This episode examines strategies for evaluating properties in southeastern Oklahoma tribal territories where zero active listings or 12-month sales exist within 10-mile radii. The framework covers extreme discount requirements (50%+ below distant comparables), broker intelligence gathering to assess true demand, and creative exit structures including neighbor sales and agent self-purchases to de-risk acquisitions in inactive markets.
Key Takeaways:
- Zero Activity in 10 Miles Requires 50%+ Undercuts When no sales close within a year across wide geographic areas, acquisition pricing must assume near-zero buyer pools and discount even distant comparables by half.
- Grill Local Brokers Before Closing, Not After Direct conversations with agents holding the closest active listings reveal whether any demand exists, if neighbor sales are possible, or if the market is genuinely dead.
- Creative Exits Beat Standard Flips in Ghost Markets Neighboring landowners, broker self-purchases, or assignment structures can generate returns where traditional MLS marketing fails due to complete absence of retail buyer activity.
Hear the full playbook for deciding when extreme rural markets justify the risk and how to structure deals that work even with minimal liquidity.
(Podcast transcript below)
Hi, Chris Duff over at Serious Land Capital, Vacant Land Funding Partner. So today, I wanted to go over some key lessons regarding a deal that we had reviewed last week in Oklahoma, extremely rural part of the state, south, southeastern part of Oklahoma. It’s where some of the Native American trucktog.
tribe territories are so you’re certain about some of the demand in the area and how much might actually be available for private ownership. And when we were reviewing that particular deal, there were no active land deals or solds within the last year. I didn’t check back to two years sometimes if you go
back that far and you might find something, really try not to utilize anything that’s beyond 12 months lagging just to have most accurate data possible, even beyond six months lagging starts to get riskier, particularly in a very inactive area like that. that’s not common in a lot.
A lot of parts of the country. Yes. Some of the atypical flipping States, like we look at like the Dakotas for instance, or, know, far, you know, Northern Great Plains for, for example, but those are going to be a bit more rare to, find routine land deals. but yeah, to have, you know, nothing being listed and, and in terms of the area I’m talking about, you know, maybe a radius of, you know, 10 miles ish.
From where a particular subject property is located. got that’s a pretty wide swath to not have anything active or Or sold within a last year So I’d be extremely cautious about those markets in the first place Like I’d want to undercut if I were to pursue a deal in a market like this. I’d want to undercut like crazy I get it’s as low as I’m thinking
something might be that’s sold, you know, 10, 15 plus miles away. I might want to undercut even by half of what that property might’ve sold for, assuming all my characteristics were equal. Just to account for lack of demand, lack of activity. You know, it would really have to be a screamer of a deal to even consider. Otherwise I would just pass on it and move on to an area where there’s more routine activity and you’re not.
sitting on a parcel with potentially zero, zero buyers within that end buyer pool. So in situations like that, know, if you’re still trying to see, hey, is there any deal possible, then, you know, try to find, okay, who, who has sold something that might be the closest.
nearby or something that might be a little bit more or an active listing and from a broker who seems to be more active in the area. And to me, I’d be less concerned as much from a sold versus active perspective. Yeah, you always want to take a sold when you can, when they’re available, assuming it was an MLS listed deal.
And the characteristics are, you know, somewhat similar outside of the distance from the subject property. but if, if they were like materially different and then some active properties might be, closer in terms of a characteristic perspective to the subject, then I might be more inclined to reach out to the broker who has an active listing, versus a sold one. So, I’m going to be a little looser.
when it comes to selection in situations like that. So when it gets down to it, okay, you maybe I have one or two realtors that I could reach out to. I’m gonna try and them a call and say, hey, man, I have a, you know, I say man, it’s not gender specific here, just, localism, FYI, but, know.
Hi, sir or ma’am. This all just sounds bad. I’m gonna move on from that. Basically, the dialogue is being, you know, I have this property that is way outside of any active market. Like, are you familiar with this area at all here? Do you think there’s any type of pricing that might attract some type of buyer here? I know you’ve got something listed here. We were able to get this much, much lower and could undercut.
even what the price per acre is that you might be able to move properties in the area that you’re currently listing at. Do you think there’s any real potential? And really, really dive in there and grill them on that. And if they’re like, hey, no one is moving out there. It’s a high risk. Again, there’s usually a price for anything here, but you can only go so low, right? Is it even worth it?
spending a grand or two for a particular property to try to offload it. Even that sometimes you’re not able to move those super cheap properties and oftentimes the buyer pool are tougher to work with anyway. So that’s just something to keep in mind there. But yeah, I would really grill them to see, okay, do you think there’s any potential? if they still have some hunger to it, maybe they’re…
Uh, they’re willing to take a flyer on, it and say, I’ll head out there. Can take a look. Maybe there is really something or maybe they’re, you know, they have some local connections might know, you know, the neighbor here that can, um, you know, take a deeper look at this and, know, it might be able to cut a deal. Maybe you can arrange a double close, uh, or, you know, not even a official double close, but you know, you, could set it up to where.
Um, uh, you know, you might still close on the deal prior to, uh, fully engaging that potential and buyer here. So then you don’t need to worry as much about, you know, possible innovation agreements and so forth with the actual seller. But of course, if you can do it that way, that’s going to de-risk it even further. But, um, if you think there’s a strong likelihood, Hey, I can get a neighbor to move on this.
Especially if you can get something in writing or very strong verbal agreement and it keeps your basis really low. You have margin to work with, at least proving out there’s some type of activity, then it might be worth taking a swing on that. But if they don’t know anybody local and so forth, then you really try to figure out, is there anything that no matter how far away it is, somebody
might take a stab at it or maybe in the realtor themselves. Sometimes a lot of them can be in the land game or like, yeah, I’ll sit on this for longer. You know, I might pay at a lower cost here and you know, then they can try to work a deal later on. So it’s almost like an assignment to get you paid out on a deal, we get the title transferred and so forth. So you can be creative with properties like that. Again, they’re, usually not too exciting for us, but you know, if you’re getting
uh, started and, you know, just trying to get your, your feet wet and figure out deals, just how, you know, land industry works. Um, or, know, maybe you really found something high quality in an area that doesn’t have that much activity and it’s, you really think it’s worth taking the swing on the realtor agrees, uh, whoever local expert might, uh, might have an option, um, to provide an opinion on then.
You know, you could de-risk it enough to potentially pursue there. So that’s how I would suggest approaching situations like that. Again, it’s not too common. Most areas of the country, you’re going to have some type of activity, but in areas that are not, you know, approach with extreme conservatism and caution before closing on a deal there. But there are ways to make…
those areas work. With that, check out seriousland.capital if you want to get any deals funded. Land Daily Diligence Facebook group for zero cost reviews of any of your land deals, regardless of if you’re looking for funding or not. And landpricer.ai for the most accurate and simple way to price land deals. With that, take care everybody. Bye.
