This episode examines a borderline Tennessee deal featuring three separate properties where initial pricing assumptions (larger parcel commanding higher PPA) contradicted an experienced 60-year realtor’s market assessment favoring smaller parcels. The analysis reveals tactical approaches for realtor consultations when operating nationally, requiring rapid rapport-building and precise pricing clarity across hundreds of unique relationships annually.
Key Takeaways:
- Transparent Purchase Price Sharing Builds Rapport Providing full transparency on acquisition costs and required exit multiples (typically 2x for 90-day turnover) focuses realtor conversations on achievable pricing rather than theoretical valuations.
- Push Realtors Hard on Downside Pricing Repeatedly ask “what price gets your phone ringing within one week” until receiving concrete numbers—if hesitancy persists, acknowledge the deal may not work while establishing future relationship foundation.
- Responsiveness Trumps All Other Realtor Factors First-call pickup indicates strongest working relationship potential, with pricing clarity, commission negotiation (6-8% standard, 10% only for top-10% performers), and exclusive listing promises following initial responsiveness signal.
Listen to the full tactical breakdown of national realtor relationship management, commission negotiation frameworks, and when to walk away from deals with insufficient margins.
(Podcast transcript below)
Hey, Chris Duff over at Serious Land Capital Vacant Land Funding Partner. Today we were taking a deeper look at a fairly borderline deal. This one in particular was in Tennessee, which, no surprise, is a major land flipping state. And I wasn’t…
quite sure on where our price per acre was landing. There’s definitely some variance in the possible exit value. And it was kind of a unique parcel where there’s three separate properties that are included in the package. And one of them would certainly be sold by itself, or at least it’s not contiguous.
as in it doesn’t share property boundaries with the other two. The other two do share boundaries and could potentially sell together, which in my opinion seemed to be more realistic based on the orientation they were on the road and some of the specific terrain for the property. Or it could have been sold separately, but you you always take an extra risk introducing.
additional individual properties on market, all at the same time, particularly in land.
So taking a deeper look at these, I thought the price per acre of the larger property was actually going to be a bit higher. I know that’s not typical, but the features were a bit more superior and the terrain was more favorable compared to the smaller ones. But we had a very experienced realtor go and visit. I mean, he’s been in the industry.
60 some odd years and, and that really kind of tells you something is definitely getting up there. and it’s done a lot of development as well. and he really seemed to be indicating, yeah, try to, you know, offer the smaller parcels on their own. Maybe some folks, will pick them up together. It’s possible. And he would assign a higher PPA for those smaller parcels, which was counter to what we were.
Initially thinking so some tactics related to these realtor calls. And again, everybody runs their land business differently. We operate nationally. So it’s rare that we’ll be able to work with, the same realtor more than maybe once or twice a year, just given the massive, geography that we’re.
trying to operate within. so that requires a lot of, new consults with different, realtors in order to figure out whether we’re going to move ahead or not on, on certain properties. And we’ve obviously gotten very good at these conversations, just given the amount of reps that were, that we’ve done. And it certainly helps to.
kind of share our know-how immediately. First, by just educating yourself on the property, understand, you know, having an initial idea on what you think the exit might be, having looked at it in detail, you know, even if you’re not local, obviously not visiting the site or anything, but having an idea of the characteristics, what the market might look like, and an opinion on the property, and just trying to get to the heart of the matter with…
a local realtor both on scheduling them for a site visit if they haven’t already and providing a more detailed opinion on some of those particular characteristics and especially the pricing instead of just trying to do a full overview. So that tends to give us better results with realtors. I know I hear that’s a fairly
common complaint from a number of land investors, hey, I can’t get this realtor to answer me or they’re not following up or they’re not visiting the site. And yeah, mean, some realtors are just not gonna be as handy to work with, but we really try to show that we mean business right away and that we’re ready to work with them, assuming.
we’re able to clarify some of the remaining possible issues with or not necessarily issues, but possible questions with the property. And I know that’s something there’s various levels of opinions on within the industry. You some folks will look for, you know, two, three or more realtor opinion of values. I prefer trying to source my realtors.
Initially and just have a prioritized list of okay, you know based on this person who’s sold something recently has good marketing Etc and picking them and assuming they’re responsive I Would just rather stick with one and just promise them the listing. Hey assuming we move forward To work with them versus you know having kind of a wishy-washy response Yeah, we’re looking at this further. But you know
consulting another realtor behind their back and then, you know, if they’re really paying attention to the market, see you listing it later. With a competitor realtor of theirs, like it’s just, not, it’s not a good feeling or a way of doing business in my opinion, at least try not to burn bridges whenever possible, even potentially, or, you know, in a cutthroat industry like.
being a, a broker for, for real estate deals. so that’s just some of our initial approach there. And, you know, I have kind of a whole spiel on, know, just showing our know-how, like, again, I tried to get to the root of the matter very quickly. and part of the thing I like to clarify a lot is that even if the land investor who we’re working with has reached out to realtor already, got an opinion, had a call.
I like to dive in further and clarify or reiterate some of the, actual pricing, for the property as the most important part. I, you know, try to pound, pound deeply and deeply, deeply into the realtor. Some takes longer to understand how we operate than others. and some work, work with, you know, land flippers more routinely like, Hey,
you know, generally we’re trying to purchase at roughly 2X or, you know, we’re trying to purchase to where we can achieve roughly a 2X on our initial principle into the deal. And generally we’re trying to price for a 90 day or less exit. Obviously that’s impossible to predict in reality, but that’s what we try to price for understanding that it might take a bit longer. So,
you know, what is that price per acre or, you know, if it’s much smaller infill lots, like what is the pricing of a lot that, uh, we’ll get your phone ringing, you know, within a week of, of listing here, like really, really push the realtors to figure that out and understand exactly what your goals are with the property. And some will get it right away. Others, um, it may take a few.
iterations there. if you feel like you’re not fully connecting on that point, I would just keep going back to that. Like this particular realtor for these Tennessee lots I was speaking to earlier, we ended up, when I kept pushing those points, then the recommended price per acres that he was saying were pretty significantly different than what he had told the land investor who we were potentially partnering with.
And again, we’re trying not to get caught in bad deals. I’ve gotten caught in plenty of bad deals in the past and you can’t be afraid to just keep asking more and more details. And if things aren’t seeming where they should be, it’s not a bad idea to ultimately back out.
Or potentially consider a different realtor if you just feel like, they’re, not quite understanding what we’re looking for. And I’m not quite getting the best, the best fly. if they’re initially responsive right off the bat, like that, that’s usually the number one thing that I’m looking for. If they pick up my call first time. Cold, that that’s probably the best sign that I can look for on a realtor and we can clean up a lot of issues there later. but when it comes down to that pricing equation.
If I won’t be afraid to like call out that hesitancy or the lack of connection is like, well, you know, it seems like you’re, you’re a bit hesitant as far as where you think the, the valuations of these properties are. Like, again, we’re, we’re really trying to protect our investment here and, you know, trying to figure out, worst case downside scenario.
what is that price per acre that’s going to get your phone ringing? Like keep coming back to that and get them to give you a number. And I always say, hey, like if it’s not where we need to be based on our purchase price, and I’ll generally always share purchase price as well too. I like to be fully transparent with our realtors. Sometimes, you know, investors won’t send it over or think they might get circumvented on the deal. I’m less concerned with that.
Generally, I’ve never had an experience where a realtor has circumvented a deal out of the hundreds that we’ve ever reached out with. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but generally I like to be as transparent with the data and the numbers as I can with the realtor that we’re working with, as that’s usually going to be a better experience for us all. And we’re all operating on the same page. So I’ll tell them, hey, we’re buying here.
and I need to get this number on the deal. Is this achievable from a downside scenario? And just, again, keep pushing from that perspective until you can figure it out. And you can always say, hey, like we can always try to go renegotiate with the seller or hey, if this one, like there’s just not enough margin in the deal, some realtors will tell you, I wouldn’t want to recommend this one. Or you can just be more upfront saying, hey, like.
We’ve been in this game a long time. We operate nationally. you know, if this deal doesn’t work out, for, for this one, then, you know, any other time that, that we might get a deal in the area, we’d like to reach out to you and, and try to find something that, that works. So, you know, that still establishes more rapport and future relationship building, that can be useful, in,
uh, you know, future, uh, uh, future deals that, that you might be looking at. Um, and then lastly, I really tried to just, um, get them to give you a number for commission. So like, Hey, uh, yeah, I’m not sure if you discussed this, so it’s, you know, investor prior. Sometimes they have, so then I already have that info, but it was this new realtor. I’m like, okay, for, deals like this, what was the typical commission that you guys like?
Yeah, it’s always that negotiation tactic have the other party throughout the number there. I like to operate at that 6 to 8 % that’s standard across a lot of areas. Obviously NAR has changed things on the buy side. Yeah, some realtors in areas of the country will really look for that 10%. We’re okay paying 10 % if the realtor is like truly exceptional top 10 % player, know, top 10 % in terms of just.
you know, their ability to perform and drive leads. But I found that the ones charging 10 % usually aren’t deserving of that. And so if you can get it for less and protect more, more on the back end, that’s generally going to be effective. I know there’s a lot of varying opinions about that throughout the industry, but that is how.
we approach the deals and especially higher absolute value deals. I always am going to be trying to get lower commission rates since the total dollars that would go back to them are still going to be higher even if they were charging lower percentage commission rates for those higher value deals. But we will pause there for today. Again, if you’re looking for funding, Sirius Land dot capital.
Currently we’re locating over a million dollars worth of fundable deals per month. So growing rapidly here. We’d love to work with more of you. Lend Daily Diligence Facebook group. If you’re looking for zero cost due diligence on your land deals, landpricer.ai for the most simple and accurate way to price land. And then go ahead and Google Dave Dennison on conference for the August, 2025 conference in Minneapolis.
assuming you’re making at least six figures in your land business, apply there and assuming you get accepted, go ahead and use my last name, all lowercase Duff, D-U-F-F for $200 off your ticket. Again, that’s only the, or the only large land conference I’m going to this year. Hope to see you there. With that, enjoy the weekend, take care.
