This episode provides a granular portfolio review across Serious Land Capital’s active deals post-trade war, revealing a split market where half the portfolio performs well (South Carolina two-parcel deal going under contract, Alabama development closing May, Louisiana comp closing at $55K/acre) while the other half struggles (Tennessee 35-acre multi-parcel with weekly $2.5K cuts, neighbor-sabotaged deal now fire-saling). The analysis incorporates intelligence from other operators showing mixed results and tightening capital markets.
Key Takeaways:
- Portfolio Split Performance Half of SLC’s portfolio shows strong activity with near-list or above-expected pricing, while half faces significant disposition challenges requiring aggressive price cuts.
- Deal Flow Composition Shift Acquisition submissions dropped overall but increased percentage of $500K+ deals from sophisticated operators, signaling capital constraint and strategic repositioning.
- Majority Struggling Quietly While some operators report strong sales below $250K, most land investors face slowed acquisitions and disposition, with struggles underreported publicly.
- Recapitalization Priority Focus remains on exiting the two roughly-million-dollar deals (Louisiana subdivide and under-contract development) before the July reciprocal tariff deadline to reset underwriting.
Listen to get real-time market intelligence across multiple geographies and operator perspectives during volatile macro conditions.
(Podcast transcript below)
Hi, Chris Duff over Serious Land Capital vacant land funding partner. I know we promised for another market update today. after yesterday’s episode, to try to bullet point this. And I know I alluded yesterday as well that, you know, obviously I’d been writing in our, you know, new, serious news newsletter.
about, you know, definitely the warning signs we see within the macro economy and how we’re trying to dispo our existing portfolio ASAP to recapitalize and reset our underwriting criteria, in expectation that, you know, volatility is going to be the norm for awhile. I know the macro was a bit better.
over this last week, but you know, I think that is a hard thing to expect to kind of stay the same over the coming weeks here, if we’ve learned anything even over the past few months of this current administration. So, you know, we operate with…
longer term focus and still trying to be conservative. think those warning signs are still very apparent within the overall macro here. And, you know, on our side, again, I’ve remarked before, you know, we have two, you roughly million dollar deals that we’re trying to exit. One has been under contract. had, or the buyers have had a meeting with
The county, you know, their development team, they’re aware of everything going on within the macro. They think it’s still going to be a solid exit on their end for when they actually develop out the project. So far, zero red flags. Hopefully can close even sooner than the current early August close date. You know, we’re really holding our breath for that one to work out. They have another meeting in roughly two weeks here.
Hopefully not that many more county meetings before we really get some clarity on likelihood to close. And then our Louisiana big deal, even market updates there, there was, you know, properties or at least one larger property, know, 400K cash purchase price after the trade war started closing quick.
like 55K per acre and worse quality terrain than the properties that we have. So it’s a very good sign. You know, we’re planning on listing our larger acreage of three child parcels at roughly 40K per acre. You know, they’re slightly larger than the seven acres that was the recent comp, but you know, we’re still feeling favorable there. We’re already having clearing work starting.
This coming Monday, it’s going to take a couple weeks and then know the driveway and so forth will probably take another couple weeks after that. So we’ll be listed by late May. And again, from macro side, know, again, who knows what’s going on with these tariff situations supposedly. Oh, yeah, you know, trade deals over the next few weeks. Who knows? But, you know, to me, I’m looking at that ticking time bomb again of the, you know, that 90 day delay of the reciprocal tariffs that are what gonna
come back into effect in early to mid July. So again, I’m trying to offload a lot by then because who knows what can happen then and know, market shifts and so forth. So that’s kind of our strategy on that one. We did have another property that we listed in South Carolina that was getting a lot of early hits. It was actually a two property portfolio deal. It took us like nine months to close. There’s so many complications involved with it.
The property that I thought was going to be harder to sell is actually had more activity. We just kind of offer on it At you know, just under list price So we bought these two properties for roughly 125 K all in all this survey work and stuff, you know per test and so forth and We listed the larger property for just 150 and we got a cash offer
125, a bunch of contingencies, but closing relatively fast mid-June. So we countered back to 145K because it has a lot of activity, have another possible buyer visiting today, and removed a whole bunch of those contingencies. We’ll see if the buyer, who’s also an agent, so they’re a savvier buyer, is going to accept. But we’d be feeling pretty good about that one. Even if we had to take the 125, I’d be feeling…
really solid because that’s basically a break even on our total principal for that two parcel deal. And then the other one, you know, is currently listed at 95 K. I’d estimate it probably is going to go for closer to like 70, maybe 75. All of a sudden that’s gravy profit. And that one’s still getting a lot of activity as well too, but yeah, not quite as much as this one that we got an offer on. So I’m feeling a lot better about that.
We had this double close situation That was going to be It was going to be an equity double close like you couldn’t do a transactional deal But it’s going to be like a buy at 26k sell for 65. We had already lined up a buyer. This was in South Carolina again, yeah, South Carolina But turns out there was title issues now seller wants to back out
that is lower likelihood, but you know, it was still showing that the market was moving on that side. We have another Alabama deal that is another development project that, you know, went under contract very quickly. So that one’s still solid for end of May. And then, you know, we have a few or, you know, two other properties specifically that I’m just not feeling that good about. Again, in this current market, I would not have funded them. So I’m just trying to offload ASAP. One.
We bought months ago during kind of a slower period. was a coin flip. Excuse me. We’re keeping that in, not editing that piece out. A lot of these Austin springtime allergies creeping up. It was a Tennessee property that we bought for like 35-ish K.
Had some extra protections on from a preference side and listed initially at 70. We got a cash offer that was supposed to close very quickly at 55K and then the neighbor just came. You know, sometimes you just never know what.
what type of info or motivation some of these neighbors have, but they met the buyer, potential buyer out when they were doing a site visit, said, yeah, this property doesn’t perk or whatever, you can’t build on it, which is not true. We have the documentation that proves that false, but it scared off the buyer. And now we’re just been cutting price. I’m basically fire sailing this, 2.5K drops weekly at this point. It’s been on for like four months. I need it to move, hasn’t had much hits. So is it like 45K?
It’s going to be basically a break even, maybe a small loss possibly. But I just need this one off the books. Like, you know, I need to recycle this capital, get it off. And then we have these other, this 25 acres that split into three properties in Tennessee as well that we still have a lot of margin on, but I’ve also been cutting. It was another property where
probably flip flop like 20 times on whether to fund it or not. I thought it was going to be more of a base hit. We had a lot of protections built in because I thought it was just a chancy property, some inferior characteristics, lower market, but I thought we had enough margin baked in. I’m like, yeah, especially when the market’s tighter on a macro level. I just want to get this one off the books as well. Trying to do neighbor letters and just move this one. A lot of routine cuts too. So.
And that just kind of gives you an example as well, as well researched and how analytical our firm is as well. again, Atlanta is a risky business. There’s a reason the margins are oftentimes so solid because you inherently have to take a risk on a non-cash flowing luxury asset and have confidence in your underwriting and like…
Sometimes it is going to be a bit more of a coin flip. And so you just, have to take a calculated risk on which ones are going to move and be willing to understand, okay, am I okay expecting this one to be a base hit versus, you know, a double or triple or whatever and allocate funds that way. this is one, you know, when we were like flowing so much cashflow and, you know, routinely selling properties through much of
Q4 and early Q1 of this year, that it made a worthwhile, it was like a worthwhile bet at the time to pursue. But now like post-trade war, like, would not have touched this property. So I want to get off the books. So that’s just an update on our total portfolio. also looking at a couple, we actually just closed on a property. I mean, it was like a minimal per like 20, 20K purchase, but I checked in with the broker and like, okay, they’re.
really still flowing properties. think we’re gonna list it at 60K and think it has a high likelihood of closing soon from a sell side perspective. So, you know, we are still working on acquisitions here, but noticeably it has slowed down on our side. We’ve like, we had like all time highs deal flow coming in.
pre-trade war from like much Q1 of this year and now it’s like it’s pretty considerably slow that there’s actually been a higher percentage of very large deals like 500k plus Which I’m trying to push off to like Q4 of this year As the macro sorts itself out we get some of these larger exits Taken care of to recapitalize here, you know not over lover ourselves so
That’s intriguing anyway, because that’s where I’d like to take this business to larger operators, less volatile clients. mean, again, just land industry as a whole, there’s a lot of faces changing routinely here. So volatile clients lead to a volatile business, which I’m trying to clean up over time.
But you know, some of these smaller deals, like some are still coming in, but I have the sense and I, you know, as I’ve been writing about this and you know, presenting an opinion, other people have come out and saying, you know, some have been saying, Hey, like I’m still selling a lot. And I just shared with our portfolio, like half of it has done like very well. and half is like, I’m not feeling as good about it at the moment. So, we’re, kind of split in between there. I’d say, you know,
If the macro wasn’t so volatile, I wouldn’t be as concerned, but because of it, like I’m, treating our portfolio as a step, a notch below where I would like it to be just, um, you know, future orienting myself, uh, within our business. But you know, some very solid operators have reached out and they’re like, Hey, I’m still moving a lot of land. You know, anything below like quarter million purchase price or sales price rather, like it’s still moving. Um,
Others who I would say are the majority are saying acquisitions and Dispo has slowed down. Agents are indicating, you know, hey, some buyers just, you know, they’re on the sidelines for the time being here. Sellers are just letting their listings expire, you know, slow down in the market.
Overall and then you know some brokers are also saying hey like this has been the most business We’ve been seeing in a few years, so you know real estate always is a very local business you can’t have You know a blanket opinion you have to do your work in each area that you operate in and that’s what gives us you know So much inside info is the fact that we operate nationally and have to take into account so many different data points My sense
though is that more people are struggling than are really like thriving in this environment. Mainly because, know, if people are thriving, like it’s, you you want to like mention it publicly, you know, it’s all looking good, but you know, when, things aren’t the best, like a lot of people are just being kind of quiet and not necessarily sharing that it’s been more of a struggle. So that is.
my sense there. And it’s, you know, we just look at our own business where, you know, we think we have, you know, one of the most robust, Dispo systems. plus we, you know, market like crazy and had, you know, all time highs of acquisitions coming in recently. And like the fact that it’s slowed down on both sides to me is pretty telling since our data is, you know, we, we, we, have so many data points to, work with, that
Even if I don’t have like full insight into every land land investors business, my sense is still like, Hey, people are not doing as well at the moment as, you might glean just by looking at what people are mentioning and so forth. cause again, if you’re struggling, you’re usually not going to be mentioning things publicly. I could be wrong, but that is my sense at the moment. you know,
I’m not mentioning any names. just, you know, people have meant, you know, mentioned things to me privately and so forth. So I’m conveying certain sentiments as well here. So that is kind of where things stand at the moment. And even like, you know, there’s a land investor, you know, typically does like a lot of debt deals reached out to us for equity funding here too, which like also tells me the capital markets are even tighter.
then they may usually be so, you know that that’s another, that’s another telling sign. Like, you know, things are just tighter, both on a, cash conversion perspective, cost of capital, just availability of capital. you, you really gotta be careful, really gotta be careful on a market like this. So that is the going theme at the moment. Let me think of I’m forgetting.
Am I forgetting anything else that is?
Noteworthy.
No, no, I don’t think so. I’ll try to like, again, like weekly basis do some market update related because I got a lot of stuff that’s just changing. Even on a day by day perspective, we have our ears to the ground. And I really value any other land investors who are, you know, sharing their experiences. Currently that, that helps us a lot to understand more as well. And so we can all, you know,
work together to evolve and thrive and get through more difficult markets as well. So I’d say this week I’m feeling a bit better overall about the markets compared to the last two to three weeks, but just slightly more, slightly more, still very, very conservative at the moment. I will let you know if and when that changes.
With that, SiriusLand.Capital, again, we are still open for business. I realized, hey, maybe my acquisitions have started or like deal flow has stopped because people see, I’m like being more cautious about deals and so forth. like, we’ve developed a reputation for, you know, no BS. I’m going to tell you guys the truth. The way we see things going on within the market. like, I’m not going to present a false picture. It’s like, oh yeah, it’s like.
you know, best time ever to be investing in land and keep sending more deals and so forth like that. That is not, you know, the, realistic viewpoint. Again, we are still open for business. I literally just funded a deal yesterday. it’s just, we’re being more, more cautious. so, you know, if you think you got a good deal, send it over. We’ll take a look at it. We’re still going to be funding deals, but, yeah, I’m not going to BS you guys with,
you know, presenting false opinions just for the sake of, you know, vanity metrics within my own business. Like that’s just not how we operate. We’ve, you know, built a high integrity operation here. and then land daily diligence, Facebook group for your zero cost reviews of your land deals and then landpricer.ai for the most accurate and simple way to price land more and more work coming to us.
Automated process we are I’m so glad I brought my CTO on for this because It’s just forcing me to think Past blockers of what I think is possible technologically and just realizing wait. Yeah, this is This is actually going to be possible to automate this further. Why not push this as far as it’s possible. So More updates to come on that end with that subscribe and share if you haven’t already
See you tomorrow, bye.
