12 - 00:17:47:00
Brent Bowers
Yeah, probably the easiest way is go to the land sharks.com and just schedule a call with me. I'll jump on the phone and answer any questions I can. I even coach I'll. I'll mentor a few people a month. I'm probably one doing 1 or 2 land deals a month at this point. I fund a lot of land deals for our land sharks community members.

00:17:47:02 - 00:17:54:24
Brent Bowers
But you can find me on all the social medias as well. Brant L and yes, the L stands for land L Bowers help hours.

00:17:54:24 - 00:18:16:20
Nate Carver
All right, I'll put the links down below, so people can get Ahold of you directly. Brant. Thank you. And we can do this again and again. I'm going to come up with some more questions for you and, go a little deeper with you. I just want to do an introduction with you. And in provide an opportunity for some people to get to know more about you.

00:18:16:22 - 00:18:19:23
Nate Carver
And, I really appreciate this. Thank you.

00:18:20:00 - 00:18:24:10
Brent Bowers
God bless. Nathan, thank you so, so much for having me. And thanks for spending your time. Take care.

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